PHYSICAL education plays a major role within the school and the popularity of the subject can be seen through the number of exam entries at GCSE level and the amount of commitment that is made towards extra curricular activities.

The aim of the department is to encourage full participation and maximum enjoyment at the same time being able to give each individual pupil a series of diverse opportunities to perform both in a competitive and social context.

Regular after school features include badminton, skiing, golf, mountain biking and volleyball clubs while inter form and interschool competitions play a major role.

A regular player in the Pendle district interschool competition, we continue to perform to a high standard and with a competitive edge.

The department has held a successful winter programme and is looking forward to the summer activities with confidence.

In December the annual Pendle interschool cross country event took place with individual success for Matthew Ross in the senior boys race. And the profile of cross country and athletics within the school has reached a new level, undoubtedly due to the continued success of former pupil Lee McCash, who is going to be a real name for the future.

The excellent performance by Matthew was supported by the following pupils who were all selected to represent the district team: Robert Brown, Michael Pilling, Ben Whitehead, Irfan Khan, Andrew Gilmour and Jackie Hodgson.

Once again the school continues to excel in badminton with a variety of success stories in the interschool's events with Holly Thompson and Melissa Rogan winning the under 14s doubles event, Matthew Keeble and Liam Garbutt won the boys doubles while Melissa and Matthew Nutter won the mixed doubles final, an event in which the school had all four semi-final pairs.

On the football field the teams have competed in both local and county competitions with Andrew Carson, Lee Hall, Matthew Ross, Ben Harrison, John Pepper and James Robinson all going on to play for their district sides.

Perhaps the most impressive record within the department is the continued unbeaten run of the year nine netball team, previously having won all their games in year seven and year eight. This target is well within the reach of the present unbeaten year seven team.

These excellent performances have been supported by further success in basketball, both senior and junior, cricket (all years) and hockey (all years), rugby league which saw the school win the under 16s interschool tournament, and rounders.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.