Former schools

Accrington Grammar School had around 500 boys and 100 in the sixth form in the 1970s. Accrington High School for Girls had around 600 girls. Accrington Moorhead High School was on Cromwell Avenue off Queens Road West.^[2] The school was founded in 1895 on Blackburn Rd, Accrington as a 'Technical School' In 1968, it moved to the Moorhead site. In 1975, following the Labour government's educational reforms, it ceased to exist.

In 2008, Nosheen Iqbal wrote in The Guardian that Moorhead High School had been "failing".^[3] Her article described a "startling transformation" from 17% of children achieving 5 GCSEs at grades A*-C, to 78% of children doing so in the new school.^[3] The school's headteacher believed that the change had been brought about through the Creative Partnerships approach, an Arts Council England programme.^[3]

Accrington Moorhead Sports College

Dominic Brunt, actor, known for his part in Emmerdale as Paddy Kirk.

Accrington Grammar School

• Sir Kenneth Barnes CB, Permanent Secretary from 1976 to 1982 of the Department of Employment^{[citation needed]}
• Jim Bowen, comedian, and former host of Bullseye
• Oliver Bulleid CBE, Chief Mechanical Engineer from 1937 to 1948 of the Southern Railway^{[citation needed]}
• Harold Davenport FRS, mathematician^{[citation needed]}
• Sir James Drake CBE, civil engineer, designed the UK's first motorway^{[citation needed]}
• Graeme Fowler, cricketer^{[citation needed]}
• Harry Hill, cyclist who competed in the Olympic Games in 1936^{[citation needed]}
• Ron Hill, marathon runner in the 1964 Tokyo and 1972 Munich Olympics, and won the gold at the 1970 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games^{[citation needed]}
• Prof Leslie Howarth OBE, mathematician^[4]
• Prof John Lamb CBE, James Watt Professor of Electrical Engineering from 1961 to 1991 at the University of Glasgow, President from 1970 to 1972 of the British Society of Rheology^[5]
• Bryan Langton CBE, chairman and chief executive from 1990 to 1996 of Holiday Inn^{[citation needed]}
• Rev Fred Lord, editor from 1941 to 1956 of The Baptist Times^{[citation needed]}
• James Prescott CBE, FRS, agricultural scientist^{[citation needed]}
• Edward Slinger, cricketer, solicitor and judge
• Sir John Tomlinson CBE, opera singer^{[citation needed]}
• Prof John Wallwork CBE FRCS FMedSci, cardiothoracic surgeon and emeritus professor who performed Europe's first successful combined heart-lung transplant in 1984^{[citation needed]}
• Graham Walne, theatre consultant, lighting designer, author, and lecturer^{[citation needed]}
• Harry Yeadon, civil engineer, worked with James Drake on the UK's first motorway^{[citation needed]}

Accrington High School for Girls

• Julie Hesmondhalgh, actor^{[citation needed]}
• Gwen Mayor, primary school teacher who was killed in the Dunblane massacre^{[citation needed]}
• Val Robinson OBE, played hockey for Great Britain^{[citation needed]}
• Hazel Townson, children's author^{[citation needed]}
• Jeanette Winterson, CBE, author^{[citation needed]}