Jewish primary schools emerged as some of the country's highest performers when the Sats league tables were released last week.

Faith schools did disproportionately better in the Year 6 exams. Almost two-thirds of the 329 primaries with "perfect" results were Jewish, Anglican or Roman Catholic schools. But only a third of primaries nationally are faith schools.

The top five performing Jewish schools in the country calculated by average points scored were North Cheshire Jewish Primary School in Cheadle, Avigdor Hirsch Torah Temimah Primary School in Dollis Hill, Bury and Whitefield Jewish Primary School, North West London Jewish Day School and Moriah Jewish Day School in Pinner.

Moriah had its best results on record. Chair of governors Doreen Samuels said: "Now our amazing academic attainment has been publicly recognised.

"However, the league tables only record scores at Level 4. We also scored very highly at Level 5, particularly in maths and science."

Rabbi Ephraim Klyne, principal of Torah Temimah Primary school, said it was the cross-curricular work with Jewish studies that had enhanced the pupils' learning experience. At the school, 60 per cent of the pupils' curricular day is devoted to Limudei Kodesh.

Claire Simon, the Bury and Whitefield Jewish Primary School's headmistress since September, said: "It's a culture of hard work; our children know that we expect them to do their very best.

"We are only a small school but I am privileged to work with extremely talented staff who know how to get the best out of the children. I came from a very poor performing school before and we couldn't get such good results because we didn't have supportive parents. The parents here should take a lot of credit."

Many Jewish schools did not feature in the league tables because they chose not to enter pupils for Sats.