A NEW building -- a new beginning. That's the unofficial school motto acting head Joan Hayselden is championing at Moorhead High School.

Mrs Hayselden is clear that a large contributory cause of this week's violence is the school's wide-open split-school site. "Security is a big problem. Along Queens Road West anyone can gain access to the school grounds -- and that's where the trouble starts."

She blames "trespassers." "We've had many instances where older teenagers -- some of them ex-pupils -- turn up at breaks and lunchtimes, often in cars. They come on to the field and they incite trouble. They agitate the pupils."

But in September Moorhead's £4million-plus new block will open, adjoining the old Cromwell Avenue building which will itself be refurbished. The unlamented Queens Road West building will go. "In September Moorhead will be on one site and we intend to be united in every way," she said.

Some people may fear an acting head may not have what it takes to assess the school's problems and put things right.

But the teacher who cut her teeth in places like Manchester's notorious Moss Side, Wythenshawe and Whalley Range and the school of hard knocks shows a steely determination to get the job done and insisted: "I know what I'm doing."

With the new building will come some of the increased security which she sees as a necessary physical healer. "We're planning towards September and our new building. It will give us a new beginning. Being on one site will be important in every way.

"For a start, children won't have a 10-minute walk across the playing fields between lessons. When we get the new building they won't have to go outside at all." And, of course, it keeps the youngsters away from poisoning outside influence.

The new development will boast new science labs, new technical workshops, an impressive sports hall, 10 new classrooms, a state-of-the-art music suite, a dance and drama room and new IT facilities.

Just as important -- there will be a huge new dining room. "We don't have a dining room. The pupils have to eat in the classrooms. Imagine having to cover that situation every day," she said.

Mrs Hayselden said she was delighted with the way many parents had responded to this week's disturbances. "I think the parents have been very supportive. Many of them have been in touch asking what they can do to help the situation and we have been taking their names. It's very encouraging. We will certainly be taking up their offers of help, but first we have to see the police investigation completed."

Before Monday's running battles Moorhead's Parent Teachers Association was in good shape, Mrs Hayselden said. "Now we're hoping to extend its work further. They are very positive," she added.

She said she felt the school already had good links with its Asian community. "I know the Asian community leaders and I've previously visited both mosques in the the area," added Mrs Hayselden, who is the former chair of Hyndburn's Community Forum.

The school was in regular dialogue with those community leaders, she added, and yesterday Mrs Hayselden was preparing for a meeting with them at the school.

She is happy too that that the school's paymasters at County Hall in Preston have offered Moorhead the extra help it needs in the shape of special advisors. But she will be looking to them for extra funding to tackle the vexed question of perimeter security.

Meanwhile, morale among the teaching staff was good, she said, despite the troubles the week has brought. "They are professionals. Monday was an incident in school but it has certainly not affected the teaching in school.

"I want to be very clear that the trouble involved mainly Year 11 -- the eldest pupils. The rest of the children were not involved. The school remained calm."

Mrs Hayselden has been acting head for six months -- she is normally the school's deputy head -- and has been at Moorhead for 10 years. She was given the temporary headship when school head Andrew Bateman became ill. He is still off sick.

She was previously acting head between September and December 2000 when then headteacher Allan Grey took early retirement. He was attacked by a pupil but denied the two were linked.

Mrs Hayselden doesn't want to talk about the two men in the hot seat before her -- she also believes she knows what caused the row between two pupils which sparked this week's trouble but refuses to discuss it because of the ongoing police investigation.

It's been a gruelling week for the Yorkshire-born acting head of six months-- "but most of the time I enjoy the job," she was quick to point out.

The mother of three grown-up children -- one of whom teaches at Park High in Colne -- likes to relax back at her home in the Ribble Valley with her husband and she likes to work off the undoubted stresses of the job in the gym after long working days.

She can look back on nearly 30 years in teaching, and is in the perfect position to place a perspective on the behaviour of today's teenage pupils. "In the past few years children's behaviour has undoubtedly deteriorated. But the roots of that are in society, not in school."