A BURNLEY school has been recognised by a national education charity following ‘excellent’ GCSE results.

Sir John Thursby has been celebrated by The Future Leaders Trust, which works with hundreds of schools throughout the country, as its number one secondary school.

Headteacher David Burton said Future Leaders, a development programme for school leaders, helped enable the team of students, staff and families at the school with their success.

Many schools saw a downturn in GCSE results this year but Sir John Thursby bucked the trend by increasing results by 16 per cent with 54 per cent 5A*-C, in two years.

Mr Burton said he expected the success to continue because of the ‘hard work and dedication of the entire team’.

He said: “Future Leaders provided me with excellent training and I am delighted to support assistant headteacher, Fazeel Rashid, in following the programme.

“Our dedicated staff want to continue to help all of our students to achieve even higher grades and we are pleased that our excellent students and the community also want to make sure that every child enjoys success.

“I am privileged to be a Future Leader and I am delighted that Sir John Thursby has been recognised as one of their top schools for GCSE results.

“I became a Future Leader because I believe in their mission to ensure every child achieves the very best results and develops into a great citizen.”

The Future Leaders Trust is a national charity trying to help every child reach their full potential.

It aims to do this by developing outstanding leaders for challenging schools.

All Future Leaders are selected through an application process and receive training to help improve schools.

As a result of the scheme’s success, the Government has launched a new programme, Talented Leaders, also run by The Future Leaders Trust.