The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You provide strong and passionate leadership and are eager to give pupils from your local area the best possible education. You recognise and celebrate the diversity of your school community. Your focus on, ‘thirty-six languages, one cohort’ ensures that pupils and staff at Nene Park Academy work together to deliver your school’s five key values: the pursuit of excellence, valuing people, achievement for all, a high-quality learning environment and extending the boundaries of learning. Your ‘pledges’ programme supports the delivery of your vision very effectively and we observed pupils involved in a wide range of high-quality sessions during one of your regular ‘pledges and futures’ drop-down days. For example, sixth-form students participated in a high-level debate about charity with a university student, while Year 8 pupils enjoyed a session that explored the links between diet, exercise and health. Teachers share your ambition for pupils to excel across the curriculum. They agree that leaders have created a climate in which they are trusted to take risks and innovate in ways that are right for the pupils. Since your previous inspection you have ensured that leaders maintain their focus on continuing to improve the quality of teaching. You have made key appointments to the senior leadership team and you have recently established a new teaching and learning team which is providing effective additional support to teachers. Pupils comment on the strength of teaching at the school, while parents are also very positive about the quality of education that their children receive. You have a clear understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and your plans set out clearly how leaders will continue to drive improvements. Pupils receive a good standard of education. Sixth-form students make good progress, while key stage 4 pupils have made overall progress that is either similar to or better than other pupils nationally for the last three years. You are disappointed with some aspects of the 2017 GCSE results, but are confident that your curriculum changes will support pupils to make continued good and improving progress from 2018 onwards. The Cambridge Meridian Academies Trust (CMAT) and members of the academy council provide you with effective support and challenge. There are strong links across the trust at both governance and leadership levels. This provides you, members of the academy council and school leaders with additional expertise when reviewing your progress and planning for next steps. You are all in agreement of the need to ensure that your most able pupils make greater progress and that all staff consistently implement the new behaviour policy. Safeguarding is effective. The leadership team has ensured that safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Leaders undertake all appropriate checks on staff and these records are scrutinised on a regular basis by a nominated member of the academy council. Staff are well trained and they know how to identify any signs that pupils are at risk. Staff understand the school’s systems for reporting concerns and state that safeguarding is a part of the school’s culture. Safeguarding records are well kept and any child protection referrals are monitored and followed up robustly. Pupils are taught how to stay safe through assemblies, tutorial sessions and ‘pledges and futures’ days that cover topics such as online safety, bullying and child sexual exploitation. They say that the school site is safe and they know who to talk to if they have any concerns. Pupils say that when bullying occurs it is normally dealt with effectively. Those who attend the school’s hub for pupils with autistic spectrum disorder are well looked after. Inspection findings We pursued a number of lines of enquiry to ascertain whether the school continues to be good. The first question related to the extent to which leaders’ work to improve the quality of teaching is accelerating the progress of the most able pupils currently in the school. Leaders now judge the overall quality of teaching using a wider range of evidence than they did previously. Their judgements are now made against the ‘Nene Park mark’, which is leaders’ criterion for high-quality teaching.