OFSTED inspectors gave top marks to Holy Trinity Primary School which they described as a "happy school".

And a report added there had been "very good" improvements made since the last inspection.

Inspector Mr D. Byrne said: "This is a good school that is rapidly improving. It has an excellent ethos that develops pupils' self-confidence and promotes very good attitudes to learning and excellent relationships between everyone, regardless of their cultural or ethnic backgrounds.

"The quality of teaching and learning is good across the school and excellent teamwork between teachers and teaching assistants provides very high levels of care and commitment to the pupils.

"The school is very well managed and the leadership by the head teacher is excellent, providing a very clear educational direction that is successfully improving the school to meet the challenging needs of the pupils."

With a large percentage of its pupils of local Asian Pakistani origin, Holy Trinity was highly commended for the success it is achieving even though many of the children have a poor grasp of English when they first join the school.

Mr Byrne added: "All National Curriculum test results need to be treated with caution because of big fluctuations between the numbers in each year group and the barrier to learning presented by the very high percentage of pupils for whom English is not the mother tongue.

"The pupils' understanding is often at a higher level than their written work demonstrates. Over the past five years, attainment at the end of Key Stage 2 has risen rapidly in mathematics, improved steadily overall in science, but slowly declined in English.

"A raft of measures have recently been introduced that have resulted in much better teaching, improvements to the curriculum and more focused support for pupils with English as an additional language and special educational needs."

Mr Byrne continued: "This is a school of smiles where humour and fun are a regular feature of many teachers' work.

There was also praise for Holy Trinity School in a separate report which was carried out by another independent inspector, the Rev Maureen Read.