A PRIMARY school blunder led to staff insisting a young girl began lessons when the new term started - even though she was only three years old.

Kelley Bramley had to be withdrawn from St Paul's CE Primary School after just three weeks when school staff noticed they had read her birth certificate incorrectly.

And now her mum, Lanya, has had to take a week off work while she tries to sort out an alternative place for her daughter at a nursery.

Mrs Bramley and her husband, Brian, of Elizabeth Street, Accrington, enrolled Kelley last November with a view to her starting school in September 2000.

But they got a letter back in March saying she was due to start in September 1999.

And after a double check with school staff, Kelley started the term three weeks ago.

But Mrs Bramley was suddenly summoned to the school last Thursday when headteacher Peter Linley had to admit his staff had made an error.

"It's a complete mess," said Mrs Bramley. "Something like this just shouldn't happen. "After I got a letter to say Kelley had been accepted I even rang the school to query it.

"But they told me to stop worrying about it because everything was okay.

"Then I suddenly got a phone call (three weeks after she started) and when I went down to the school they told me they'd made a mistake.

"How do you suddenly explain that to a three-year-old? She was upset because she'd really settled in."

Headteacher Peter Linley admitted staff at the school mistook Kelley's date of birth and read it as 4/1/95 instead of 4/11/95.

And the error has cost the school a child place as nine other children had to be rejected before term started because it had reached its full quota.

"We only realised our mistake when Kelley said in school she was having her fourth birthday soon," said Mr Linley.

"But this kind of thing has never happened before and it will not happen again. It's a bit embarassing all round, though, because it means we have lost a place."

Now Mrs Bramley must find a full-time place at a nursery.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.