STAFF and pupils at a small village school are celebrating this week after a team of government inspectors gave them a glowing report.

Belthorn Primary School, Belthorn, is described in its latest Ofsted report as a very good school with few weaknesses.

Inspectors who spent more than four days observing lessons and hearing from pupils and staff found it was well led and offered very good value for money.

They highlighted the standard of teaching as good found the results of children taking National Curriculum tests at key stages one and two to be very high compared with the national average and well above average in the core subjects of English, maths and science.

The 131 children at the school, which was grant maintained but returned to local education authority control this month, were praised for their good behaviour while staff were said to work well together too.

The ethos of the school was found to be excellent with a good atmosphere and commitment to sustain high standards and continue improvement.

The report goes on: "The school has made very good progress in addressing the issues raised by the last inspection. There is now a very good quality curriculum and very good assessment procedures that are used very well. "It has a very good capacity for further improvement and to sustain high standards."

The school, which caters for children from Belthorn and Guide as well as outlying areas like Pickup Bank, Hoddlesden and various farms, also takes children from a travelling community three miles away. But erratic attendance by some of those children led inspectors to report a below average rate, though the majority of pupils have an attendance score well above average.

Headteacher Mike Rothwell welcomed the report and highlighted the fact the school had no key issues to address. And in a letter to parents he went on: "The report is very encouraging and rightly reflects the hard work of pupils, parents, all staff and the governing body.

"There are no key issues to address, which is unusual, and ours was the first school inspected by this team which did not have any."

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