DESPITE the considerable GCSE improvements at two Bolton secondary schools, they ranked the lowest in the town for absenteeism.

The Deane School notched-up a 1.9 per cent figure for the proportion of half-days lost to due to unauthorised absence while Withins had the worst track record in Bolton with 3.8 per cent.

The national average was 1.1 per cent, but this was the first time absenteeism figures had been officially included in the league tables.

Head of Withins, Val Malcolm, was thrilled with their GCSE success and pleased that the number of absentees was continuing to drop at the school.

She said: "We've had a tremendous result and everyone has worked very hard.

"We are happy with the success, but want to improve further.

"People don't tend to look at the A-G grades, but over the past two years the number of our students gaining those has jumped from 62 to 83 per cent.

"When I joined three years the no passes rate was 22 per cent and that's now down to 7 per cent.

"Our absenteeism rate might be the lowest in Bolton, but we've been very truthful about it and we've made significant improvements."