Hornchurch is home to one of the country’s top performing primary schools, according to government data published today.

Scotts Primary School, in Bonington Road, achieved an average points score of 33.1 per pupil in Year 6 Sats. That represents, on average, a little over a Level 5 score in both English and maths for all pupils.

The achievement puts it joint 12th in the country out of nearly 16,000 schools in terms of points scored per pupil.

Head Simon Abeledo said: “We’re absolutely thrilled. It’s the culmination of many years’ hard work.

“At our school we are always striving for excellence in all the things we do. We will continue to try to do so, and to improve year on year.

“We’re thrilled with all the support we’ve had from parents, and the hard work of the teachers.”

Last year, Scotts’ average score was two points lower. Mr Abeledo said the rise was likely due to the recent reintroduction of Level 6 tests after more than a decade.

National guidelines expect primary children to achieve Level 4 in English and maths when they take Sats in Year 6. The national average points score is 28.3, which is midway between Level 4 and Level 5 in the two subjects.

Overall, 82 per cent of the borough’s primary school leavers achieved Level 4 in both subjects – five points up on last year’s score of 77 per cent, and a continuation of the upward trend since 2010.

Thirty of the borough’s 47 primary schools performed at or above the national average for points score, with both Scotts and Dame Tipping C of E School in Havering-atte-Bower getting 100 per cent of pupils over the benchmark.

Two schools in the borough stand out as having improved dramatically since the 2011 figures were released.

Broadford in Harold Hill is celebrating a reversal of fortunes after it jumped from 53 per cent of pupils getting Level 4 in both subjects, to 82 per cent.

That increase takes it up 20 places from the borough’s lowest-performing school to joint 27th.

Malcolm Drakes – who had been the school’s fourth head in 12 months, but is now entering his third calendar year at the helm – said the improvement was down to a number of factors.

“The pupils have gone from a crumbling, leaking, freezing 1952 prefab to a state-of-the-art facility,” he said.

The school, which was taken off special measures in March, hired consultants to work with staff and improve teaching, invested in extra-curricular activities, and gained a new �5m building.

But Mr Drakes added the challenge would now be to sustain that improvement in coming years.

St Alban’s in Hornchurch increased to 97 per cent from 71 per cent – taking it from joint 34th in 2011 to an impressive fourth in 2012.

Two other Havering schools appear in the country’s top 500 – St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Upminster and Ardleigh Green Junior School in Hornchurch.

At the other end of the table, 61 per cent of pupils at Brookside in Harold Hill achieved Level 4 in both subjects – a fall of 12 per cent on the 2011 figures, but still better than the school’s 2009 and 2010 figures.