PRIVILEGED children in parts of East Lancashire could be cruising to good qualifications because of a reliance on coursework, a union boss warned today.

Middle class children in places like the Ribble Valley have access to better resources and are using it to their advantage to scoop top grades, it was claimed.

Blackburn with Darwen secretary for the National Union of Teachers Simon Jones today warned that the course content of AS Levels needed a "radical re-think".

He said the trend showed that privileged children held a trump card over poorer "pockets" in Blackburn and Burnley. The latest poll of union members also revealed that coursework is vulnerable to internet-aided cheating.

Well-motivated girls with supportive parents were most likely to benefit from coursework, while working class boys got the least advantages, he said.

Mr Jones, who is also an executive member of the union, said: "Whilst still valued by teachers, coursework has lost its shine.

"Too often, instead of encouraging pupils to take risks in their work it is in danger of becoming a bureaucratically part of the examination process.

"The mixture of good practice templates on the Web, combined with enormous pressures to enhance schools' positions in league tables is draining the creative value of coursework.

"The youngsters in areas known to be wealthier like the Ribble Valley have an advantage over poorer pockets, where parents might not have the resources or the money to help their children as much. Children with easier access and better knowledge of the Internet also have a distinct advantage." Union members showed least support for coursework at AS-Level, with 61 per cent of teachers in favour.

Support rose to 64 per cent in the case of A-Levels, while 73 per cent of NUT members supported coursework being part of GCSEs.

But it was felt to be most appropriate for practical subjects, such as design and technology and least helpful in the case of maths and foreign languages. Supporters said coursework helped pupils learn independent study skills they would need later, for example at university.

But it is feared that teachers are finding it increasingly difficult to tell if a piece of work is the student's own, or if it has been merely downloaded from the internet.