A West Oxfordshire primary schools, named as one of the top in the UK, is set to expand.

Woodstock Primary School has won permission from Oxfordshire County Council to take on more youngsters.

The school will now take on 15 more pupils each year and, next summer, plans to build a new classroom to accommodate them.

The news comes just days after the school, in Shipton Road, was named as the 59th best primary school in the country by the Sunday Times.

Headteacher Lisa Rowe said: “It is definitely the right time in the school’s history to expand.

“We have got ourselves to the top academically and the next step forward is expansion.”

The school will take on 15 new five-year-olds a year, and naturally feed the numbers through the school over the next seven years.

The expansion will eventually take the number of classrooms at the school from seven to 11.

Mrs Rowe said: “The reputation of the school has grown significantly over the last few years.

“There was a time when local people did not necessarily choose to send their children to the local primary school, but that has been very different lately.

“The last three years we have been oversubscribed with families from Woodstock itself.”

She added: “When you know local families want to come to the local school but cannot, you feel awful.”

Mrs Rowe said the school had been oversubscribed by about 10 or 12 children over the past three years.

Work to expand the school will be phased and will start with the construction of a new classroom, with work potentially beginning next summer.

Mrs Rowe added: “We are very excited and feel hugely proud of how far we have come.

“This is just another stage in the development of the school and we all see it as an exciting prospect.”

l Meanwhile, Standlake Primary School has submitted a planning application to extend one of its classrooms.

Headteacher Sandra Connell said: “We are a small village primary school and we have had more children move into the local catchment area.

“We have a classroom at the moment which is basically too small and it is very exciting that the children will have a classroom that is fit for purpose.”

West Oxfordshire District Council will decide on the plans on a date yet to be set.