ONE of Oxfordshire's smallest village primary schools is celebrating a £150,000 grant - worth more than £3,000 per pupil.

The funding comes in the same week that Wootton- by-Woodstock CofE Primary School received good reports from Ofsted and Diocesan inspectors.

There are just 49 children at the west Oxfordshire school, in two mixed age classes.

Headteacher Valerie Lucas said: "We have been hoping to do this for about seven years now and we are quite excited.

"It is quite a lot of money, but we think our children are worth it, and we want to give them the opportunities that any other child elsewhere in the county would have in a bigger school.

"We are busy 100 per cent of the time at the school and it is really at the heart of the community.

"This gives us scope to extend our village community as well as helping us to strive for excellence for our children."

The school has 12 members of staff - but only Miss Lucas is full-time.

Dr Jonathan Reynolds, chairman of governors, said: "We are simply delighted with this hat trick of good news.

"The inspectors, in part- icular, clearly demon- strate the high standards of learning and care than can be achieved by a small primary school."

The new money is to be spent on a long-planned development of the building.

A mezzanine floor is to be fitted into one of the classrooms, allowing a new library and information technology area to be built.

It will also allow the school, which serves Wootton, Kiddington and Glympton, to be used more by the community.

It is not the county's smallest school - that honour goes to Tetsworth Primary School, with just 28 pupils.