COUNCILLORS and council officers had to come up with some radical plans to sort out the problems of Blackburn's Queen's Park Technology College.

After years of worry the school officially went into special measures following a government inspection after producing one of the worst sets of GCSE results in the country.

The first move was to announce that the school would close and reopen in the same buildings next April but with a new name.

Meanwhile, jobs would be advertised and staff would have to re-apply to work in a place that would have "a new ethos and a new curriculum."

Today we hear that the top five jobs - effectively the management team - are on offer at salaries totalling £319,000. According to one of the main teaching unions, the head's wage of £85,000 is about £20,000 more than the national average and way above the pay of other school heads in the area.

The extra cash would have been better spent helping the existing staff in the classrooms, the union claims.

Plenty of people will watching to see if the council's chosen strategy works.

It's a gamble but exceptional people can make all the difference.

At Queen's Park they have to.