Schools celebrated excellent GCSE results last week which demonstrated the consistently high level of education in Chorley.

Bishop Rawstorne CE International Language College in Croston saw 82 per cent of their children gain five A* to C grades, with 80 per cent of pupils securing high grade passes in the core subjects of maths, English and science.

St Michael's CE High School saw 70 per cent of pupils gaining five A* to C grades. Head teacher Liz Nicholls said: "All the staff are delighted that the children have got the results that their hard work deserves.

"We had several high achieving children with one young lady gaining nine A*s and others getting seven or eight."

At Albany Science College headteacher Don Higgs said: "We have gained some very good individual results which show the schools is on track. We also had a class of year nine pupils who took their maths exam two years early, with every one of them passing."

At Parklands, headteacher Jean McGrath was celebrating the school's best results ever.

"We had 35 per cent of the year achieved high grades in 10,11 and 12 subjects and 69 per cent getting a least five," she said.

At Southlands High School, some successful maths students took part in an experiment shown on the BBC.

It was designed to illustrate that standards in maths have been maintained over the last 20 years.

Acting head Brian Souter said: "Four of our pupils sat the maths 'O' level exam from 1985. The papers were then assessed by an examiner from that period who was pleasantly surprised by the results. They would probably have achieved A or B grades."