LITTLE Dewchurch Church of England Primary School, in Herefordshire, was celebrating this week after being named top primary school in England, based on the results of this year’s standard achievement tests (SATs).

The 100-pupil primary — which last year came second in the table — this year swapped places with an inner-London community school, Fox Primary, in Kensington.

Little Dewchurch is part of a collaboration of three C of E primaries near Hereford, led by the executive head teacher Tracey Kneale, who attributed the school’s success to “good teaching and close co-operation with families”.

She said that the small cohort of six pupils who took the tests was unusual — less than half the size of last year’s cohort.

Celebrations this week included a service, on Wednesday, at St David’s, Little Dewchurch, led by the NSM in the Hereford South Wye Team Ministry, the Revd Peter Houghton, who chairs the collaboration’s joint governing body.

Little Dewhurst was one of four C of E schools among the top ten primaries. The others were Kniveton C of E School, Derbyshire; Combe C of E School, Oxfordshire; and Singleton C of E School, West Sussex. They all achieved 100-per-cent success in the 2015 SATs.