EXCEPTIONAL work by three primary schools has won high-level praise from Her Majesty's chief inspector of schools.

Pennington CE School, near Ulverston; Chapel Street Infant School, Dalton-in-Furness; and Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Primary, Carnforth, were among 415 outstanding schools and colleges highlighted in David Bell's annual report for 2002/03.

Schools on the list all received outstanding Ofsted inspection reports last year for providing a high standard of education.

A government spokesman said they had stood out as having done particularly well on virtually all fronts, or as having achieved highly against the odds.

Chief Inspector of Schools David Bell said: "I heartily congratulate the head teachers, staff, governors and pupils or students of all the successful schools and colleges named in my annual report on their success and the hard work in delivering such a high standard of education."

At Pennington, head teacher Jeni Boothman said they were thrilled to be in the report and he put the 160-pupil school's success down to dedicated teaching, the hard work of the children and the team of governors - half of whom are teachers themselves and so keep staff on their toes.

Ironically, she also felt they had won Ofsted's praise by actually ignoring government edicts. "With the national curriculum, we saw how it was making the education we provided very bland. We had the confidence to say we were not going to cover the curriculum in the way it is supposed to be done. We brought the life back in by not doing too much numeracy and literacy and doing lots of other things as well like art and PE. That is what education is about, not just SATS results."

At Chapel Street Infants, head teacher Avis Edmondson was planning a celebratory assembly to give all involved a pat on the back for the Ofsted achievement.

"We are a very happy school, everybody works together as a team," said Mrs Edmondson of their winning formula.

Our Lady of Lourdes head teacher Siobhan Collingwood said she was "very pleased" that the hard work of teachers, pupils, parents and governors had been acknowledged.

"It is something to celebrate within our school community but also reflects the excellent work being done in schools around the area," she said.