The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Since your appointment just over a year ago, you have tackled your role with a calm and resolute approach. You have worked very effectively between the two schools in the federation. You have skilfully ensured that Rosedale has remained a priority, despite other demands on your time. Your determined leadership and skilled approach have built on existing strengths in school and enhanced further the quality of teaching and learning. You have identified the strengths and current priorities for the school accurately. The wholeschool team deals very sensitively and effectively with significant pupil mobility during the school year. You have taken a sensible and methodical approach to seeking appropriate advice and support from both the local authority and other headteacher colleagues. The school is well on the way to maximising the benefits from sharing resources and expertise across the federation. There is now a strong and substantial foundation on which to build and take the school forward, putting the pupils at the very heart of everything that is done. You have ensured that the areas for improvement raised in the previous inspection report have been mostly addressed successfully. You have already invested in training and support to enhance the professional expertise of staff, and have further plans to access training in the teaching of mathematics in mixed age-range classes. The work in pupils’ books shows a wide range of opportunities to write, using different genres and styles. Pupils are completing detailed and complex mathematical word problems. Improvements have resulted in a rise in both pupils’ attainment and the pace of their progress. The level of challenge in work set is generally pitched well, including for the most able pupils. You are also constantly reviewing and refining the quality of provision in the wider curriculum in subjects other than English and mathematics. Schemes of work and assessments of pupils’ attainment and progress over time are well established in computing and science. You acknowledge that further work is needed in the assessment of pupils’ progress in other curricular subjects. Plans are in place to address this issue, as well as to embed and refine assessment systems to further develop pupils’ ability to reason in mathematics. Governors quite rightly described to me the school’s tangible ethos and mission of ensuring that pupils fulfil their full and true potential. The school presents a strong sense of community, but also inclusively attends to the needs of each individual. Yours is a school that sits at the heart of its community in every sense. As well as being physically at the centre of the village, the school is held in high esteem by the village, as evidenced by the whole-village attendance at last year’s nativity play. The school takes full advantage of community facilities and events, from the country show to the flower festival in the church, from a spring daffodil walk to outdoor learning in nearby woodland. Relationships with parents are strong. Comments such as ‘my child has developed independence and become empowered’ and children ‘enjoy the most wonderful school experience’ are not uncommon. It is easy to recognise these sentiments in an engaging and unique set of pupils. Safeguarding is effective. You have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Policies, procedures and records are of good quality and regularly updated by the school administrator. Staff and governor training is thorough and up to date. Catch-up training is organised for any member of staff who has missed key training. Pupils are kept safe from the risk of extremism and online dangers. Staff have access to well-written policies and guidance and have a secure understanding of their responsibilities for safeguarding pupils. All staff at your small, family-oriented school are keenly aware of their duty to keep children safe and to ensure that all pupils are safe and have opportunities to thrive. You and the school staff know every family and child well, and are completely aware of even the smallest concern or worry. Pupils show high levels of respect for each other, their school and their local community. You have also ensured that the curriculum supports pupils well in maintaining their own safety. Pupils know the dangers of social media and understand they should never post personal details online. Pupils have full trust in adults who look after them and report feeling safe all of the time. They assured me that any minor disputes are immediately and effectively dealt with by all adults. Pupils can explain the different forms of bullying and were indignant at the question of whether bullying ever happened at Rosedale. Inspection findings The quality and consistency of teaching and learning have improved since the previous inspection. Teachers have high, and appropriate, expectations of all pupils as a result of knowing each pupil extremely well. Consequently, pupils have a strong work ethic, and are determined to succeed. Relationships between pupils and teachers, and between pupils, are warm and trusting. Evidence from work in books and from the school’s new assessment system shows that pupils are making consistently good progress across the school, including pupils identified as most able. Pupils in Class 2 worked hard to either sequence a story using picture clues, or improve sentences by adding additional vocabulary, adverbs and adjectives. Some pupils showed a keen sense of humour in their writing. Year 1 pupils thoroughly enjoyed retelling the story of ‘The enormous turnip’ using simple sentences and illustrations. The Nursery children were already confident enough to follow their own interests and explore the attractive and engaging learning environment. Mathematics books show a good range of work, including number and calculation, as well as other mathematical topics such as symmetry, shape, measurement and time. There is a wide range of mathematical word problems, but few examples of pupils using mathematical reasoning skills to explain, justify or prove their thinking. Writing books show how pupils are able to write extensively in a variety of different genres, and how writing is incorporated into topic work. Much work has been undertaken to strengthen and enhance pupils’ ability to correctly use a range of punctuation and grammar conventions. Pupils’ handwriting, presentation and spelling skills are of a good standard. Pupils’ books in science, history, citizenship and topic work are very well presented, covering different themes across the curriculum. You have worked hard to introduce a new approach to assessing pupils’ learning in each unit of the mathematics curriculum, and in reading and writing. Teachers are very clear about the ‘non-negotiable’ aspects of learning that a pupil must achieve to be assessed as working within each year group’s expectations. Purposeful discussions between you and your teachers ensure that any pupils at risk of falling behind, or who are not making enough progress, are identified quickly and appropriate support put into place. Pupils have individual targets for reading, writing and mathematics, broken down into achievable steps as seen on display in Class 1. There have been clear and significant improvements in the way in which teachers use ongoing assessment to adapt work to meet pupils’ needs. You acknowledge that further work is needed to embed and refine current assessment systems so that teachers pitch work even more accurately, according to pupils’ ability and understanding. The school has put in much hard work to plan and adapt the curriculum to meet the needs and interests of the pupils. This has been a challenge given that Class 1 has Nursery, Reception and Year 1 pupils, while in Class 2 there are pupils from the other five year groups. The school uses resources in the local community extremely well, and has developed its approach to learning outdoors through use of local woodland. Work in topic books, including science and history books, is of a good standard. Work in science uses pupils’ skills in writing and mathematics very effectively. In an experiment on the effect of sugary drinks on teeth, pupils wrote an accurate account of the task and used mathematical tables and graphs to illustrate results. Various periods of British and world history are covered in topic and history books, while work in citizenship books discusses important issues such as doing your best, friendship and how to be successful or unsuccessful. While pupils’ learning and progress are assessed well in some subjects, in others systems to check how well pupils are learning over time are not fully developed. As a result, gaps in pupils’ knowledge and understanding are missed. Leaders know that developing this is an important next step. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: current assessment systems are further refined in order that work is pitched accurately, according to pupils’ ability and understanding pupils are provided with regular access to mathematical reasoning activities gaps in pupils’ knowledge and understanding across all subjects are identified quickly. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for North Yorkshire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Phil Scott Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection, I met with you and the deputy designated safeguarding leader. I held a meeting with two governors, including the chair of the governing body and the school administrator. I visited lessons in each key stage and reviewed a sample of pupils’ workbooks from last year and this year to date. I spoke to pupils about their work and their views of the school. I observed pupils’ behaviour at break and lunchtime. A range of documents was considered relating to safeguarding. I examined the school improvement plan, the school’s monitoring of its own performance and its assessment and tracking of current pupils’ progress and attainment. I scrutinised pupils’ achievement in the 2016 and 2017 statutory assessments. I reviewed a number of comments made by parents using the freetext facility. There were insufficient responses to generate results on Parent View. In addition, I scrutinised the school’s website.