The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the previous inspection. You and other leaders have responded well to the areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection. You now use information about what has happened in the past to inform your next steps as a school. For example, you identify which groups of pupils have not achieved as well in particular subjects as you expect them to. You have put measures in place to help them catch up and these are effective. You base your improvement work across the school on a secure understanding of which areas could still be better. Middle leaders are increasingly effective. They have developed schemes of learning which show what should be taught and when in their subject areas. They check that teachers cover the topics they have set out in these plans. Subject leaders demonstrate to other teachers what different standards of work look like. This ensures that teachers know what pupils in their class should aim for. Subject leaders have a clear understanding of their strategic role in developing the quality of provision. Senior and middle leaders have already begun to implement the next step in their plans to develop middle leadership. Subject leaders are in the early stages of checking pupils’ progress against expectations of what they should achieve. There is still more to do to make this aspect of provision as strong as it could be. Parents appreciate the good work of the school. Most parents who responded to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View, were positive in all parts of the survey. They were particularly pleased with how happy and safe their children feel. Pupils I spoke with agreed. They told me they like school and feel safe. Safeguarding is effective. The leadership team has ensured that safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Leaders ensure that staff have up-to-date training. They have an effective system in place for staff to report concerns about pupils’ well-being. They record these clearly and follow them up with appropriate actions, including working with external agencies where appropriate. Leaders teach pupils to keep safe and pupils say they feel safe. Pupils I spoke with said that there is an adult in school to talk to if something is worrying them. They also said that bullying is rare but that if it does happen, adults deal with it well. Some minor administrative errors were found in staff recruitment checks at the start of the inspection. These were quickly rectified. While leaders’ files about pupils’ welfare contain appropriate information and are adequate to keep pupils safe, some could be better organised to be in line with best practice. Inspection findings I wanted to establish how well you and other leaders check the attendance of all groups of pupils and whether you act promptly to address low attendance. This was a development point arising from the previous inspection. In addition, while attendance overall is higher than the national average, the attendance of some groups of pupils was lower than the national average in the most recent published attendance figures for the school. You now monitor the attendance of pupils closely. Where any individual’s attendance falls below your expectations, you act quickly. You have chosen to use a staged approach, involving writing to parents, calling meetings and visiting pupils’ homes. This approach is working for you. You were able to show me how your work with individual pupils and their families is improving their attendance and contributing to the good levels of attendance at the school. I also wanted to find out if the teaching of writing in key stage 2 was effective. This was because, in the past, pupils have not typically made as much progress in writing as in reading and mathematics during key stage 2. In particular, in 2018, boys and pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) made less progress than others. The teaching of writing is effective. Current pupils’ work shows that they write in a wide range of styles and develop strong writing skills over time. There is no discernible difference between the progress of boys and that of girls. Pupils with SEND also make good progress. This effective development of pupils’ writing is underpinned by teachers’ consistently high expectations of what pupils should achieve. They routinely identify and address pupils’ misconceptions and guide them on how to improve. Teachers help individual pupils to build well from their starting points, ensuring that the support pupils receive is based on moving them on from what they already know and can do. This allows teachers to meet the different needs of different pupils well. My next line of enquiry related to the quality of teaching in mathematics at key stage 1. Over time, pupils have not achieved as well in this subject at key stage 1 as they have in reading and writing when compared to the national average. Much teaching of mathematics at key stage 1 is effective at helping pupils to move forward. I saw examples of skilful questioning by teachers which developed pupils’ understanding, for instance, and pupils’ work shows that many of them make good progress over time. There is scope to further improve the teaching of mathematics at key stage 1. Pupils’ work is often untidily stored, making it difficult for them to review their prior learning. Some most able pupils are not challenged enough by the work they do, meaning they do not attain as highly as they could. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: they organise all records about pupils’ welfare in line with best practice they build on their successful work to improve middle leadership by embedding their plans for subject leaders to monitor pupils’ progress across the curriculum teachers make sure that pupils’ work is well organised and that the most able pupils are challenged to achieve as well as they can in key stage 1 mathematics. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Essex. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Andrew Hemmings Her Majesty’s Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection I spoke with you, other leaders, three governors and a representative of the local authority. I visited parts of eight lessons, accompanied by leaders, and reviewed pupils’ work in their books. I looked at information about pupils’ progress and reviewed a range of documentation relating to the school’s selfevaluation, development planning and safeguarding arrangements. I also reviewed attendance information. I considered the 91 responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, and the 84 responses from parents to the free-text option. There were no responses to Ofsted’s staff or pupil surveys. I spoke with a range of pupils during their lunchtime to hear their views.