Strong leadership throughout the school has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You lead Eastwick Infant School with confidence and clear determination to ensure that all pupils achieve highly. You work closely with other colleagues from across the federation and the trust who bring additional expertise that enriches pupils’ learning and supports their overall well-being. You are supported by talented senior and middle leaders who share your aspirations to build on the many strengths of the school. Together, you use a range of information to accurately self-evaluate the school’s effectiveness and to inform your development plans. You waste no time in bringing about actions to enhance teaching and learning. Strong support from your highly capable local governing body holds leaders to account well. The challenge they bring is appropriate, robust and purposeful. Because of leaders’ actions, parents and carers are very supportive of the school and most would recommend it to others. One comment, typical of many, stated: ‘My child is always happy going to school and always comes out cheerful. I feel really grateful that my young child has such a positive experience at Eastwick.’ Pupils enjoy learning at Eastwick Infant School. They say that ‘learning is really fun’, that ‘everyone is really friendly’, and that ‘teachers look after us all the time’. Importantly, pupils say the school ‘is a really safe place’. Pupils have a good, ageappropriate understanding of bullying. They raised no concerns that bullying was a problem at school. Pupils understand the school’s behaviour management systems and rise to the high expectations staff set them. Behaviour throughout the school, in lessons and at play, is good. You and your team work tirelessly to ensure that Eastwick Infant School is highly inclusive. You support a significant number of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), many of whom have an education, health and care plan. This group of pupils achieves very well, and the tailored provision meets their needs to a high standard. The specialised support provided within the ‘rainbow’ setting is exemplary and highly appreciated by parents. Throughout the school, pupils are achieving well. You closely monitor teaching and learning and have refined your assessment strategy. You have greater confidence in your evaluations of pupils’ ongoing progress and achievements because tracking systems are now more detailed and accurate. You use this information well to inform discussions with other leaders and staff to improve pupils’ outcomes further. However, you are rightly aware that some most-able pupils are not achieving at the highest standards, particularly in mathematics. You have already begun some important work to address this but the strategy must be refined to ensure that most-able pupils achieve as highly as they can. Safeguarding is effective. You have created a vigilant safeguarding culture that permeates the school. Your mantra, ‘It could happen here’, is known and understood by staff. All policies and procedures are up to date and meet the latest statutory guidance. Your single central record is detailed and accurate and demonstrates the rigorous approach you take when recruiting new staff. You work well with other child-protection officers from the local authority. Importantly, you are not afraid to challenge others when the service they provide for children and their families is not good enough. You have also strengthened further your systems in school for tracking and monitoring pupils who might be at risk. You and other designated safeguarding leaders keep a watchful eye on those children identified as being vulnerable. This tenacity helps protect children from harm. Pupils know how to keep themselves safe. Some pupils said they use smartphones or tablet computers at home but knew to tell a trusted adult if they saw something that concerned or frightened them. Additionally, pupils stated that there was someone at school they could turn to if they had a worry at school. Inspection findings During the inspection, we focused on how effectively leaders ensure that pupils, particularly the most able, achieve well in mathematics. We also scrutinised leaders’ actions in supporting pupils with SEND. Finally, we evaluated the quality of the wider curriculum, with a focus on teaching and learning, in history, geography and art. You ensure that most pupils develop the necessary skills to become competent mathematicians. For example, in the early years, children were discovering pairs of numbers that add up to different totals less than 10. The class teacher asked careful questions and provided clear explanations that deepened children’s knowledge and understanding of number facts. The teaching of mathematics across key stage 1 is becoming much more challenging. Teachers ensure that pupils can explain their answers and are able to use different techniques to solve mathematical problems. This requires most pupils to think harder and strengthens their understanding of key mathematical concepts. Occasionally, some teaching of mathematics is not suitably challenging for mostable pupils. This is because activities are sometimes too easy for their higher level of understanding. More must be achieved to ensure that learning stretches this group sufficiently and that most-able pupils grapple more frequently with difficult mathematical tasks and challenges. You provide exemplary support for pupils with SEND. Your inclusion team knows these pupils’ needs ‘inside out’ and is skilled in adapting provision to help them make rapid progress from their starting points. The high level of tailored care emanates throughout the ‘rainbow’ classrooms, providing a warm, nurturing and highly fruitful learning environment. Pupils with SEND are supported well in the mainstream classrooms. Staff make all reasonable adjustments to ensure that this group of pupils can learn alongside their peers when appropriate. Highly effective communication between staff ensures that learning is planned well, and appropriate effective support is readily available. Pupils engage in art lessons enthusiastically and with determination to achieve their best. For example, Year 1 pupils had created some wonderful clay aliens during their ‘space’ topic. They had decorated them wonderfully and were able to explain the different techniques they had used to make them suitably ‘out of this world’. You ensure that history and geography are taught well. The subject coordinator has strong subject knowledge, and plans learning that is interesting and engaging. For example, some of the pupils’ work in researching a local historical figure demonstrated the strong grasp of the Victorians they had gained as a result. You rightly keep the curriculum under close review. You check frequently that coverage is appropriate and that there are no gaps in pupils’ learning. Moving forward, you are keen to ensure that the curriculum provides an inspiring framework to build pupils’ knowledge and skills across a range of subjects. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: the school’s mathematics strategy is refined so that most-able pupils are challenged well in mathematics, and more achieve at the highest standards. I am copying this letter to the chair of the board of trustees, the chief executive officer of the multi-academy trust, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Surrey. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Dom Cook Her Majesty’s Inspector Information about the inspection Together with you and your acting deputy headteacher, I visited lessons across the school. I spoke to pupils and examined work in their exercise books. Meetings were held with you and other senior leaders, including the executive headteacher, inclusion leaders, and subject coordinators. I met with the chair and one of the vicechairs of the local governing body. I also met with three representatives of the Howard Partnership Trust. I took into account 74 responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View, including written responses. I also analysed 36 responses to Ofsted’s pupil survey, and 38 responses to Ofsted’s staff survey. A range of documents was reviewed, including: the school’s development plan; leaders’ evaluation of the school’s effectiveness; the school’s single central record of recruitment checks made on staff; information about pupils’ achievement; records of pupils’ behaviour and attendance; and minutes of local governing body meetings.