SCHOOL REPORT: The school prides itself on having a small school ethos with large school facilities.

We aim to provide a centre of excellence to prepare individuals for life and work in the 21st century. We aim to encourage freedom of expression whilst developing self-discipline, tolerance and understanding towards others. Ofsted in 2000 reported that "good relations between pupils and adults have a positive effect on pupil achievements".

We have our own on-site sports and leisure complex that is extremely well used by the community along with our state-of-the-art ICT facilities and well-equipped performance arts theatre.

HISTORY LESSON: The first school building on this site appeared in 1959 and since then the school has continued to grow, having had extra classrooms, a sports hall, an ICT and learning resource centre, leisure facilities, a new technology block and the astro-pitch completed. The name Fearns refers to Fearns Hall -- a large country house which was first recorded in 1557. The original front door of the hall is still to be seen in the school's reception area.

NUMBER OF PUPILS: There are 980 pupils on the roll at present. We have pupils from approximately 20 feeder primary schools in the Rossendale area, although the majority are from the Bacup and Waterfoot townships.

STAR PUPILS: Our most famous recent past pupil is probably Jane Horrocks, the actress and now singer who has been back to school to present prizes on presentation evening, but we can also claim Paul Stephenson, the newly-appointed Chief Constable of Lancashire, as a past pupil.

SOMETHING TO BRAG ABOUT: The school is an "Investor in People" and has also achieved the 2002 School Achievement Award. GCSE results have grown so they are now four times the level of 1988. We now have three advanced skills teachers, two graduate trainee teachers and in any one year up to 20 student teachers working at the school. We were recently asked to appear on both Tonight with Trevor McDonald and Kilroy because of our innovative Healthy Bodies Scheme. Most of all, however, is the way our pupils are achieving highly in all they do, both in the classroom and in the extensive extra-curricular programme we run.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A £100,000 WINDFALL? We would like to explore becoming a specialist Sports College and the money could be used to support that bid. In particular, we would like to provide another large indoor facility to provide the community and the school with more winter training space in a number of sports.