The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have shown determination to ensure that opportunities for pupils to flourish as well-rounded individuals in all aspects of school life are extended and developed. As a result, pupils at Belle Vue Primary School are happy, caring and make good progress as they move through the school. By the time pupils leave the school in Year 6, standards in reading, writing and mathematics are above the national average. However, you accurately recognise that sometimes the most able pupils in school could make even better progress, and regard this as a priority for improvement. You rightly regard the promotion of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development as being of upmost importance and this is a particular strength of the school. You encourage pupils to think deeply about the lives of other people, both in Britain and across the world. You provide pupils with excellent opportunities to discuss and reflect on current topical affairs issues. Pupils greatly value the regular assemblies that you and other staff lead and make strong links to how visionary individuals have helped to shape and improve the world. For example, pupils spoken to during the inspection were passionate about the impact that Martin Luther King had, and still has, on promoting equality, both within the United States and across other countries. You have successfully addressed the areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection. You have established strong links with a school in Gambia and have ensured that this partnership is mutually beneficial to both schools. Ongoing projects allow pupils to share and compare their experiences with each other and help to provide an insight into the pressures and advantages that people in both countries face and also benefit from. Pupils now have a good understanding of the beliefs and traditions of a wide range of religions and enjoy participating in celebrations of important holy and cultural days, such as Diwali and Chinese New Year. You have ensured that leaders at all levels within the school have a good understanding of the strengths and areas for improvement. Governors are a highly effective force and are well informed about how Belle Vue Primary compares with other schools, both locally and across the country. While systems for monitoring and evaluating teaching and learning are well established, school improvement plans do not fully focus on the most important priorities for the school. You agree that a lack of sharply defined success criteria means that it is not always easy to determine the impact that the actions taken have had on improving outcomes for pupils. Pupils say that teachers make learning exciting and relevant. You have ensured that the teaching of reading has continued to improve. Pupils develop a deep love of reading and gain great pleasure from reading. You, together with all members of staff, have ensured that there are strong systems in school that actively promote and celebrate reading. The stunning ‘Once Upon A Time’ library area in key stage 1, set up as a magical forest glade, is regarded by pupils as wonderful place to read and be read to. While there is a strong and effective approach to ensuring that pupils are taught key skills in grammar, punctuation and spelling, you recognise that opportunities for pupils to apply these skills in longer pieces of writing can be provided more regularly. You also agree that some opportunities to develop pupils’ spoken language are not fully exploited by all staff, including for children in the early years provision. The very large majority of parents are supportive of the work that you and your staff do for their children. Many parents who responded to the online survey commented on the inclusive and friendly nature of the school, and the fact that you and other leaders are accessible and approachable. Safeguarding is effective. Leaders ensure that there are strong systems in place that are understood and followed by all staff, to identify whether any pupils are vulnerable or at risk. Online safeguarding training has been introduced recently and this helps to ensure that all staff are well trained, and aware of their responsibilities and how they can protect pupils. The systems for recording any concerns relating to safeguarding are thorough and applied diligently. All staff are vigilant in challenging anyone on the school site if they are not sure of their identity. The school has robust recruitment systems in place to ensure that any staff that are appointed to work in the school have been checked to make sure that they are suitably qualified and do not pose any risk to the pupils. Leaders have made sure that pupils and staff are well informed about the risks from radicalisation and extremism. Leaders have also organised and run workshops in school for parents to provide them with a wide range of information relating to safeguarding and child protection issues. Pupils say that they feel safe in school. They have a good understanding of how to stay safe when online and recognise the dangers that use of the internet could pose. Inspection findings Staff have a clear and detailed understanding of the needs of children in the early years provision. Initial and ongoing assessments are used well to ensure that teaching and provision can be matched accurately to the individual children’s skills and knowledge. The school’s approach to the teaching of early writing has been revised this year to ensure that children develop skills that are appropriate for their ages and abilities. Staff ensure that there are plentiful opportunities within the early years setting to encourage children to write. During the inspection, children in Reception were observed enthusiastically talking about the recently hatched chicks and then writing sentences about this. The forest school areas are used very well to stimulate children’s interests and to allow them to develop across all areas of learning. While leaders place a high focus on encouraging pupils to develop their spoken language, not all staff pose questions in a way that fully supports language development. They ask questions that pupils can respond to in one- or two-word answers and do not then model examples of well-formed, extended sentences. This limits opportunities for a minority of pupils to extend their vocabulary and to develop strong oral skills. Teachers and other staff across the school form highly positive relationships with pupils and provide learning activities that engage pupils’ interest. For example, during the inspection, pupils in Year 1 were keen to participate in describing the properties of two-dimensional shapes in a ‘feely bag’ and confidently used terms such as ‘edges’ and ‘corners’. However, the challenge for the most able pupils is not consistently high enough across the school. Some teachers do not set activities that are sufficiently demanding and, as result, this slows progress for these pupils.