A CASH injection of more than £1million for Bolton primary schools was announced today.

The town will get £1,089,880 of Government money pumped into improving the literacy and numeracy of all children aged five to 11.

All primary schools in the North West will next year see an extra £28 million to drive up education standards, including £787,515 for Bury, £766,513 for Blackburn with Darwen and more than £4 million for Lancashire.

The money will pay for booster classes for 10 and 11-year-olds who need additional support to reach their full potential, training for teachers in the priority areas of writing, speech development and spelling, training for co-ordinators in every school, intervention programmes for children who need extra help to get the grades and maths teachers will be able to attend a five day national training event.

Millions of pounds of Government cash has been given to a national literacy and numeracy strategy introduced in 1997 to raise standards of all pupils.

During that period standards in Bolton's 116 primaries have risen by more than 20 per cent.

Bolton Council's executive member for education, Cllr Linda Thomas, said: "This is great news for Bolton schools.

"We have made great strides in primary education in Bolton and any additional funding will help to raise standards further."

Schools minister Catherine Ashton said: "This means more investment in our drive to raise standards in the North-west.

"Nationally, there has been a 10 percentage point improvement in the number of 11-year-olds achieving the expected standard for their age in English tests."

Primary school performance tables for 2001 will be published in the BEN on Wednesday.

Two schools currently hold the top spot. St Maxentius in Bradshaw and Markland Hill, Heaton, both scored perfect marks last year, with 100 per cent of children reaching the expected standard in English, maths and science.