THREE primary schools are the first in the borough to receive the Government-backed Basic Skills Quality Mark.

The successful schools are Heaton Park CP in Whitefield, Sedgley Park CP in Prestwich, and Fishpool Infants in Bury.

Staff and pupils were given certificates by the deputy director of the Basic Skills Agency, Annabel Hemstedt.

Each school achieved all ten criteria needed to gain accreditation. Other schools in the borough hope to follow suit.

The aim of the mark is to encourage schools to work towards raising the basic skills of both young people and adults, and maintain high quality and consistent standards. Councillor Steve Perkins, executive member for Lifelong Learning in the borough, said: "We are really pleased that the deputy director of the Basic Skills Agency came to make this presentation to the schools personally.

"That underlines their achievement and the hard work that they have put in. We are extremely proud of what they have managed in such a short space of time.

"With other schools working towards the Quality Mark, there is no doubt that our borough's already strong position educationally will be further enhanced."

In order to achieve the award the schools had to show that they had:

produced a strategy and action plan to improve children's reading, writing and number work;

assessed children to find out if they needed extra help;

set a target for improving basic skills in the school;

made sure that children have plans to improve reading, writing and number work;

reviewed the progress made by all children;

provided training for staff so that they can teach better;

used different ways of teaching based on what each child needs;

good books and other material to help children improve;

encouraged parents to help their children with reading, writing and number work;

monitored whether the school is becoming better at teaching basic skills.