The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Your determined leadership has brought about improvements to teaching and learning. Well supported by the governing body, you have rigorously addressed any issues of underperformance and have brought together a skilled and enthusiastic teaching team. You have identified the strengths and current priorities in the school development plan, and you recognise that some of these initiatives are not consistently implemented across the school. You also acknowledge that the impact of recent actions on outcomes for pupils is in its early stages, especially in writing. You have raised your expectations for pupils’ outcomes and improved the quality of teaching, learning and assessment through good-quality professional development for staff and sharing in good practice at other schools. These improvements are now accelerating the rates of progress pupils make in their learning. You keep a close eye on the quality of teaching, and your feedback to teachers links directly into focused school improvement planning and teacher appraisal. You acknowledge that teachers do not always pitch work appropriately, and so some activities do not fully challenge and stretch pupils in their learning. As a small school, your teachers know each pupil very well and are beginning to adapt their teaching skilfully to meet pupils’ individual needs. This is exemplified by the good work you do to support pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities. Thorough planning, in consultation with parents and carers, has ensured that pupils’ needs are well met, allowing them to thrive and make good progress from their starting points. It is also noticeable how kind and caring pupils are to one another. Governors have a good understanding of how well the school is doing. They come from a wide range of backgrounds and use their experience well to ask challenging and pertinent questions of leaders. Effective systems and procedures are in place that allow governors to read reports in good time prior to their meetings. This helps them formulate the important questions they wish to ask leaders. Governors agree that they need to keep a closer eye on how well pupils are progressing across the wider curriculum, as well as making sure that the school’s plans clearly state how opportunities will be provided to further challenge the most able pupils. The quality of teaching is generally of a high standard. Teachers and support assistants use questioning skilfully to encourage pupils to think deeply about their learning. Teachers explain tasks and new concepts clearly, using demonstrations effectively to support understanding. Pupils’ books demonstrate that teachers and pupils share high expectations. Pride in presentation and a commitment to the improving of work is evident. You recognise that further work needs to be done in ensuring that the monitoring and evaluation of the quality of teaching by middle leaders links to the school self-evaluation development plan. Pupils told me that they enjoy coming to school and feel safe. This view supports my inspection findings; I observed happy, content and friendly faces throughout the school. Older pupils set a good example to their younger peers through the work they do as digital leaders and the leadership they provide through the school council. Consequently, pupils enjoy coming to school and look forward to the varied and rich topics that your curriculum provides. Safeguarding is effective. You undertake effectively the role of the designated safeguarding leader. Policies, procedures and records are high quality and are up to date. Summary records of incidents of concern are meticulously kept. There are very few records of behaviour incidents or alleged bullying, and pupils spoken with categorically state that no bullying happens at Scotton Lingerfield Community Primary School. All staff receive appropriate training and have a secure understanding of their individual responsibilities for safeguarding pupils. Pupils enjoy school and attendance is good. Pupils said that they feel safe and well looked after. They have complete faith that adults in school will listen to them if they are worried or would like to talk. They are confident that any rare issues of poor behaviour or mishaps in the playground will be dealt with fairly and firmly. Pupils’ attitudes and behaviours in lessons and during informal times are indicative of the strength of the school’s work in this area. Relationships between adults and pupils are supportive and positive. The culture of keeping pupils safe and putting them at the heart of the friendly school community is highly evident. The personal development and welfare of all pupils is a main area of focus for the school. The vast majority of parents who made their views known report that their children are safe in school. Inspection findings Aspirations are high across the school. Since your appointment, you have established rigorous target setting and robust tracking of pupils’ progress. You, and your staff, know the key strengths and areas for development of every pupil. As a result, pupils continue to make good progress across the curriculum. Governors bring a range of appropriate professional skills and experience to the school that enhances their effectiveness and impact. Governors receive highquality information from you. They are linked to different key aspects of the school and are involved alongside leaders in monitoring activities. They have well-thought-through plans to become even more effective in order to support and challenge the staff team further. Pupils are delightfully proud of their school and find it enjoyable. They are considerate of each other as well as adults, and playtimes are cheerful affairs. The environment is secure and well looked after, with an enticing range of opportunities for play and exploration. The manner in which pupils move around the school is calm and lunchtimes are harmonious. Teachers’ ongoing assessments and monitoring of pupils’ misunderstandings in their work allow planned activities to be amended or changed, or extra support deployed. Ensuring that pupils, especially the most able, are always sufficiently challenged is an area you are continuing to address. Teaching seen during the inspection, and analysis of work in books, suggest that teachers usually give all pupils appropriately challenging work, but a focus on this aspect is still needed. Children get off to a strong start in their learning in the early years. Reception children play and learn happily alongside each other, sticking at tasks and maintaining their concentration. Adults support children’s learning well. They use effective questioning and provide a range of activities to support children’s writing and understanding of numbers. Pupils make a good start in their reading. The systematic teaching of phonics starts in Reception and continues into key stage 1. Some pupils read fluently to the inspector during visits to classes. Pupils read widely and often and are developing a love of reading. Pupils in key stage 2 are beginning to develop skills of inference and deduction when reading. Since your appointment, one of your key aims has been to develop leadership roles across the school. You have done this successfully and distributed key priorities to other staff. This has meant shared responsibility, which has led to more innovative approaches to learning. Staff also work closely with other schools to ensure moderation of work and sharing of ideas. As a result, pupils continue to experience high-quality teaching and learning. The development of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is an unmistakeable strength of the school. Pupils’ behaviour and conduct during lessons and outside at playtimes are good. Pupils behave respectfully and with consideration for others. Leaders’ commitment to improve the quality of teaching across the school has ensured that expectations of pupils are high, relationships are strong and pupils’ attitudes to learning support the good progress they now make. Effective use of the pupil premium funding has ensured that support for disadvantaged pupils across the school is increasingly effective. The progress and achievement of disadvantaged pupils now match or exceed that of their classmates in each year group. You have ensured that the school continues to work tirelessly to ensure that all pupils are safe and well cared for. The strong relationships in school and high levels of trust between adults and pupils ensure that pupils’ conduct in lessons and around school is exemplary. Pupils are polite, caring, considerate and friendly to each other and to visitors. Playtimes are harmonious occasions during which pupils play happily together. Safeguarding is highly effective and the school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is excellent. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: teachers’ expectations of pupils remain consistently high and that work challenges and stretches the most able pupils’ thinking and understanding pupils are given more opportunities to refine and improve their written work. 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 Geoffrey Seagrove Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection, I met with you and the school office manager. You and I visited lessons in each key stage. I met with four members of the governing body and the school’s local authority improvement partner. I spoke with pupils about their work and their views of the school. I listened to pupils read and looked in workbooks with you when in lessons. A range of documents was considered relating to safeguarding and external evaluations of the school. I examined the school’s selfevaluation, the school improvement plan, the school’s monitoring of its own performance and its assessment and tracking of current pupils’ progress. I also scrutinised pupils’ achievement in the 2017 statutory assessments, responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire for parents, Parent View, and the school’s website.