SCHOOLS across Winsford and Middlewich are celebrating the success of their staff and children after the performance tables, based on SATs results, were revealed.

The tables, released by the Government last week, show the percentage of children at each school who met their ‘expected standard’.

St Mary’s Catholic Primary School had 73 per cent of its pupils meet their expected standard, which was the most in the Winsford and Middlewich area – and headteacher Janet McKinlay says the success shows the hard work of her staff is now paying off.

“We’re desperately trying to improve all aspects of the school,” Janet said.

“I can put it down to the absolute hard work of all staff here. It’s entirely down to their willingness to develop, a lot of continuing professional development training, and taking on board discussions from a lot of staff meetings about aiming for a whole school approach to wellbeing.

“We’ve got everybody on board here and that’s the secret to success. We’re really proud of our school family and we ask everybody to contribute, so the parents are heavily involved as well.

“Staff have been working hard over the past couple of years on the curriculum and embracing the changes that the government has introduced. It’s about listening to what’s working well in other schools and applying that to your own school and the staff have to take all the credit for that.

“One of the aspects that came out in the Ofsted report was that the nurturing here is exemplary and if we get that right, the nurturing of the children and the staff, then we’re always going to be onto a winner.”

The average for schools across the UK was 64 per cent, with schools in Cheshire West matching the national average and achieving an average of 68 per cent in Cheshire East.

Oak View Academy continued its impressive development over recent years, by guiding 65 per cent of its pupils to achieving their expected standard – the highest percentage among Winsford schools.

It also shows that the Winsford school had the second-best score in the local authority for progress in writing.

Fiona Whittaker, executive head teacher at Oak View Academy, said: “We are very pleased with our 2018 SATs results, particularly our progress in writing, which is the second highest in Cheshire West and Chester.

“We’ve been working on improving writing since 2016 and the impact is clearly being seen. Well done to all our children and staff for their hard work.”

Two other schools in the Middlewich area came above the national average.

Wimboldsley Primary School dropped from 90 per cent last year to 78 per cent this year, while 67 per cent of children at Warmingham Primary School met the expected standard.

Visit compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk to see the full information on how all schools in the area did.