A PRIMARY school in the region is one of just eight in the entire country to receive Government cash to help teach pupils at other schools read and write.

Bishopton Redmarshall CE Primary School in Stockton has excelled in teaching children to to read to such an extent that it will be given £10,000 to spread teaching techniques to neighbouring schools, School Reform Minister Nick Gibb announced.

No other school in the region has been given the money and the nearest in is Lincolnshire. The plan is build on the phonics teaching methods introduced in 2012 to improve literacy rates.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: "This funding allows schools to share their expertise and I am confident it will lead to even more young people acquiring the foundation of effective reading at an early age, putting them on the path to a successful education.”

Achieving the expected standard in the phonics check is an indicator of a pupil’s performance in wider reading assessments. Of those Year 1 pupils that met the expected standard in the check in 2013, 99 per cent went on to achieve the expected level in reading at the end of Key Stage 1, the end of Year 2 or infants class, in 2014.

The money will be used a group of schools, led by Bishopton Redmarshall Primary, to develop models to improve phonics teaching that have the potential to work for other schools.