ACCRINGTON'S St Christopher's High School is top of the class for the second year running after leading the latest league tables.
The tables, released this week by the Department for Education and Skills, show that up to 85 per cent of pupils at the school on Queens Road West achieved the expected level five or above in Key Stage 3 tests.
Students take the tests in English, mathematics and science at the age of 14, when they have been at secondary school for three years, and they can indicate how they will fare in their GCSEs or vocational courses.
The Key Stage 3 tables were published separately from the GCSE results for the first time last year and there have been some changes for Hyndburn's schools this year, with the average for most of the schools being slightly down on last year's scores.
Moorhead High School in Accrington has fallen one place to bottom of the table while Rishton's Norden High School has moved up from fourth position to second.
Norden headteacher Denise Parkinson said: "I just put it down to the hard work of staff and pupils.
"I am very pleased to see that Norden High School and Sports College is an improving school."
Headteacher of Moor-head High School, Mr Andrew Bateman, put the drop down to the fact that the value-added measure column only relates to 85 per cent of his pupils.
He said: "The figures are significantly lower than last year but we expected that.
"The value-added measure only relates to 85 per cent of our children because we have had so many changes of population and so many children moving in and out of the area."
Mr Bateman added: "With any tables like this, they have got to be interpreted by professionals because there are all sorts of issues that affect the students and raw data on its own has to be interpreted carefully."
Alan Whittaker, Lancashire County Council's Cabinet member for education, said: "Year after year Lancashire's secondary schools continue to achieve high standards in Key Stage 3 results."
He added: "We have great pupils who are dedicated to learning and doing well academically. These results are down to the quality of schools in the county and the teachers who work hard for their pupils to do well."
