The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have established a commitment to ongoing improvement that is shared by all staff and members of the governing body. You have strengthened leadership by giving senior and middle leaders responsibility for developing initiatives to improve pupils’ outcomes and well-being. Your team has secured improvement in many priority areas. As a result of clear leadership, rigorous systems and effective teaching, pupils make good progress and achieve good and improving standards. You and your team have addressed many of the areas for improvement identified at the last inspection. In many lessons, pupils are given more time to explore problems. You are ensuring that better systems are in place to share good practice, while encouraging your team to consider more carefully how work is pitched towards pupils of differing abilities. You, your team and your governing body have a clear awareness of areas for improvement that are being addressed through your improvement plan. Self-evaluation is accurate and enhanced by regular checks on pupils’ progress and the quality of teaching. Your deputy headteacher holds termly meetings with teachers to review the progress of pupils in their classes. These reviews provide a detailed breakdown of the progress of pupils with different abilities and needs. Teachers use these meetings and additional reflections to modify their teaching and interventions to address any areas of underachievement. You have restructured leadership to give leaders more autonomy for school improvement. You and your assistant headteacher have worked with the early years team to review many aspects of provision. New strategies led to a significant increase in the proportion of pupils reaching a good level of development in 2017. Your deputy headteacher has worked with colleagues on initiatives to increase challenge in mathematics, while leaders have also successfully introduced measures to accelerate pupils’ progress in reading. New initiatives are beginning to address weaker progress for some pupils in writing, particularly boys, although these initiatives are not consistently effective across all classes. You have also developed leadership across the wider curriculum. Colleagues have specific responsibilities for subjects such as physical education, science and technology development. This contributes to a strong enrichment curriculum that enables pupils to develop broader insights into subjects and develop links with wider practitioners, such as writers, historians and environmentalists. Pupils value these opportunities to widen their experience and develop their self-confidence. While leaders are developing these wider opportunities, pupils are not consistently developing subject-specific skills in sufficient depth in subjects such as science, geography and history. In 2017, your team responded more purposefully to the demands of the new national curriculum, with improving outcomes across all key stages. Pupils made good progress in reading and mathematics at the end of key stage 2, although their progress in writing was not as strong. The proportions of pupils reaching expected standards in reading, writing and mathematics were above those seen nationally at key stages 1 and 2. Increased challenge enabled increasing proportions of pupils to work at a greater depth of understanding at key stage 1, although the proportions achieving these standards at the end of key stage 2 were below those seen nationally. You and your team pay considerable attention to the emotional needs and the wider personal development of pupils. You have trained staff on accredited programmes to provide social and emotional support for pupils. Pupils recognise and value the actions taken by teachers and teaching assistants to support their emotional and physical well-being. You have worked with staff to establish a new behaviour policy that places an emphasis upon positive behaviour. Pupils value the tolerant and positive ethos you have engendered. They believe bullying is rare and are confident that adults will address any concerns that they have. You maintain a continual vigilance on pupils’ welfare, encouraging all staff to note down any concerns or ‘niggles’, so that these can be addressed before they escalate. Governors have a very strong understanding of the school’s strengths and areas for improvement. They have a clear and well-focused programme of visits to the school. You provide governors with regular updates on pupils’ progress that they question at committee meetings and meetings of the full governing body. The chair of the governing body has more regular meetings to maintain a continual focus upon pupils’ progress and welfare. Governors have well-defined roles that enable them to successfully provide appropriate support and challenge. The chair of the governing body and his team have devised appropriate committee structures to hold leaders to account. Safeguarding is effective School leaders and governors maintain a continual focus on pupils’ welfare and have established a strong culture of safeguarding. Rigorous checks are made on the suitability of adults working at the school. The headteacher ensures that staff receive up-to-date training on key safeguarding issues. Any concerns over pupils’ welfare are pursued thoroughly and recorded accurately. School leaders and governors carry out regular reviews of safeguarding practice. The vast majority of pupils feel safe in school and their parents and carers agree. Pupils feel that bullying is extremely rare and that staff are highly effective in addressing any potential instances of bullying. Pupils appreciate the actions that teachers take to promote their physical and mental well-being. Pupils have attended assemblies with representatives of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to deepen their understanding of their personal safety. Pupils were able to discuss the actions they could take to remain safe, for example the actions needed to stay safe online. Inspection findings You have developed a positive ethos where staff demonstrate a strong understanding of pupils’ needs. Staff have developed specific expertise to support pupils’ social and emotional welfare. Pupils demonstrate positive attitudes to learning and show respectful attitudes towards one another and adults. Levels of attendance are typically above average as pupils and parents value their education, although variance remains for some small groups of pupils. Leaders have developed successful approaches to encourage pupils’ interest in reading. New class novels and wider reading texts are now better aligned to pupils’ interests and abilities. These strategies are supporting improving rates of progress and enabling increasing proportions of pupils to work at greater depth. Outcomes in the phonics screening check were above those seen nationally in 2017. Leaders have introduced new strategies to improve teaching in mathematics and these have led to much-improved outcomes across the school over the past two years. Pupils have numerous opportunities to consolidate their understanding of number and calculations. Teachers are enhancing this by providing increasing opportunities to develop pupils’ reasoning skills and apply them to problemsolving tasks. Leaders have recognised that standards in writing and rates of progress have not been as strong as those in reading, particularly for boys. New initiatives are helping to build pupils a stronger understanding of narrative structure and writing. Pupils are developing their understanding through new techniques, including representing texts though visual symbols. While there are signs of improvement, these initiatives are not being implemented consistently across all classes and variance in progress remains, particularly for boys.