EDUCATION bosses have proved that Lancashire schoolchildren are some of the best behaved in the country after contesting government figures.

The Department for Education have now performed a U-turn on figures it released which stated that there were inadequate levels of pupil behaviour in some of the county’s schools.

Lancashire County Council successfully showed that education watchdogs Ofsted had not rated a single primary and secondary as inadequate for pupil behaviour – and that Ofsted inspectors had in fact been impressed with the courtesy, consideration for others and respect shown by pupils.

The Department for Education had initially published statistics which stated that the county had schools where some children had inadequate levels of behaviour.

But in fact they found 215 primary schools in the county were outstanding, 247 good, 20 satisfactory and zero inadequate.

Ofsted considered 20 secondary schools were outstanding, 45 good, 13 satisfactory and inspectors had no judgement on behaviour for two schools but were not deemed inadequate.

Lancashire County Councillor Susie Charles, cabinet member for Children and Schools, said: “At first we were shocked because the statistics seemed to show Lancashire near the bottom of the regional table for behaviour – and we knew that simply wasn’t true.

“We pride ourselves on the high standards of behaviour, and this is something that is brought home to me again and again when I visit schools all over the county and am given the warmest of welcomes by pupils.

“We challenged the Department for Education on their figures and to be fair, they have admitted their mistake and removed the report from their website immediately.”

A spokesperson from the Department for Education said: “In the behaviour statistics released last month, there was an error in the 2010 local authority-level figures for primary schools, including Lancashire’s.

“No primary school in Lancashire is rated inadequate for behaviour by Ofsted as at December 2010, while 96 per cent of primary schools in the county were rated good or outstanding.”