The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You and the staff at St George’s RC Primary are passionately committed to meeting the needs of pupils within the disadvantaged community you serve. Over half of your pupils are eligible to receive the pupil premium and around one in 10 of your pupils speak English as an additional language. In addition, a high proportion of pupils joins or leaves the school during key stages. Nevertheless, pupils thrive because teaching over time is of good quality and pupils display consistently positive attitudes to learning. Pupils from different ethnic groups told me that they feel very welcomed and included from the start. You take particular care to check the impact that the additional support you provide has on pupils’ progress and attendance. The extra help staff provide for pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities and for pupils who speak English as an additional language is carefully recorded and checked across the year to determine whether it is working effectively. All members of staff who responded to the staff survey said that the school has improved under your leadership. Parents who responded to Parent View, Ofsted’s online survey, agree and all would recommend the school. You hold an accurate evaluation of the school and know its strengths and areas for development well. Your plans for improvement are sharply written and give the staff a clear sense of direction. You have also built an effective working relationship with the governing body. The governors have undertaken appropriate training and have become much more active in the school. They make frequent visits to gauge the effect of leaders’ actions to improve the school. Where they need to, they challenge and hold leaders firmly to account. These qualities of leadership have successfully addressed the areas for improvement identified in the last inspection. The improvements to mathematics teaching are a good example of your effective leadership. When you became headteacher approximately three years ago, you recognised that the school had poor planning in place for mathematics teaching. Since then, you and the mathematics leader have addressed this and raised everyone’s expectations. Training has been provided, which has improved teachers’ subject knowledge. Teachers are increasingly challenging pupils to master basic mathematical skills and training them in how to solve more challenging problems. Pupils practise basic calculations against the clock every day, and the introduction of ‘Discovery Fridays’, when pupils investigate more complex problems, is a direct response designed to address a weakness in pupils’ reasoning skills. Last year, outcomes at the end of key stage 2 in mathematics were disappointing and revealed some gaps in pupils’ knowledge. In particular, the most able pupils made less progress than they should and none attained the higher standard. The picture for pupils currently in the school is much stronger, however, and around a third of pupils in each year group are currently on track to attain the higher standard in mathematics. You have provided your staff with a good range of training opportunities to develop their skills. This year, you have established a link with Gateshead local authority to access a broad range of training. Your middle leaders are already benefiting from the leadership programme they are attending. The quality of their checks on teaching and learning were too generalised and lacked detail in the past. More recent checks are becoming more searching and, as a result, the feedback that staff receive is becoming more specific and helpful. However, they need to hone their skills further, as some basic weaknesses in the quality of pupils’ handwriting and presentation are being missed, and some teachers set tasks that do not ask enough of some pupils. Safeguarding is effective. Leaders take a rigorous approach to safeguarding pupils. Thorough checks are made on adults who work in or visit the school, and staff training is kept up to date and in line with the latest government guidance. Displays in the staff room and weekly briefings ensure that safeguarding policies and procedures are well understood. Leaders ensure that detailed records of actions taken to protect children are maintained. Your work on the Newcastle school safeguarding partnership ensures that you keep your staff well informed and knowledgeable. The school draws on a range of external agencies to support the school’s more vulnerable pupils and carefully tracks the effect of these partnerships.