PUPILS will need a special pass to get out of school during lessons or morning breaks as part of a pioneering project to target truants in East Lancashire.

Headteachers, police chiefs and education welfare officers in Blackburn with Darwen are getting together to boost the battle against classroom absenteeism.

Under the scheme, police officers on the beat will be able to return pupils to school if they cannot show their official passes. And council workers will tell shopkeepers the start and finish times at participating schools and give them a description of each school's uniform so that they can spot truants.

Meanwhile, parents are being asked to emphasise the importance of being at school every day.

A council spokesman said the scheme was similar to two pilot projects in Leicester and Nottingham, where they had had a significant impact on reducing unauthorised absences.

Vicki Devonport, headteacher at Queen's Park High School, Blackburn, which is one of four participating schools, said: "The underlying principle is that no pupil will leave the school without being issued with a pass.

"Any pupil who holds a pass verifies to the local community that they have been authorised to leave school." There have recently been a number of truancy sweeps in the Queen's Park area, where pupils have been picked up by the police and returned to school.

The other high schools involved in the scheme are Darwen Vale, Darwen Moorland and Our Lady and St John, Blackburn. They were chosen because they are within the Blackburn with Darwen Education Action Zone and not because they had the highest truancy rates.

Truancy patrols are now held every term in Blackburn with Darwen after the council said crackdowns in the towns were paying off. Last term, a total of 94 children were stopped over a three-day period, compared to nearly 200 during a sweep in July 2000.