A YOUNG schoolboy stands on a chair clutching a parachute he has made out of string and black polythene.

His classmates' eyes look upwards in anticipation as he holds it out and drops it.

The child's creation hovers briefly in the air before a swift descent to the ground.

That is when the lesson really begins as teacher Debbie Day asks her eight-year-old pupils what steps would increase the air resistance and make the parachute stay up longer.

In turn the pupils - dressed neatly in scarlet sweat shirts - come up with their own suggestions - politely putting their hands up before each one is offered: 'make the strings longer', 'cut the strings shorter', 'untangle the knots.'

Even though it is nearing home time, this combination of art and science clearly succeeds in capturing their attention.

But then this is not just any school. Dunmore County Junior School, Northcourt Road, Abingdon, is one of only 83 primary schools in Britain singled out in the annual report by the Office for Standards in Education for its outstanding quality of education.

A glance around the 1950s building, which is brightly decorated with framed examples of pupils' work, gives you some idea why. Everywhere you look, pupils seem to be absorbed in intriguing activities.

An 11-year-old boy enthusiastically explains the history of a three-horned dinosaur he has researched using a CD-Rom. While a class of ten-year-olds are producing a vast collage of a Victorian town - complete with factories and back-to-back houses - which covers an entire wall of their classroom.

The basics - like tables and spelling - are high on the school's list of priorities too, but staff are keen that the education offered here should be broad and fulfilling. "We're talking about young children with a thirst for knowledge," said the school's headteacher of 16 years Eric Bird. "We fail them if we do not provide them with opport- unities.

"It is each child's entitlement to a worthwhile, meaningful education."

Academically the school's record is impressive. About 80 per cent of 11-year-olds reached the standards expected for their age group in national curriculum tests in English and mathematics while 90 per cent of children reached the standard expected in science.

But opportunities for learning do not stop at the end of lessons. Outside school hours there is a vast array of extra curricular activities including a large orchestra, choir, country dancing, an environmental group and numerous sports.

Pupils' achievements here are celebrated in a very public way and copies of poems and stories are placed in the library for other pupils to read themselves.

Mr Bird explains that the school also holds regular "sharing assemblies" when the school celebrates pupils who have been successful in their own way. The children may recite their own stories, perform a musical instrument or talk about their success in a sport in front of their fellow pupils and parents.

"We like to publicly recognise what they do well," he said. "Teachers recognise when pupils have done well for themselves, not relative to others."

The school's success is all the more remarkable when you consider that its 350 pupils are not just confined to children of professional parents. Here, the children of scientists sit alongside those from less well off backgrounds.

The school also gains the lowest funding per pupil of any primary school in Oxfordshire.

And while pupils' efforts with the parachute will not be transforming aviation just now, you can bet that some of them will be among tomorrow's high flyers.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.