One in ten Burnley students being taught outside the borough (From Lancashire Telegraph)

One in ten Burnley students being taught outside the borough

8:00am Wednesday 1st July 2009

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ONE in ten children leave Burnley every day to go to schools elsewhere, the Lancashire Telegraph can reveal.

More than 1,200 Burnley students are being sent outside of the borough for their education, according to statistics obtained by the Lancashire Telegraph.

The rate is well above the national and North West average and has led critics to claim the area is losing its best students.

They have also slammed the Govern-ment’s £250m Building Schools for the Future scheme, which has seen five new ‘super-schools’ built in Burnley and Padiham, two of which were placed in special measures.

However, the county’s new education chief said she was hopeful results would improve once all the new schools were finished in 2010, leading parents to send their children there.

According to official Lancashire County Council figures, 1,230 of Burnley’s 12,537 school-age pupils - or 9.8 per cent - leave the borough to go to school.

It has also been revealed that the number of children from the borough who attend schools in Blackburn with Darwen has increased by more than 50 per cent in just five years.

Many children from Burnley are sent to Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School, St Augustine's RC High School in Billington and Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Blackburn.

However, in Pendle, the number leaving the borough to attend schools elsewhere is only 7.4 per cent and in Rossendale it is just 2.3 per cent.

The average across England is 5.6 per cent and only 4.8 per cent in the North West region.

Burnley Council leader Gordon Birtwistle said the standard of some of Burnley’s schools meant better students were being lost to other boroughs, dragging exam results down.

And he added: “Pupils fleeing Burnley is a major concern and I have said this all along, since the Building Schools for the Future project started.

“We are trying hard as a borough council to bring industry into the town but the county council is failing in offering us fully qualified young people.

“The new superschool buildings look nice but it is not the buildings that teach young people.

“I need some convincing that the new completed schools will lure back some of the bright pupils.”

He said Burnley’s secondary schools had suffered from staff shortages, low morale and a “desperate” lack of leadership.

However, Coun Birtwistle’s comments were rubbished by Martin Burgess, head of Shuttleworth College in Padiham, one of the new superschools in special measures.

He said: “A significant number of the kids who live in the area but don’t go to school in Burnley are more affluent and more able students which means brain drain occurs.

“I can say that there is no low morale or staff problems at Shuttleworth, although there may have been reason to say that in the past.

“We are going from strength to strength and the new buildings have had an awesome effect on the children’s learning.”

County Coun Pat Case, Lancashire County Council’s new schools cabinet member, said she was hopeful parents’ faith in Burnley’s schools would be restored over the next few years, as the Building Schools for the Future programme is completed.

She added: “You cannot make an omelette without breaking a few eggs and I am confident the children will come back to those schools.”

Coun Peter Doyle, Conservative group leader on Burnley Council, added: “It is understandable that parents send their pupils outside Burnley for school but I hope once the new buildings are finished next year the children will stay within the borough.”

Earlier this year, Lancashire County Council figures revealed pupils at Burnley secondary schools were performing at up to 20 percentage points lower than the national average for Key Stage 4.

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