FELLOW headteachers today offered their support to the staff battling to restore Moorhead High School's good name.

Nineteen pupils have been suspended after a number were injured during running battles at the school in Queens Road West on Monday.

Police have said arrests were inevitable but acting head Joan Hayselden has pledged to get the school back on its feet It is due to move on to one site later this year, .

Today Barry Burke, of Rhyddings High School, Haworth Lane, Oswaldtwistle, said: "I am aware there is a problem and understand it it is not caused generally by anything in the school but by problems brought in from outside.

"I am not shocked as I realise that this happens. And I don't see this as a Moorhead problem. I think it is a general problem we have in the area.

"Schools are about trying to educate young people to behave in a sensible way but on occasions they don't get the message through and there are groups of people who don't have the maturity needed to deal with things in a sensible way. This could have happened in any school."

Staff at Moorhead's neighbouring school St Christopher's CE High School quelled fears that pupils there may become caught up in trouble and stressed that there were no problems between the two schools.

Alasdair Coates, headteacher of the Queens Road West school, said: "We work closely with staff at Moorhead to ensure that both schools work in an orderly, co-operative and neighbourly fashion during school time and out of school time.

"I have worked in areas where schools close to each other have unhappy relationships but I am pleased to say that those between our staff and pupils are more friendly than in any other area I have worked.

" I have no personal knowledge of what has been going on in the last few days but stories go around all the time in a local community and are never diminished in the telling."

Headteacher Denise Parkinson from Norden High School, Stourton Street, Rishton, and Frank Havard, of The Hollins Technology College, Hollins Lane, Accrington, both said they were surprised by events and agreed that they would offer their support to Moorhead if it was required.

Mr Havard said: "It is with great regret that we heard of this very stressful situation.

"But schools in Hyndburn back one another and, if the acting head needs support now, she knows she can call on the other headteachers to provide that support."

Katrina Ryan of Mount Carmel RC High School, Wordsworth Road, Accrington, said: "I am very sympathetic with Moorhead as they have done their level best to quell disturbances and eradicate racial tensions but it is difficult to control when there are outside influences."