YOUR article 'Special schools get nil out of 118' (LET, December 3) was both inaccurate and damaging. It quoted the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education as the statistical source of information, but, clearly, someone has got their facts wrong.

The Department for Education and Employment's own statistics clearly show that Bank Hey School has submitted pupils for GCSE examinations over the last four years.

We may not reach the high level of passes which mainstream schools do, but we do compare very favourably for students achieving one or more GCSE passes, grades A-G. This year we gained 25 passes at GCSE.

This represents enormous hard work by staff and is somewhat of a miracle for students rejected from mainstream schools. It is easy to write a critical article about the most vulnerable sector of education, but here at Bank Hey, we work hard to offer a first class service to pupils and parents.

We have recently been inspected by OFSTED and indications are that our report will be very favourable. We have also recently been awarded the Quality Standards Kitemark for our careers service, which few mainstream schools have.

T P FEELEY, Headteacher, Bank Hey School, Heys Lane, Blackburn.

FOOTNOTE: As I remarked yesterday (Letters, December 13) in response to similar complaints by the head of Primrose Hill School, Burnley, the observations in our report were those of the Centre for studies on Inclusive Education and not our own - Editor.

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