MORE of Pendle's school pupils are excluded or suspended than in any other area of Lancashire, with Burnley coming a close second, education authority figures show.

More than one in six secondary school children in Pendle were given "fixed-term" exclusions from school last year, and one in seven were sent home in Burnley.

Just over one in every 200 children in both areas were permanently kicked out of classes.

At primary schools, only two out of more than 15,000 children across Burnley and Pendle were permanently excluded, but Pendle showed the highest proportion of children suspended, with almost 16 in every 1,000 pupils sent home at some stage.

Only Preston shows similar statistics to Burnley and Pendle. In Fylde, the lowest area, only just over one in 20 children were temporarily excluded last year, with two out of 1,000 permanently removed.

The figures were discussed at Lancashire Local - Pendle meet-ing at Brierfield Community Centre and the county council's officer for children and young people, Neil Scanlan, said the figures could be linked to deprivation levels, with Pendle and Burnley also the poorest boroughs in the county.

He said: "The picture of exclusions is not a good one, but the numbers have been going down over the last three years, showing that inclusion has started to happen, but slowly"

Councillor David Whipp called the statistics "worrying", even taking into account the deprivation.

Roughlee Primary School was named as the worst offender with an 8.3 per cent truancy rate.