A school with all the answers

A small primary has become so popular that its catchment area has shrunk to 300 yards. That gives it a unique sense of community and spectacular results. Sarah Cassidy reports

A small London primary school with a "village-style" atmosphere was celebrating last week after achieving its best ever results. Tetherdown Primary School, in the leafy hill-top suburb of Muswell Hill, was one of only 142 schools - out of more than 20,000 in the country - to be awarded a perfect score in the national tests for 11-year-olds this summer.

Every 11-year-old reached the required standard for their age for the first time, and a proportion of students achieved at a standard expected of older children. Put together, these results meant that the school was ranked as the joint-highest-achieving "community" - or non-faith - school in the country.

On top of this, Tetherdown pupils achieved a perfect score in tests taken by its seven-year-olds.

Evelyn Pittman, the head teacher, is jubilant. "It's the first time we have got a perfect 300, which is very pleasing," she says. "But we are particularly delighted by the number of students achieving at the higher levels. The children have worked really hard. It is down to a fantastic team effort by children, teachers, parents and school governors."

Although Tony Blair has sung the praises of faith schools for their ethos and atmosphere, Ms Pittman said that her school had its own distinctive character, despite not being affiliated to a faith. "We are non-denominational, but we do like to celebrate the different faiths," she says. "We really are a community school."

Tetherdown is so popular that its catchment area has shrunk to about 300 yards. Pupils live so close to the school that there is a unique sense of community, according to Ms Pittman. "We're like a village school, within a village that just happens to be in a big city," she says. "I have never worked in a school like this. We are very popular, but that doesn't mean we are just creaming off the brightest children. Most of our parents are professional people, but the actual ability range of the children can be enormous. We have a very distinctive ethos. There is no uniform, and I have just two rules: respect yourself and respect other people. If you respect yourself, you are going to work hard to become the best that you can be. If everyone respected others, then there would be no more war and the world would be a better place."

Nationally, only 75 per cent of 11-year-olds reach the required standard in English, 73 per cent in maths and 87 per cent in science. But Tetherdown was one of those that managed to achieve 100 per cent in every subject. Its success was all the more unusual because, this summer, perfect scores were thinner on the ground. (In 2002, 178 schools achieved at this level.)

Meanwhile, North Cheshire Jewish Primary School in Cheadle, Cheshire, was also basking in its pupils' success after they achieved top results. The school, a large Jewish primary of 269 pupils, serving south Manchester and awarded beacon status by the Department for Education, was one of the many faith schools that dominated the top of this year's tables. An astonishing 14 of the top 20 in the results league this summer were faith schools.

North Cheshire's head, Norma Massel, firmly believes that the school's religious character has played an important part in its success. The school devotes almost a fifth of its time to Jewish studies and to teaching Ivrit, the Hebrew language, as a modern foreign language.

"I think it makes the school a cohesive unit," Mrs Massel says. "Everyone connected with the school shares the same expectations. There is a very clear set of goals and values. Parents are very supportive - it is a real community effort. I think that, in part, this is because we have a shared faith."

Mrs Massel is delighted at the high proportion of pupils achieving at a standard normally expected of secondary school students this year. North Cheshire ranked second in the country for the proportion of children who achieved level 5 in their English, maths and science tests - the standard normally expected of students three years older.

During her three years as head, Mrs Massel has made it a priority to bolster her pupils' ability to tackle challenging work. "Our rich curriculum gives students the confidence to tackle difficult problems and challenging work," she says. "We put a lot of emphasis on planning exciting and motivating lessons to really stretch children. That's how you motivate pupils to do well."

The fact that North Cheshire is the only Jewish primary school in south Manchester means that students come from all over the area. But that doesn't mean that they are all of a high ability when they join the school, says Mrs Massel. "We have a good ability range," she maintains. This year's highest achieving school in the country was Combe Church of England Primary School in Witney, Oxfordshire. All of its 11-year-olds reached the required standard for their age in English, maths and science; the school also had the highest proportion of children reaching the most advanced level.

Surprisingly, Shenington Church of England Primary School in Banbury, Oxfordshire, was not among the schools with perfect scores. Until this summer, the tiny village primary had had an unbroken record of achieving 100 per cent in all subjects since the tests began a decade ago.