The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Dunston St Peter’s remains a school where the strengths and talents of pupils and staff are highly valued. The school is part of a federation of small schools which sets a commitment to the pursuit of excellence. Your ethos encourages pupils to be successful, enjoy learning and to reach their full potential. Staff embody and communicate the values of the school and take pride in all aspects of their work. As a result, pupils achieve well across subjects as they move through the school. Parents are highly supportive and sing the school’s praises. You have continued to inspire and motivate leaders in the school. Your shared passion underpins a determination for continued improvement. Leadership responsibility is embraced and a true ‘team spirit’ pervades. The recent addition of Nocton Community Primary School to the federation has provided greater professional opportunities for staff. As a result, subject leaders share their expertise across the schools and this has strengthened the leadership team. Pupils benefit greatly from the high-quality teaching which is evident in all classes. Teachers and class teaching assistants encourage pupils to speak about their learning and plan activities which stimulate and capture pupils’ interest. Throughout the school, pupils’ voices are heard and you have successfully enabled pupils to take more responsibility for themselves and to look after their fellow pupils. The ‘family’ feel and overriding atmosphere of care for every child are appreciated and valued in your school. Older pupils take the initiative to help the younger ones. This embodies how all staff focus on the importance of pupils’ personal development, behaviour and well-being. Your leadership of the school remains strong. Since the previous inspection you have systematically tackled the areas identified for further improvement. Creating more opportunities for writing across subjects has raised achievement for Year 6 pupils. A higher proportion of pupils than seen nationally achieved the expected writing standard last year. The outdoor area for early years children has been developed well. Children grow in confidence and independence as they choose their own equipment and explore problem-solving tasks and activities through the improved provision. You have developed improvement plans across the federation with specific targets and success measures to drive further improvements. Your priorities to deepen leaders’ understanding of the higher expectations of the national curriculum and to effectively close any learning gaps for disadvantaged pupils are clear. This addresses a previous inspection recommendation to ensure that action plans have precise targets by which their success can be measured. At this point in the school year, the full impact of these plans is not evident. The leadership team is sharply focused on continuing to raise achievement for all pupils, particularly on ensuring that progress in key stage 2 is consistently as good as in the rest of the school. Leaders recognise that there is work to be done to ensure that school systems recognise any variation in the performance of groups so that these can be quickly addressed. The school website does not currently contain all of the required information in order to meet statutory requirements. Safeguarding is effective. Leaders and governors place a high priority on all aspects of safeguarding. This ensures that arrangements are securely in place to promote a vigilant culture of effective safeguarding in the school. Leaders make rigorous checks on the suitability of all staff to work with children. Records of concerns are detailed, high-quality and securely kept. You have well-developed partnerships with a range of professionals to help keep pupils safe. You provide a high level of care and support to pupils and families whose circumstances make them vulnerable and this shows in the positive views expressed by pupils and parents about feeling safe and cared for by the school. Pupils know how to keep themselves safe online and junior road safety officers teach their fellow pupils how to stay safe on the roads outside. Staff and governor training is kept sharply up to date. Recent staff training has included aspects such as female genital mutilation and religious extremism. As a result, staff are confident in recognising potential warning signs and are quick to raise concerns. Inspection findings Dunston St Peter’s remains a good and improving school because of strengths in the leadership team, pupils’ achievements and their positive engagement with learning. Parents are highly supportive of the school and staff are valued. Leaders have rightly focused on areas previously identified for further improvement and added more writing activities to extend and deepen pupils’ writing experiences. Early years children make excellent progress and achieve very well. They make good use of the outdoor area and have the freedom to explore further into gardening, grass hills, treasure hunts and digging. Pupils’ progress is monitored regularly and your leadership team has a good understanding of how well individual pupils are performing across different years and subjects. Assessments show the accelerated progress of the early years children and pupils in key stage 1, who consistently outperform their peers nationally. Leaders do not routinely evaluate the progress of specific groups of pupils in the school and this means, for example, that in a year group, the achievement gap between boys and girls has not been addressed. Checks of the school website showed that several aspects were not fully compliant. You agreed that this is an urgent priority for the federation. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: the consistently good progress made in the early years and through key stage 1 continues through key stage 2 analysis of pupils’ achievements includes close scrutiny of key groups, so that leaders can quickly act to address any variations the school website contains all of the necessary information and meets current requirements. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the director of education for the Diocese of Lincoln, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Lincolnshire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Aune Turkson-Jones Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection At the start of this inspection, you and I met to prioritise the main areas of focus for the inspection. We discussed improvements made against the areas designated in the previous inspection. We agreed to look closely at the achievements of girls across all subjects, particularly those in key stage 2. We also agreed to evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding in the school. We met regularly throughout the day and observed teaching in all classes together. We looked at pupils’ work in lessons and spoke with them about their learning. I met with a group of ‘pupils with responsibilities’ at lunchtime and spoke informally with others at playtime and around the school. I listened to some pupils read and checked their reading record books. I met with three members of the governing body, including the chair of the governing body, and held separate meetings with members of the leadership team and school staff. As the safeguarding lead, you and I reviewed records of checks on the suitability of staff to work with children as well as records of staff recruitment. I spoke with several parents as they dropped children off at the start of the school day. I considered 30 parent responses to Parent View and reviewed the contents of staff and pupil questionnaires completed during the inspection. All of my discussions were focused around our agreed lines of enquiry to test if the school remains good. Prior to the start of the inspection I checked the school website to see if it meets current requirements.