YOUNG, gifted and often bored in the classroom - that's the plight of many of the brightest pupils in state schools.

But now Blackpool education authority is at the forefront of change - resort education chiefs have drawn up draft guidelines to help teachers spot and stimulate their ablest pupils.

The move puts Blackpool ahead of many other education authorities who were this week criticised by the House of Commons select committee on education.

The committee - of which Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden is a member - said while much focus has been on under performers, Britain's brightest children may get a raw deal and listed 40 recommendations for schools to help the highly intelligent child reach his or her full potential.

They include having a co-ordinator with special responsibility for ensuring such pupils are challenged, linking with local colleges and industries and adapting lessons. They do not want to see them isolated from classmates of their own age.

Many of these are already included in Blackpool's draft guidelines which are being circulated to schools for comment before coming back to the education committee in June for ratification.

Two Blackpool high schools have recently been designated centres of excellence - Montgomery for languages and Greenlands for the performing arts - and Mr Marsden said: "These specialist schools have a particular role to play in being supportive of highly-able children across the borough. Such pupils could attend certain courses there even if they still go to other schools."

As for schools in Wyre and Fylde - covered by Lancashire County Council - education chairman Coun Hazel Harding said: "We recognise that gifted children have special needs and we try to address them."

The Council had no plans to introduce a specific strategy, she said, but she was confident individual schools did adapt to the needs of gifted children.

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