Thornhill Primary School is celebrating after being named number one in the County in relation to exam scores.

The school achieved higher results than 246 others in County Durham in the 2014 Year 6 SATs, also placing 2nd in the entire North East out of 1,070 schools.

Thornhill also received letters of congratulations from two MPs in relation to the 2014 KS2 results and Year 1 Phonics testing.

Nick Gibb MP, Minister of State for School Reform wrote, “I am writing to convey my warmest congratulations to you, your staff and your pupils for the very high standard of achievement in this year’s phonics check.

“To be in the top 5% of schools, with at least 95% of pupils achieving the expected standard in the check, is a tremendous achievement and points to a high standard of phonics teaching in your school.”

Minister of State for Schools, Rt Hon David Laws MP stated, “It gives me great pleasure to congratulate you on the excellent performance of your pupils in the 2014 national key stage 2 tests. Your results show that you are amongst the 100 top performing schools in terms of the progress your pupils make between key stage 1 and the end of key stage 2. Your school is exceptionally effective in educating its pupils.”