The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have worked successfully to strengthen the quality of teaching and have improved outcomes for your disadvantaged pupils, which were identified as areas to improve in your previous inspection. In addition, you have improved the progress that pupils make in reading and mathematics and ensured that pupils leave the school with a good grasp of spelling, punctuation and grammar skills. Your pupils feel safe and secure at school because of the warm and caring atmosphere that you and your staff create. Older pupils set a good example to their younger peers through the work they do to organise play activities 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. As a small school, your teachers know each pupil very well and 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 and/or disabilities. Thorough planning, in consultation with parents, has ensured that pupils’ needs are well met, allowing them to thrive and make good progress from their starting points. It was also noticeable how kind and caring pupils are to one another. One child said, ‘This school is like one big family.’ You have an accurate picture of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and clear plans in place to improve the school further. You know there is more to do to develop the leadership role of subject leaders and you have identified improvements to make in the teaching of writing and mathematics. You make regular checks on the quality of teaching and learning and astutely identify aspects of teachers’ practice that need to improve. Hence, the school is well placed to sustain the improvements it has made since the last inspection. Safeguarding is effective. All members of staff are well trained and understand their safeguarding and child protection responsibilities. You take appropriate steps to ensure that rigorous vetting procedures are followed for all adults that work in the school. You also act quickly and decisively to protect children when necessary. You told me that the support you receive from the local authority has improved, which is helping you and other professionals to coordinate support more effectively and resolve concerns more quickly. Parents and members of staff feel that the school is a safe and secure place. Inspection findings The leadership you provide is much appreciated by all members of staff. Everyone is proud of the progress the school has made. Staff appreciate the feedback they receive about their performance and the training and development opportunities you provide. They benefit from working in partnership with colleagues at the federated school, St Godric’s Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary, and through the wider links with other schools and networks. The governing body is very active and involved in the life of the school. Governors are very supportive, but balance this well by regularly holding you to account for the quality of teaching and the progress of pupils in each class. They make focused visits to see for themselves whether the objectives set in the school improvement plan are being achieved. Governors ensure that additional funding to support disadvantaged pupils and promote sport is carefully audited and has a positive impact. Children make good progress in the Reception class from starting points that are typically below the expected level of development. They learn well because teaching explicitly focuses on developing their language and communication skills, and lays solid foundations to support their reading, writing and number skills. Teachers use good questioning to continually probe and extend children’s understanding. By the end of the Reception Year, most children attain a good level of development. Pupils continue to make good progress across Years 1 and 2. Effective teaching of phonics ensures that pupils quickly learn the sounds letters make. Almost all children reach the expected standard in the Year 1 phonics check and make good progress in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 2. Both the least able and most able readers make strong progress because they regularly receive the specific help they need and are provided with books that are appropriate for their level of development.