A CLASS act by a village school made it one of the country's top performing primaries in Government league tables published today.

Blacko School had just 12 pupils taking part in National Curriculum exams for 11-year-olds.

And they came through in style, recording the sixth best results for primary schools throughout Lancashire and making the top 100 in England.

The diligent dozen were the top perfoming class in Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale, scoring 100 per cent marks in the English, maths and science subjects under the spotlight.

"Did Do Better" was the encouraging outcome to the tests throughout the area as more than half local schools beat the national and Lancashire-wide average in this year's exams.

And many more improved on past results in the controversial annual league based on pupils' overall performances.

There was another sparkling result from Stubbins County Primary in Rossendale, 17th out of 489 schools in the Lancashire Education Authority area.

There, 100 per cent of 11-year-olds achieved the standard expected of pupils of their age, 94 per cent in English and 97 per cent in science tests.

Colne's Laneshawbridge was placed 38th place in Lancashire and produced a 100 per cent result in science.

Holy Trinity, Burnley, was 49th in the county - and was one of only four out of more than 90 local schools in the top 50 places. St Thomas' Primary, Barrowford, missed out by just one place.

Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale had 14 of its primaries in the top 100 schools in Lancashire - although another 13 were in the bottom 90 places. But overall, 54 of the 93 local primaries beat both the Lancashire and England average of attainment.

The schools are given a ranking by adding together their percentage success in each of the examination subjects.

Special primary schools, those with infants classes only and any with fewer than ten children sitting the exams were not included in the list - ruling out about 50 schools in Lancashire.

The results were applauded by Lancashire county's education committee chairman Hazel Harding who said the county results had seen substantial improvements over the year and had maintained Lancashire's lead over the average for England as a whole.

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