You have led the school with dedication and resilience over the past two years, often making difficult but necessary decisions, to secure effective education for pupils that is highly focused on learning. You are ambitious for pupils and aspire for them to return to mainstream education whenever possible. Staff and governors share your goals and are dedicated to the pursuit of this aim. Staff are extremely proud to work at the school and of the difference they make to pupils’ lives. They speak highly of your leadership and the opportunities you give to them to achieve their own dreams. You unite with them to form a highly committed and effective staff team who are motivated to continually improve the school. The local authority has offered high-quality support to the school during the past four years, and in particular prior to the start of your leadership in 2015 when there was a period of upheaval to the leadership and management of the school, which resulted in declining standards. However, you have welcomed the continued support. You have also taken advantage of the wealth of training and expertise brokered by the local authority to support the school, for example in mathematics. You have forged positive relationships with local mainstream and special schools to share good practice and to ensure that the judgements that staff make about how well pupils are achieving are correct. Consequently, the school has gone from strength to strength and regained its positive reputation within the community. Standards have rapidly improved, and because of this, the leadership team has recovered successfully the good quality of education evident in the school at the time of the last inspection. You have worked hard, and continue to address the areas for improvement identified at the time of the previous school inspection. Inspectors required leaders to make certain that pupils’ work is sufficiently challenging, especially for the most able pupils, and to provide pupils with greater opportunities to reflect on their own learning and also that of their classmates. Inspectors also asked the school to make sure that pupils are motivated to write in all subjects. Pupils are making better progress in writing than in the past, including the most able and disadvantaged pupils. However, pupils’ progress in writing still lags behind other subjects. Pupils are making evaluative judgements about how well they have met the learning objectives for each lesson so that they can think about what they need to do to make their work better. The curriculum is currently being revised to create even more opportunities for pupils to be inspired and motivated in a range of subjects, including in their writing. You know the strengths of the school very well. You are clear and honest about what could be even better. Because of this, you have driven improvement in standards across the school and overcome obstacles, such as the retention and recruitment of staff along the way. You know that your pursuit of better outcomes for pupils in writing needs to continue. You realise that work does not consistently meet the needs of pupils in lessons, especially the most able pupils, and that some interventions put in place to support pupils are so new that you have yet to make certain that they are making a difference. These areas for improvement are identified in your school development plan, and records of governing body meetings show clearly that governors ask searching questions about the progress being made towards improving pupils’ outcomes. Governors make a strong contribution to strategic leadership. Governors are an effective team that adds to the capacity of the school to improve further. Together, governors are highly skilled and possess expertise that enables them to challenge leaders and offer valuable support. Governors share your in-depth knowledge of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and your determination to address areas for development. Safeguarding is effective. Supported by the school’s safeguarding team, you have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are effective, and records are detailed and of high quality. This is underpinned by the depth of knowledge staff have about all pupils’ needs and that of their families. A parent wrote, ‘The school takes a practical, holistic and child focused approach to my son and our family’, going on to say, ‘I am listened to and included in my son’s education.’ Pupils are nurtured and wrapped in care. This care extends to pupils’ parents and carers, so that pupils’ needs are more consistently met at home and at school. In addition, leaders offer a range of courses to help parents meet their children’s needs, including neuro-linguistic programming. Leaders quickly respond to any concerns that parents might have.