The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You and your deputy have provided stable leadership while embracing change and striving to improve further. You are ambitious for the school and regularly and accurately evaluate its strengths and areas for development. Recently you reshaped your leadership team. You took on a full-time leader with expertise in special educational needs and disability and created posts that enabled a number of your teachers to develop subject expertise and leadership skills. As a result, you improved outcomes at the end of key stage 2 in 2017, particularly in writing. During the inspection, pupils were friendly and courteous to each other and to the adults at school. Playtimes were characterised by a ‘family feel’ where older pupils looked after younger pupils. Pupil play leaders organised games for everyone to enjoy. I observed a high degree of engagement in many lessons and a thirst for knowledge. In the Year 6 class, pupils confidently gave explanations of complex grammatical structures and literary devices, such as personification. Pupils take part in a wide range of after-school clubs and represent their school in local events with pride. They are encouraged by staff to take on additional responsibility through the Junior Leader programme. Parents and carers spoke highly of the school and in particular its Christian values and strong sense of community. A parent said, ‘I cannot speak highly enough of the quality of teaching and care which has been shown to my children.’ The families I met in the playground told me that their children are happy to come to school and that they would recommend the school to other families. Safeguarding is effective. Pupils told me that they feel safe at school and can talk to a number of different people if they are worried about something. They appreciate the ‘Worry Box’ where they can post their concerns so that a member of staff can help them. They also find it useful to be able to self-refer to the counsellor at school. Pupils feel that bullying is rare and is dealt with quickly by staff. The majority of parents who responded to Parent View also reported that bullying is dealt with effectively and that they believe that their children are safe at school. Pupils have learned how to keep themselves safe in a range of different contexts. They talked knowledgeably about e-safety, road safety and fire safety. They remembered numerous lessons, assemblies and special events where they learned how to stay safe. Safeguarding arrangements are well managed across the school. As designated safeguarding lead, you understand the risks to your pupils well and have put in place strategies to address these. You have made sure that training for staff is up to date and includes the most recent statutory guidance. As a result, your staff team understand clearly how to help keep pupils safe from harm and what to do if they have a concern. We looked at some case studies together, showing how you follow up disclosures rigorously. This includes engaging the support of specialists both from external agencies and from within your staff team. Inspection findings Attainment on entry to the school is high. By the end of Year 6, attainment in reading, writing, maths, and grammar, punctuation and spelling is high. Pupils are well prepared to start secondary school. Evidence in books indicates that progress over time is good. For the past three years, outcomes at the end of the early years foundation stage have been broadly average, and boys have not attained as well as girls. This difference was greater in reading. You and your deputy have accurately identified this as a key area of development and have made improvements to provision in the Reception Year. You have appointed an early years leader and have a clear plan of support and development for her in her first year. She has a focused plan to improve outcomes at the end of the early years foundation stage, but it is too early to assess its impact on pupils yet. She has set up a range of strategies to develop early reading. In the classroom there is a well-stocked, attractive reading area and a range of reading games. Daily phonics and regular one-to-one reading are key elements of the children’s reading diet. The early years lead has involved parents in a range of strategies to support early reading by using home learning books for reading.