PUPILS at four East Lancashire secondary schools are preparing to take part in a pioneering UK pilot project to develop drugs education.

As the Lancashire Evening Telegraph revealed in January, the schools have been selected to participate in the biggest ever evaluation of drug education in the country run by the Home Office.

It aims to find out what really works in terms of drugs education for 11 to 13-year-olds and could be rolled out nationwide

Now teachers and pupils at Alder Grange High School in Rawtenstall, Walton High School, Nelson and Mount Carmel RC High School in Accrington are working to accommodate the new lessons.

And teachers are preparing to be trained through the Blueprint Research Programme to provide a new skills based approach with specially designed lessons and group discussions over two years.

The initiative will differ from previous drugs education packages in that classes at the 24 schools taking part nationally will be taught in exactly the same way with ten lessons for Year Seven pupils and an additional five classes in Year Eight.

A group of six comparison schools nationally -- one of which is St Augustine's RC High School in Billington -- will continue with their traditional drugs education programmes to allow the new scheme to be objectively evaluated.

A research team will then track the young people who have taken part in the Blueprint programme over the coming years to establish changes in knowledge, the credibility and usefulness of what they have learned in relation to their needs and to assess the potential impact on actual drug use.

The announcement comes days after the Department for Education published guidelines to combat escalating drug abuse among pupils.