A PRIMARY school is offering play sessions for under-fives after opening a new centre.

Bloxham Primary School's new Cherry Tree Centre will cater for families with young children on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9.30am to 11am with toys, a baby area and arts and crafts activities.

The 413-pupil school was rated good by Ofsted in March and its headteacher Matthew Ingall was recently recognised as a 'national leader in education' under a Government scheme where the best school leaders and their teams offer support to other schools.

Mr Ingall said the opening of the new Cherry Tree Centre, following on from excellent SATs results in 2016, showed the school was moving in the right direction.

He said: "Results like this come from a whole group of people: staff, children, parents, governors and community leaders all working together.

"In fact just in February our deputy head Julie Oatridge wrote a blog post starting with the words 'TEAM equals Together Everyone Achieves More'.

"I couldn’t agree more.

‘We were already pleased to be part of the Oxfordshire Teaching Schools Alliance which is a great network for sharing teaching and learning excellence across the county, but these latest results and awards are, if you like, the icing and the cherry on the cake.

“We have so much to be thankful for here at Bloxham Primary School, we wouldn’t have been able to open our new Cherry Tree Centre without the support of Bloxham, Milcombe and Adderbury parish councils for example.

"I’d like to thank and congratulate everyone involved with the school, not least of all our wonderful children and staff for all their hard work and commitment."

The school's next big goal is a festival in the playground for music and fun on Saturday, June 17 from 2pm to 9pm.

The school has 17 teaching staff including specialist music and sports teachers, with a leadership team of five.

The Cherry Tree Centre is situated within the school and officially opened on May 3.