The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Since your appointment in January, you have sensibly taken time to understand the school’s context and its key areas for development. Consequently, you know the school well. You have an open, collegiate style of leadership. This is because you believe it is important to empower others to do their jobs and take responsibility for their work. You, with the support of a strengthening senior leadership team, are working with staff effectively to move the school forward. Leaders are well supported by governors, who are highly committed to the school. As one governor said, ‘We feel passionate about the school.’ Governors bring a wide range of skills and experience to the full board. They take an active involvement in school affairs, appropriate to their role, and provide suitable challenge to hold you to account. You have benefited from the support of the local authority school improvement adviser. She has helped you to settle into your new role and identify key priorities. She has also helped to broker reviews of school performance from another external adviser. This work has rightly focused on the achievement of different groups of pupils and improving the quality of teaching. Leaders and the wider staff continue to nurture a culture in which pupils are valued for who they are. Staff care about ‘the whole child’ and ensure that pupils’ educational experience is rich and diverse. At this school, learning is regarded as something to be enjoyed. Classrooms and corridors are bright, vivid and welcoming, showcasing pupils’ work and acting as an additional learning resource. Pupils respond well to this environment and work enthusiastically as a result. You recognise the importance of establishing a good relationship with parents. For example, you greet parents each morning at the school gates as pupils come into school. However, there is a minority of parents who do not think that communication is good enough between school and home. They do not always feel well informed about leaders’ decisions, even though these decisions are taken in good faith and the best interests of pupils. Steady, focused leadership that draws on the strengths of staff is helping to maintain the good quality of teaching. This helped to stabilise teaching when experienced staff left and new staff joined the school. Leaders monitor teaching closely to identify weaknesses and provide professional development to staff according to need. Staff have high expectations of pupils and manage behaviour well, so that pupils are ready for learning. As a result, pupils in most year groups achieve well across the curriculum. At the beginning of the inspection, we agreed on the key lines of enquiry to be considered during the day. These included establishing the effectiveness of actions taken to raise the achievement of pupils throughout the school, including early years. We also considered whether safeguarding is effective. These lines of enquiry are considered below under ‘Safeguarding’ and ‘Inspection findings’. Safeguarding is effective. Leaders take a pragmatic, serious view of safeguarding because they understand its importance. This is why you commissioned an external audit of safeguarding when you took up post. Consequently, you and the deputy designated safeguarding lead have ensured that staff are appropriately trained in child protection and that systems are fit for purpose. Checks to ensure that staff are suitable to work with children are complete and up to date. You have made it clear that staff should report any concerns, however small they may be. Staff know the procedure to follow and whom to speak to should they have concerns. Pupils who spoke with me reported that they feel safe in school, as do most of the pupils who responded to the pupil survey issued during the inspection. This is because the school site is secure and there are staff they can talk to if they have any worries. It is also because the large majority of pupils agree that bullying is rare and dealt with effectively when it does occur. One pupil told me, ‘It is chased up really quickly.’ Nearly all parents who responded to the online survey Parent View agree that their children are safe in school. Site security has recently improved as new, more effective, gates have been installed. Staff also have a good line of sight from the main offices, which helps with monitoring of visitors on to the school site.