AN East Lancashire school has been named one of the top 10 in the North West.

Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School was rated eighth in the region according to The Sunday Times, which published its Parent Power list this weekend.

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The Waterfoot Road school was ranked 77th nationally this year compared to 155th in 2015.

The guide contains the top 2,000 state and independent schools which are ranked by their latest academic results.

Parents will be able to use the guide to search schools and see how they rank regionally and nationally.

Parent Power, which is now in its 24th year of publication, is widely acknowledged as the most authoritative survey of the country’s best schools, the paper has said.

The rankings in the secondary school league tables are determined by the percentage of examination entries gaining A* to B grades at A-level this summer and the percentage of entries returning A* and A grades at GCSE.

The top independent school in the North West was Withington Girls’ School in Manchester, while the top state school was Altrincham Grammar School for Girls.

More than 72 per cent of pupils at the school achieved A* to B at A level while 66.8 per cent gained A* or A at GCSE this year.

Headteacher Alan Porteous said: “We are absolutely delighted at the performance of our students at both A-level and GCSE level in 2016.

“Credit for these results goes first to our students for their hard work and effort, and secondly to our dedicated team of teaching staff, who have provided the outstanding teaching and support that has enabled our students to achieve so highly.

“Our results at A-level were our best ever by a significant margin - seven per cent higher than our previous best.

“For a non-selective sixth form like BRGS this is a fantastic achievement.”

The school traces its history back to Newchurch Grammar School which was founded in 1703 while BRGS was formed on the current site in 1913.