ACTING head teacher Joan Hayselden was today urged by government officials to clamp down hard on the troublemakers blighting Moorhead High School.

The move came as the Department of Education and Skills revealed the Accrington school was receiving an extra £140,000 in a bid to improve standards.

And detectives investigating the playground clashes at the Queens Road West site on Monday said today that arrests were "inevitable".

Education Secretary Estelle Morris announced the launch of tough new measures designed to combat school bullies and pupils who carry weapons the day after trouble erupted at the school.

And today a spokeswoman for the Department of Education and Skills said: "We are concerned.

"The Department for Education and Skills is clear that cases involving violence at school are to be dealt with rigorously.

"Violence is not acceptable, and a headteacher can exclude immediately in such circumstances. We would not expect an Independent Appeal Panel to reinstate a pupil excluded for such behaviour."

The government has admitted Moorhead is a school facing "challenging circumstances."

Its GCSE results are below the minimum targets -- and it receives additional targeted school improvement grant in order to raise standards at Key Stage 4.

The school receives £70,000 in the current financial year and will receive a further £70,000 in 2002-2003.

Police are in the early stages of a criminal investigation into the fighting at the school between pupils, prompted by a dispute between two pupils and believed to involve a 20-strong gang armed with chains and pieces of wood.

Detectives are currently interviewing pupils who witnessed the incident which left several youngsters injured and resulted in 16 pupils being suspended.

Police, who are patrolling the school to prevent any more trouble, treat all incidents involving whites and Asians as potentially racist following the report into the death of black London teenager Stephen Lawrence.

But officers are unable to say at this stage whether the incident was a racist one. Det Sgt Jim Elston, of Accrington CID, who is in charge of the investigation said: "We are in the early stages of the investigation and are talking to witnesses who were not involved in the fighting but who may have seen or heard it to try to establish who was involved.

"We are aware that there have been isolated incidents at the school prior to this disturbance, but it is too early at this stage to say exactly what the cause of this unacceptable trouble was.

"Arrests are inevitable and once they are made we will be able to establish more fully what has happened at the school."

The school has to draw up a Raising Attainment Plan, agreed with the Local Education Authority which sets out what actions it will take to raise standards and how the funding will be used to make sustainable improvements.

The education spokeswoman said: "If discipline and behaviour are major problems at the school, then putting this right is a first step to raising standards and should be part of the schools planned improvement strategies.

"Draft guidance will be issued next week on widening and strengthening this further by making clear that a pupil can be permanently excluded for a first offence for carrying an offensive weapon and, again, we would not expect an independent appeal panel to reinstate the pupil.

"This change will strengthen the headteacher's hand in maintaining discipline in his/her school."

Police were today set to scale down their presence at the school in Queens Road West following a peaceful day at the school.

Inspector Phil Cottam said: "We are reviewing the situation each day but we are aiming to reduce the police presence from today and hopefully by the end of the week there will be no need for us to be there at all, providing there are no further incidents.

"As for the long term, we will be talking to the school and the education authority once we have completed our investigations into this specific incident."