The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Pupils’ outcomes at the end of the Reception Year and key stage 1 have been higher than the national averages for the past two years. Pupils make average progress in writing and mathematics through key stage 2. They have achieved broadly in line with, or above, the national averages for the expected standards in those subjects in the past two years. However, pupils’ progress in reading through key stage 2 has been lower than that of other pupils nationally. You have taken many actions to improve reading and the pupils demonstrate a love of reading. However, these actions did not impact quickly enough to ensure that the pupils who left Year 6 in 2017 made good progress in reading. Current pupils are now making better progress, although teachers’ expectations of how well pupils answer questions about their reading are not consistently high enough. You have created a warm and positive atmosphere for learning. You are very committed to ensuring that pupils achieve well. You and your dedicated team of staff have created a caring and inclusive ethos for learning which pupils enjoy. Pupils’ attendance is above the national average. Pupils enjoy the ‘wakey shaky’ physical warm-up activity in the morning. They say it helps them to get ready for learning. Pupils who completed the pupil survey, and those who spoke to the inspector, were very positive about school life. They enjoy the regular visits which complement the curriculum. For example, pupils have enjoyed dressing up as Roman soldiers and re-enacting a Roman battle, as well as the visit to Harry Potter World which has inspired pupils to read the books. Children in the early years make a great start. There is a vibrant and enthusiastic environment for learning. The children are highly engaged in their learning and are supported well by skilled adults to make good progress. One child, who received some initial help to order numbers 1 to 10, was then able to complete the activity independently, using the strategies he had been taught. The proportion of children who achieve a good level of development at the end of the early years has been consistently above the national average for the past three years. Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported very well by teachers and teaching assistants and make good progress. Work is well matched to their abilities and this group of pupils makes good progress from their starting points. Parents are highly supportive of the school. The large majority of parents who completed the online questionnaire said they would recommend the school to other parents. One parent wrote on the Ofsted free-text service, ‘The staff encourage a positive attitude within the children and their sincere praise for the good work and personal qualities serves as excellent motivation.’ At the last inspection, the inspector asked you to improve pupils’ progress in mathematics by giving pupils more opportunities to improve the speed of their mental calculations and to enable more pupils to achieve highly in mathematics. You have had some success with these areas for development. You provide time in the curriculum for pupils to practise their number skills, including mental calculations, each day. Pupils are confident in their knowledge of number and many can complete their mental calculations quickly. At the end of key stage 1, more pupils have recently achieved the higher standard in mathematics than the average figure seen nationally. However, in key stage 2, the proportion of pupils who achieve the higher standard is just below the national average. The most able pupils are not being challenged well enough to complete more difficult questions and they have too few opportunities to develop their mathematical reasoning skills. The inspector also asked you to improve the achievement of disadvantaged pupils. At the end of key stage 2, this group of pupils made broadly the same progress as other pupils nationally in writing and mathematics. They made less progress in reading, similar to other pupils at the school. The school’s tracking information of current pupils and scrutiny of their work show they are making good progress and the majority are broadly achieving age-related expectations. Safeguarding is effective. You take prompt action when a concern has been raised about a child. You liaise well with other agencies, including social care, to ensure that children are safe. The staff are very knowledgeable of their responsibilities to keep children safe and are 2 vigilant. Pupils are taught how to keep themselves safe. The recent visit by the police helped inform the older pupils about how to stay safe when using a mobile phone. Pupils who spoke to the inspector felt safe and said that bullying rarely happens. All pupils who completed the pupil survey said that teachers are good at resolving issues related to bullying. The governor responsible for safeguarding is very knowledgeable and has led training for staff. The governors ask pertinent questions about safeguarding and have ensured that there are enough staff trained to take up the designated lead role of safeguarding if the headteacher is not at school. The school has completed all the necessary checks on adults who work at the school and recorded these checks on the single central record. The school’s safeguarding records are detailed and stored securely, although some of the paperwork was not stored in an orderly enough manner to make it easily accessible to read in a chronological order. Inspection findings You and your team are highly committed to ensuring that the pupils receive a good education. You have ensured that the staff receive training to continually improve their practice. This has included training for the mathematics leader, who has subsequently led training for staff at the school. As a result, the teaching of mathematics has improved and the pupils are making better progress. Some staff have also observed the teaching of reading at another school and improved their teaching as a result. However, you are aware that further training is required in both subjects and had already planned for this to take place. Governors, who monitor the school’s work closely and challenge the staff about the progress pupils are making, have supported the requests for training. Younger pupils are taught mathematics very well. Adults provide many opportunities for pupils to learn the value of number through using practical resources and pupils can count objects accurately. Teachers follow the school’s calculation policy closely. This has resulted in a consistent approach in helping pupils develop their calculation skills. Older pupils are confident when deciding which method to use to solve a calculation and can use an alternative method to check their work. However, the most able pupils are not challenged consistently to make them think hard. Some most-able pupils told the inspector that mathematics can be too easy. Furthermore, scrutiny of pupils’ work shows that teachers do not provide enough opportunities for pupils to develop their mathematical reasoning skills to gain a deeper understanding of the subject. Following the weak outcomes for reading at the end of key stage 2 in 2016, you implemented actions to promote reading. These included buying new books for the library, rewarding pupils to read more at home, ensuring that teachers read high-quality books to children, and workshops for parents to inform them about the expectations of the curriculum. Pupils told me how much they enjoy reading 3 and could tell me about the books they were reading when I asked them at morning breaktime. Teachers received training on how to provide challenging questions for pupils to assess their comprehension skills in May 2017. Teachers challenge the pupils to learn new vocabulary, which they enjoy. Although teachers do ask good-quality questions, they do not consistently expect the pupils to answer the questions in detail or complete the questions that have been set. Consequently, pupils do not demonstrate a deep understanding of the texts as well as they should. Disadvantaged pupils through the school are making good progress. The school tailors support for each pupil to meet their needs. Scrutiny of their work shows that pupils who had not reached age-related expectations are catching up quickly. The pupils are listened to reading at school regularly. Recently, all disadvantaged pupils have passed the phonics check, either in Year 1 or Year 2. The attendance of disadvantaged pupils is very high. It is above the national average for all pupils. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: pupils answer questions about the texts they read in sufficient detail to demonstrate a deep understanding of their reading the most able pupils are routinely challenged in mathematics and have more opportunities to develop their mathematical reasoning skills. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Derbyshire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Martin Finch Her Majesty’s Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection, I met with you and the leaders of English and mathematics. I spoke with parents and observed pupils at breaktime. I visited all the classrooms and looked at pupils’ work. I met with five governors, including the chair of the governing body. I met with a group of pupils. You and I reviewed records about attendance and keeping children safe. I studied your school improvement plan, your self-evaluation and minutes of the governing body meetings. I looked at your documents relating to performance management. I considered the 44 responses to the Ofsted free-text service, the 65 responses to Parent View, the 17 responses to the staff survey and the 25 responses to the pupil survey.