STAFF and pupils at Old Hill Primary School are celebrating after earning government praise.

Latest results put the school amongst the 100 top performing schools based on sustained improvement in attainment at level 4 or above in reading, writing and maths each year from 2012.

Schools minister Nick Gibb has sent a letter of congratulations to the staff and pupils of the Lawrence Lane school and praises the staff for their “hard work and professionalism”.

Headteacher Sally Fenby said they were “delighted” to be in the top 100.

“It was been a real team effort and a lot of hard work which is paying off,” she said.

The school was Ofsted graded “satisfactory” when Mrs Fenby took over as headteacher in 2010 and the school was ranked fifth from the bottom in Sandwell for key stage two SATs.

It was targeted to be made an enforced academy if results did not improve but is now ranked 6th best in the borough.

Mrs Fenby said: “This has not been a quick fix, we didn’t just want the SATs to look good but for improvements to be solid and sustainable.”

The school was judged to be “good” in the last Ofsted inspection and Mrs Fenby said it was important that all the children made the progress they were supposed to.

“We do push them to be ready for the next stage of their education, to be secondary school ready, but they have to know they have done well, it’s not just about getting the result – that would be just ticking boxes, ” she said.

Mrs Fenby met challenges head on when she took over – including refusing authorised absences for holidays during term time.

She added: “We had to change mind sets and had to push for the pupils to work hard because they were not of the standard, but we have shown our children can do it - we just had more barriers to remove.”