TEACHERS demoralised by a poor inspection report five years ago are now looking forward to leading the country in revolutionary new teaching methods.

Twenty five staff at Hesketh Fletcher High School, almost half the teachers, have won government research scholarships of £2,500 each -- bringing £67,500 into school to spend directly on the pupils.

And though work begins in earnest in the next school year they are busy laying the foundations now -- and Manchester Metropolitan University is so intrigued it will in turn study the teachers' research.

Introduced

The school's community enterprise manager, Patsy Hodson, who returned to teaching after a 15 year break in business, introduced the staff to the DfES Best Practice Research Scholarships.

She was astonished how many teachers were interested in applying, and now with so many awarded the school is tops in the country.

Just over two years ago the school emerged from Ofsted's serious weakness category with flying colours and was judged a rapidly improving school, but head teacher Dr Ted Walker knew that there was a long way to go.

He said: "The staff had been severly demoralised by the unsatisfactory inspection in 1998. We serve a deprived community, yet like many similar schools fail to attract funding.

"We knew what we wanted to do, but couldn't find the money to do it. Then we took a different approach, if we could not get the funds handed to us we would go out and earn them.

"We agreed to appoint a community enterprise manager and the deal was "earn your allowance or don't get paid". The result was an astonishing growth in community-based enterprises which exceeded all expectations.

'Recent successes include running local Sure Start projects -- and winning the 25 scholarships."