ST MARY and St Joseph's RC Primary School in Bennington Street, Blackburn, is among the latest in East Lancashire to be designated a Beacon School.

One thousand schools in Great Britain have now been identified by the Government as the best performing in the country - but what does it take?

Beacon schools are deemed to represent examples of successful practice and are asked to bring this to the attention of other schools, imparting good ideas through dialogue, visits and training.

At St Mary and St Joseph's good practice was identified in:

Information technology

Accelerated learning techniques

Pupil welfare, motivation, target setting and tracking progress

Parent education

Teachers' planning and organisation

During its next three years of beacon status St Mary and St Joseph's will have three principal aims

To ensure that standards in the school remain high

To utilise the links with other schools to learn from them

To keep at the heart of all the activities the progress and welfare of the children at the school