A PUBLIC consultation into whether Pleckgate High School in Blackburn should become an academy finished yesterday.

The decision to seek the change was announced after the school came out of special measures for the first time since last February.

The proposal for the Pleckgate Road school, which has almost 1,200 pupils, to sever ties with the local education authority has received support from Nicky Morgan, the secretary of state for education.

It would be sponsored by the Blackburn-based Education Partnership Trust, which already has The Heights Free School and Eden School in the town.

The school was placed in special measures in February 2014 after being rated as ‘inadequate’.

This happened only two years after it had been considered a ‘good’ school by the inspectors.