The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You offer strong and passionate leadership that is highly valued by staff, governors and the local authority. You provide your team with a clear vision of the school’s future development and you ensure that they contribute meaningfully to your decision-making processes. You are also eager for pupils to play an active role in the school’s development. For example, you involved them in a recent review of the school’s behaviour policy and you have supported them in establishing their own teaching and learning committee. You are rightly proud of the impact that your school’s ethos has on its pupils and your staff. Staff care for pupils, nurture them and support them to succeed. Pupils enjoy coming to school; they get on well with each other and they enjoy learning, both in and out of the classroom. You have high expectations of staff and pupils. Since your appointment in September 2016, you have taken decisive action to improve the quality of teaching across all classes. You have also introduced new, more rigorous, approaches to the monitoring and evaluation of the school’s effectiveness. As a consequence, leaders and teachers have a clear understanding of what is expected of them and what they should expect of others. You are accurate in your assessment of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and your improvement plans are focused on appropriate priorities. However, you acknowledge that it is difficult to measure the impact of certain aspects of your improvement plans as, at times, their expected outcomes are not clear. The quality of teaching, learning and assessment has improved since the previous inspection. Staff are grateful for the high-quality training that they receive both collectively and as individuals; they are very positive about the informal support they receive at their weekly ‘Thursday masterclass’ with senior leaders. Support for newly qualified teachers is strong. The majority of staff who completed the Ofsted staff questionnaire agreed that leaders use professional development to encourage, challenge and support their improvement. Children continue to make a good start to their education at St Augustine’s and a higher-than-average proportion of them attain a good level of development by the end of Reception Year. By the time they reach the end of Year 6, pupils’ attainment at the expected standard continues to be above average. In 2017, pupils’ attainment and progress at the end of key stage 2 improved in reading, writing and mathematics compared to previous years. Governors provide you with highly effective support and challenge; they, too, know the school well and they are passionate about its continued improvement. Governors support the school’s development through their contributions at full governing body meetings, their two committees and their visits to meet school leaders. Both you and governors are in agreement about the need to ensure that all pupils, especially the most able, make the progress they should, and that they do this as a result of consistently strong teaching. You are also aware that some parents gave negative responses to certain questions in the Ofsted online questionnaire, Parent View; in particular, you are keen to improve communication between leaders and the school community. Safeguarding is effective. The leadership team has ensured that safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Governors have a clear understanding of their safeguarding duties and they are effective in carrying them out. Leaders undertake all appropriate checks on staff and these records are scrutinised on a regular basis by a nominated member of the governing body. 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 they say that safeguarding is a part of the school’s culture. Safeguarding records are well kept and any child protection referrals are monitored robustly. Pupils are taught how to stay safe through assemblies, visiting speakers and personal, social, health and citizenship education sessions. These cover topics such as e-safety, bullying and personal safety. Leaders ensure that the school site is well supervised and that pupils are well looked after in and out of class. Pupils say they are safe at school; staff, and the overwhelming majority of parents who responded to Parent View, agree. Pupils say that, on the rare occasions it happens, bullying is dealt with swiftly and effectively.