A NORTH East town is bucking the national trend with high achieving primary schools proving a success in some of the most deprived areas.

Research carried out by charity Teach First has shown that children from poor families are missing out on places at the best primary schools across the country.

However, Middlesbrough is one of only a handful of towns where that is not the case. The others include Manchester and London.

According to the study families on low incomes were four times more likely to send their children to a primary school that the regulator judged as needing improvement than the wealthiest families.

On the other hand poor families were found to have less than half the opportunity to send their children to a school rated as outstanding by Ofsted.

A Middlesbrough Council spokesman said the town's schools would not take the progress for granted.

He said: “While we can never afford to be complacent, it is always pleasing to know that our schools are more than holding their own compared with similar areas elsewhere.

“Our own Schools Direct Initial Teacher Training programme is supplying many of the new teachers for Middlesbrough’s primary schools, and nearly 90 per cent are currently rated either good or outstanding.

“Clearly our aim is to ensure every pupil in the town has access to an outstanding school, and we will continue to strive towards that goal.”

The analysis was carried out by the charity that supplies highly-trained teachers to struggling schools in deprived areas.

Founder and chief executive Brett Wigdortz said: "As the costs of housing have soared over the years, parents from low income backgrounds face an unequal choice to ensure that their children's school offers what's best for them.

"Outstanding schools are unfairly concentrated in areas of wealth."

Blackpool was highlighted by the charity for having no outstanding schools, while the Isle of Wight and Thurrock have one each.

In parts of Kent and Bradford a third of schools serving the poorest 20 per cent of postcodes needed improvement in their Ofsted reports.

The Department for Education said there was now a record number of children in good or outstanding schools, up 1.4 million from 2010.

It plans to improve standards across the board by increasing the control teachers and school leaders have, alongside other measures to tackle failing and "coasting" schools.

A spokeswoman added: "We are backing schemes like Teach First and the National Teaching Service to get great teachers where they are most needed."