THE pupils who have had seven different maths teachers since Christmas could get after-school lessons to help them pass their GCSEs.

Michael Humphreys, head teacher at Our Lady and St John School, Blackburn, has has vowed that he will not let staffing problems harm children's education.

He said the year 11 pupils' maths teacher left at Christmas and a supply teacher was drafted in for a week before another was brought in who had taught at the school before. While that teacher was off with a hospital appointment for a week, a further four were called upon to teach.

Mr Humphreys said all teaching vacancies had now been filled.

Some parents fear that the disruption could cause children to fail their GCSEs in the summer and miss out on college places.

Mr Humphreys, whose school was held up by the government as a beacon of excellence, said: "Nationally there has been a problem with recruitment and we are not exception. We have had three vacancies to fill which were all covered with short term contract teachers. We have a teacher starting in April, another in September and we will be advertising for the third after half-term. We can assure parents that we are looking at extra classes in the evenings and will do everything we can to make sure GCSE students are not disadvantaged." Earlier this year it was revealed that Blackburn with Darwen Council was the worst authority in the North West for recruiting teachers and was the only authority in the region to receive cash from the Government to help fill its empty posts.

It was given £270,000 for the next year, which can be used to supplement wages of teachers it wants to keep, subsidise housing or childcare costs, or hire new staff. It's the second year running it has received a payment.

New education boss Peter Morgan said the council was developing a strategy to reverse that trend.

Michael Humphreys said he could not say exactly why there were so many vacancies in the teaching profession but, at a school speech night in November, he slammed the government for forcing schools to contain seriously disruptive pupils calling it a "recipe for disaster," and saying: "This deterioration in behaviour certainly has made a significant contribution to the current recruitment problem... it has proved almost impossible to recruit."

Today he said he stood by those comments but said he would not be drawn further.

At a school speech night in November Mr Humphreys slammed the government for forcing schools to contain seriously disruptive pupils calling it a "recipe for disaster."

He said: "This deterioration in behaviour certainly has made a significant contribution to the current recruitment problem. Short lists of one are a regular occurrence and it has proved almost impossible to recruit."

Simon Jones, the National Union of Teachers' executive member covering Lancashire, said recruitment was a huge concern.

He said: "A study at Liverpool University recently showed that the two main reasons for staff leaving secondary schools were pupil behaviour followed by the workload."

Peter Morgan, director designate of education and lifelong learning for Blackburn with Darwen, said: "Teacher recruitment and retention is a national problem. Locally in Blackburn with Darwen the situation is similar to the national picture, although Unlike authorities in the South of England we have never had to send any children home from school due of the lack to qualified teaching staff. We have secured funding from the Government to tackle recruitment issues and we are developing a strategy to raise awareness more widely about how attractive a place Blackburn with Darwen is for teachers.

"The recent issue where there were a number of stand-in teachers was due to a regular teacher receiving medical treatment and being absent for a number of days."

A spokesman for Lancashire County Council said as far as it was aware all of its 9,700 teaching posts were filled by either by either permanent, temporary or substitute teachers.