STUDENTS at a second East Lancashire high school have had their GCSE exam marks upgraded after an appeal by the school.

The news of grade changes at Park High School in Colne has come after examination board officials promised an inquiry into why 54 GCSE results at Habergham High, Burnley, were wrong.

Pupils had their English and English Literature results upgraded after they were re-checked by the Manchester-based Northern Examination and Assessment Board.

A spokesman for the NEAB said: "We are investigating the reasons behind the inconsistencies in these exam results.

"We can only apologise to the school and say there was obviously some inconsistency in the way the papers were marked by the examiner."

Now it has been revealed that Geography students who took their exams at Park High, Colne, in the summer have had their grades lifted from either B to A or A to A* after the school queried their low marks. Head Alan Chambers said about half a dozen pupils were successful in their appeal to the North Examination and Assessment Board while others did not get their marks lifted. A number of music pupils also appealed, but their marks stayed the same.

Mr Chambers said: "Geography teacher Robert Proctor sets very high standards and seems to have a knack of predicting exam results. He was not expecting the results to be as good as last year, but he was disappointed at what he got in terms of A*s and several grade Bs, which should have been As.

"We felt it was worth getting some of them re-marked and one or two parents also wanted to pay the £15 for the re-marking."

Mr Chambers said the school normally queried a handful of results each year, but it was unusual to have upgrades in just one subject.

An NEAB spokesman said the overall number of successful appeals against grades accounted for only about one per cent of the papers marked.

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