The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. The tangible nurturing ethos that is at the heart of your school enables pupils to flourish. You have created a culture where everyone is welcomed and respected. Pupils and staff feel valued. They have a positive and enthusiastic attitude to everything that they do. In the two years since taking up your post, you have provided strong leadership, steering the school successfully through a period of expansion and a new build. You have very effectively developed the leadership capacity in the school. In a collaborative way, you have empowered new leaders to make decisions and take actions to bring about improvements throughout the school. You have created a very strong senior leadership team that is founded on honest and open professional relationships. The school benefits from having a strong team of governors. They have an accurate understanding of the school’s many strengths and areas that require further improvement. They appreciate the hard work of staff but are not afraid to challenge where necessary. In the words of one governor, ‘Nobody here rests on their laurels, but we want to raise the bar even further.’ Pupils are extremely positive about their school and relish their learning. They value the friendly and caring ethos of their school and the support and encouragement that they receive from their teachers. Pupils feel safe and happy, which helps them to learn more effectively. It is, therefore, a great shame that some disadvantaged pupils are missing out on this experience by not attending school regularly. You acknowledge that you need to do more to remedy this situation. Parents are overwhelmingly positive about the school. Many of the parents who responded to the Ofsted online questionnaire spoke of how happy their children are and how much they love coming to school. They are full of praise for the school’s welcoming ethos and its ‘wonderful sense of community’. At the last inspection, leaders were asked to raise the attainment of higher-ability pupils in key stage 1 by creating more opportunities to challenge them in their learning, particularly in mathematics. You have ensured that, as a result of highquality teaching, all pupils, including the most able, make good progress during their time in key stage 1. Consequently, the proportions of pupils attaining the expected standard and greater depth in reading, writing and mathematics are above the national averages in all three subjects. Safeguarding is effective. You ensure that a strong culture of safeguarding is at the heart of the school. All safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose, including protocols and practices for record-keeping. Systems to ensure that only suitable people are recruited to work with children in the school are secure. It is evident that you and staff know your pupils extremely well. This, coupled with the training that staff receive, means that you are all well placed to spot any signs or symptoms of potential risk or abuse. All pupils who responded to the Ofsted online questionnaire say that they feel safe in school. They also know that they can talk to an adult in school if they are worried about anything. Pupils learn about online safety as part of the computing and personal, social, health and economic education curriculum. A recent session for parents on this topic was very well attended and well received. Inspection findings In the last two years, pupils have made average progress overall in reading. However, in 2017 middle-ability pupils’ progress in reading was significantly below the national average. You were not at all surprised that my main key line of enquiry for this inspection related to pupils’ progress in reading in key stage 2 as this is your top priority in your improvement plan. You describe this year as ‘the year of reading’ and staff, pupils and parents understand that this is the school’s number one priority. There is a buzz about reading in school. Pupils were keen to tell me how much they love reading. Pupils are very enthusiastic about the new reading programme that you have introduced in key stage 2. Several pupils were keen to talk to me about how much they enjoy reading and tell me about their favourite authors. All teachers have a performance management target related to their pupils’ progress in reading. This means that they all understand the contribution that they make to pupils attaining high standards by the end of Year 6. Other actions that you have taken to bring about improvements in reading include: reorganising the way highly skilled teaching assistants work with pupils who may have fallen behind; providing more training for staff; appointing a senior leader to lead on reading across the school; holding reading workshops for parents; and refurbishing the school library. There is no doubting your commitment to improving pupils’ outcomes in reading and your actions are having a positive impact. Assessment information for Year 6 pupils indicates that a very high proportion are on track to achieve at least the expected standard at the end of the year. Tracking information for pupils in other year groups in key stage 2 shows that they are also making good progress. We discussed the reasons why it appears that pupils made much better progress in writing in 2016 than they did in 2017. You acknowledge that the main reason relates to the accuracy of teachers’ assessments in 2016. You are now confident about the accuracy of teachers’ assessments as a result of much stronger moderation procedures. Teachers work closely with the local authority and other local schools. Teachers also have cross-phase writing moderation meetings within school. The actions you have taken to improve reading have also had a positive impact on the progress that pupils are making with their writing. Another line of enquiry for this inspection was to find out what you are doing to ensure that the small number of disadvantaged pupils in your school make the best possible progress. You explained that because all teachers know their disadvantaged pupils well they are able to provide the appropriate support for them and meet their learning needs. While this may be happening at a classroom level, you accept that the strategic leadership of this area needs to be sharper. You acknowledge that you need to track the progress of these pupils more closely in order to evaluate effectively the impact of how you are spending the pupil premium funding. Pupils really enjoy coming to school. Consequently, your overall attendance rate is high and has been consistently above the national average since the last inspection. However, this has not been the case for disadvantaged pupils. In the last two years, their attendance rate has moved closer to the national average. However, we discussed how a more focused approach, looking at the specific reasons why pupils are not attending school regularly, could lead to further improvements in this area. The actions you have taken since taking up your post mean that all staff are now clearly focused on ensuring that all pupils make the best possible progress in English and mathematics. Pupils’ tracking information indicates that these actions are having a positive impact. However, evidence gathered from our joint book scrutiny, and from talking to pupils, raised some concerns about the wider curriculum. We agreed that pupils would benefit if they had more opportunities to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding in more depth across a broader range of subjects.