The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have established a strong staff team which shares your ambitious vision for the school and all its pupils. Governors and the local authority have full confidence in you and your senior leaders to take the school even further. Staff, parents and carers have an overwhelmingly positive view of the school and all the pupils I met reported that they feel safe and happy. There are many opportunities for extra-curricular learning activities and the curriculum is broad and enriching. You and your deputy headteacher have worked tirelessly to ensure that teaching is consistently good across all year groups so that pupils make secure progress in their learning. You have succeeded in this because you have provided high-quality training and support to staff, coupled with exceptionally effective systems to check on the quality of teaching and learning. At the previous inspection, you and your leadership team were challenged to improve the teaching of English so that pupils use grammar, punctuation and spelling more accurately in their writing in a range of subjects. Writing outcomes over the last two years have been much better than those seen nationally. In 2017, all groups made good progress in writing and the proportion of all pupils reaching expected standards was almost 20% higher than the national average. Work in the books of current pupils is equally impressive. Pupils of all abilities are producing extended pieces of writing that are organised into sentences correctly and display largely accurate spelling. The most able pupils are adept at using paragraphs, a variety of grammatical structures and advanced punctuation. Their writing is peppered with rich vocabulary that suits the varied writing purposes. Pupils work conscientiously to edit and improve their work, following thorough guidance from their teachers. Written work is celebrated well through eye-catching displays around school. You and your leadership team were also asked to improve the school improvement processes so that plans identified more clearly how success could be measured. The current school improvement plan, underpinned by separate subject action plans, is a detailed document that focuses on priorities drawn from sharp analysis of assessment outcomes. Actions are linked well to success criteria, with mechanisms in place for reporting back to you and other leaders and the governing body. Key objectives link to a tight programme of monitoring strategies across different subjects, and your subject leaders are having a strong impact on standards that are now consistently good. A new assessment tracking system is firmly established and is helping you, other leaders and teachers to pinpoint variations and challenge any underachievement. There is now a comprehensive overview of attainment and latest assessment outcomes show an upward trend in reading and mathematics attainment for all groups. In 2017, at the end of Year 6, progress and attainment were just below the national averages in reading and below averages in mathematics. Proportions of disadvantaged pupils reaching expected standards in these subjects, however, were well below those of other pupils nationally. For all current cohorts this year, the proportions already at expected standards are higher than at the end of last year. In some cases, outcomes for disadvantaged pupils are as much as 40% higher. Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities are also making good progress. Safeguarding is effective. You and your leadership team have ensured that safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. All recruitment checks are managed well and there is an effective induction system for new staff. You ensure that your staff are updated in a timely way about any safeguarding issues and that staff are clear about procedures to follow, should they have any concerns about the well-being of a pupil. One teaching assistant explained: ‘Nothing too big, nothing too small – we deal with it all accordingly.’ Pupils I spoke with were unanimous in saying that they feel happy and safe at school. This was echoed by the parents who met me and by staff in their online survey responses. Bullying is a rarity, and pupils remembered the anti-bullying messages and their promises to be kind. Over the past year, however, a small minority of pupils have presented with extremely challenging behaviour. Your leadership team and staff have done their utmost to meet these pupils’ needs but, on occasion, you have needed to use exclusion as a sanction. You have introduced additional counselling to support pupils who find it hard to control their emotions, 2 and a new behaviour policy and reward system have helped to considerably reduce incidents of poor behaviour. Attendance has been good over time, though it is currently just in line with the national average. The attendance of disadvantaged pupils is slightly below that of other pupils nationally. You are actively focusing further efforts to reduce this difference. Inspection findings During this inspection, in addition to considering how well safeguarding arrangements were managed, I wanted to explore how well leaders manage school improvement processes, the quality of teaching in mathematics and the impact of the pupil premium funding. School improvement planning is at a sophisticated level and your senior leaders have built in frequent checks to measure progress. There is a clear feedback loop so that evaluation summaries are widely circulated and governors are informed in a timely manner. For example, a governor was able to discuss findings from the previous week’s monitoring report on the latest observations of mathematics teaching. Your subject leaders produce reports on an individual and group level that highlight areas for reflection, and these are revisited again and again to cement good practice. Your leaders dip into pupils’ books frequently to spot improvements and congratulate staff. ‘We check on quality little and often because we have found that works best,’ they said. The deployment of the deputy headteacher to support school improvement has been pivotal in its progress over the last two terms. He has coordinated training programmes and, with colleagues, has been able to seek out effective practice in other settings, and then use the knowledge to shape provision in your school. Staff value the opportunities to work with a number of external consultants, colleagues and local authority advisers as part of curriculum research projects. For example, a teacher from each year group gained considerable confidence in the teaching of mathematics through extended professional development. This investment in training is bearing fruit. Teaching in mathematics is now securely good and, in some cases, it is exemplary. Pupils enjoy mathematics lessons and are becoming more and more adept at manipulating numbers mentally to aid them when solving problems. They use correct mathematical language routinely to explain their thinking and are highly engaged in their work, which they complete to a high standard. They take delight in proving a point, as seen when Year 6 pupils demonstrated their knowledge of lowest common denominators and factors to identify the odd fraction out. There are some opportunities to apply mathematics in science subjects, and you intend to extend these opportunities to other subjects. The use of pupil premium funding has not been fully effective over time. This is because it has not been targeted with sufficient precision to address pupils’ needs. Evaluation of spending has not clarified which approaches were most productive or offered the best value. However, from September 2017, you have raised the profile of this group so that all teachers are fully aware of progress 3 and gaps in understanding. The deputy headteacher is championing this work and has drawn on successful expertise in other schools. Teachers themselves have initiated additional after-school mathematics clubs to target support towards disadvantaged pupils. As a result of improved teaching, additional support and extra tuition, outcomes for current disadvantaged pupils are rising sharply, although you accept that improvements are recent and there is more work to do to diminish the differences in outcomes when compared with other pupils. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: Proportions of disadvantaged pupils meeting and exceeding expected standards in reading and mathematics rise, so that they are closer to national averages, by: identifying barriers to learning for individual pupils in order to meet their needs more effectively further supporting these pupils to improve their attendance at school building on the best practice evident in other schools checking closely on the success of any additional strategies and initiatives provided for these pupils. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Rotherham. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely James Reid Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During this inspection, I met with you and your senior and subject leaders. You, your deputy headteacher and I jointly observed teaching and learning in four classes. I also viewed the school’s latest assessment information. The deputy headteacher and I scrutinised pupils’ work in a range of subjects and I listened to pupils from Years 3 and 6 reading to me. I examined documentation, including the school improvement plan and associated action plans. I looked at information published on the school’s website and also safeguarding records. I met with governors and spoke to a representative of the local authority. I considered the views of parents, staff and pupils by talking to them informally, by meeting a group of pupils and from online responses to Ofsted’s staff and parent surveys, including Ofsted’s Parent View, to which there were 13 responses.