The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Based on the evidence gathered during this short inspection, I am of the opinion that the school has demonstrated strong practice and marked improvement in specific areas. This may indicate that the school is improving towards becoming outstanding. Therefore, I am recommending that the school’s next inspection will be a section 5 inspection. During my visit, it quickly became apparent that you have created within your senior leadership team a culture of collaboration and shared responsibility. You, and this experienced and knowledgeable team, have the overwhelming support of parents, staff members and the pupils themselves. It is also clear that the desire for all pupils to fulfil their potential is at the centre of everything you, your governors and your staff do. Staff have high expectations of pupils and pupils work hard to meet these. This strong commitment from staff and pupils has led to outcomes that are well above the national average. By the end of key stage 2, the progress that your pupils make in reading and writing places you in the top 10% of schools nationally. The progress that pupils make in mathematics has improved considerably since the last inspection and now places you in the top 20% of schools. Classroom visits show the school to be a happy, as well as an industrious, place. Teachers understand the needs of their pupils well and plan interesting and challenging activities for them. Leaders have ensured that teachers and learning support assistants have time together so that planning is shared. This means that learning support assistants know what to do to support pupils effectively, whether in the classroom or working with small groups. Pupils talk with enthusiasm about their school, their teachers and their lessons. They enjoy school and so their attendance is good. The behaviour seen around school and in every classroom during the inspection was exemplary. Pupils told me of the many opportunities for outdoor learning that enliven lessons and encourage them to apply their learning in real situations. They also explained that, ‘if you make a mistake, you put it into your learning’ and this positive attitude towards learning from mistakes was clearly evident in classes. Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is shaped through a strong religious education curriculum. This enables them to develop their understanding of Christian values but also widens their experience and understanding of the diverse and multicultural society that is Britain today. This is supplemented by regular extracurricular events such as the ‘around the world day’, which pupils were looking forward to and which gives them the opportunity to explore other cultures and ways of living. You motivate your staff by balancing the high expectations you have of them with actively encouraging and supporting their professional development. You foster innovation as long as it is based on sound research and regularly reviewed to assess impact. A good example of this is the very different approach that your early years team has adopted towards planning. The team wanted to develop independence in the children and had also identified a growing proportion of children who were entering Reception with underdeveloped speech and language. This meant that they were not ready to access the activities the adults wanted them to. The team has developed the skills to respond immediately to the curiosity of the children and build in the language development that allows the children to access learning. This approach is continued in Year 1 and was seen clearly during a visit to the Year 1 classroom, where children’s interest in the snowy weather changed the direction of the lesson and led to the teacher skilfully introducing the vocabulary needed to talk about why you can see your breath in cold weather. Pupils were learning words such as condensation at a time when they were naturally curious about it. The early years team believes that it is this approach that has led to the increase in the proportion of children who reach a good level of development by the end of Reception. This has been above the national average for the past two years. Safeguarding is effective. Leaders have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose, including making sure that all procedures for the safe recruitment of staff are robust. Staff and governors have regular safeguarding training. This contributes to the strong culture of safeguarding in the school and the increased awareness of all staff in relation to safeguarding risks. Pupils report that there is very little bullying at school and are confident that they can talk to staff about any concerns they have.