GRANDMOTHER Iris Stott is a class act. The 71-year-old has emerged as a grade A student -- 57 years after leaving school!

Mrs Stott, a former housing warden and grandmother of five, may have left school at 14 without any qualifications, but she is now living proof of the old addage that you are never too old to learn.

Mrs Stott, of Presto Gardens, Deane, has completed a year-long GCSE English course at the Clarence Street centre of Bolton Community College -- and achieved an A in writing and an A* in speaking and listening.

She said: "I enjoyed the English course so much, but I was a bit nervous when I went into the exams because it it was such a long time since I had sat one. The staff at the centre were very helpful."

And there is no doubting the fact that diminutive Mrs Stott passed her examinations in style.

The gran, who stands a mere 5ft tall, sat the exam in an armchair after finding she was too small to reach the table properly.

"They brought me an armchair to sit in while I did my exam, which was very comfortable," she said.

Mrs Stott was encouraged to start the course after her daughter, Sandra, enrolled. After her husband, Fred, died in 1988, Mrs Stott has lived alone so she looked forward to getting into a classroom and meeting new people. In order to pass the course, the grandmother had to study books by a variety of authors, including William Shakespeare and Dylan Thomas, as well as preparing various fiction and non-fiction assignments.

The speaking and listening element was assessed throughout the course, and the final part involved sitting a pair of two-hour exams at the Bolton Community College building on Manchester Road.

She said: "I'm so pleased I have been able to go back and do something like this.

"I left school and went straight to work and didn't have the option to go into further education when I was younger."

Mrs Stott was a pupil at Mawdsley Commercial Academy until the age of 14, and then went to work as an office junior at a dress shop. She then joined Bolton Royal Infirmary as a junior clerk, delivering mail and answering telephones, before moving to the General Post Office as a telephonist.

Mrs Stott trained as a play leader and worked at the Waggon Road Play Centre in Breightmet before becoming the housing warden at Cleveland Gardens estate, around the corner from where she lives now. Since retiring, she has wanted to prove she could do something like this.

"I haven't done this course to get a job," she said. "I have done it for my own enjoyment. I love reading and I enjoy many different kinds of books and authors, especially Dickens, but I will read anything. If I have no books to read, I'll read the labels on the back of packets in my cupboard!" Now Mrs Stott plans to go back to college in September to study religious education and she hopes to start an English A-level next year.

Mrs Stott's grandaughter, Lindsay Stott, aged 25, of Tarbet Drive, Breightmet said the family were all so proud of her.

"It's fantastic," said Lindsay. "She got higher GCSE grades than I did. We know that when she goes back to study more subjects, she'll do just as well."