The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. It is testimony to your calm and purposeful leadership that you have remained focused on raising pupils’ achievement and supporting pupils’ emotional well-being, despite being without significant senior leadership support for much of the academic year. You and governors have tried unsuccessfully to appoint a substantive deputy headteacher on three occasions, but you are resolute to keep trying until you find the right person for your school. At the same time, your key stage 1 leader has relinquished her post after a prolonged absence. While existing leaders have ably supported you, it is difficult nonetheless. The strong Christian ethos pervades the school. All staff and governors share your commitment to support pupils’ emotional and social development. You recognise that, for many pupils, it is often self-confidence that prevents them from achieving the best they can, so a focus for your work has been to nurture pupils’ resilience in learning. In talking to pupils in class and at playtime, it is clear you have had success in this. Pupils are clear that it is OK to get something wrong, but important to ‘have a go’. Strong and trusting relationships are evident and pupils are confident that their teachers will help them. You successfully use all available funding towards reducing any differences in learning that may exist, through individual or small group support. You were rightly concerned about the weaker progress in mathematics made by pupils who took the national assessments in summer 2016 at the end of key stage 2. This was in contrast to the strong progress made by pupils in reading and writing. Leaders’ detailed analysis of what happened in the tests highlighted pupils’ lack of secure reasoning and problem-solving skills and resulted in well-targeted actions to address the issue. You looked at class organisation and ensured that those pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils, who needed targeted support received it. As a result of your actions, there are clear improvements to outcomes in mathematics, particularly at key stage 2. While you acknowledge the improvements made, you recognise that there is still more to do and have already arranged a programme of further support for the forthcoming academic year. Children in the early years get off to a good start in their learning and make good progress from starting points that are generally below that which is typical in children of their age. The classrooms are vibrant and well resourced, and curriculum activities are planned with children’s needs and interests in mind. I particularly wanted to focus on the development of children’s early mathematics skills, which I found to be well established and secure. Children in Nursery were confidently singing counting rhymes and were able to recall numbers in ascending and descending order assuredly. Children in Reception class were finding the difference between numbers and using their early reasoning skills to give out exactly the right number of shoes to fit mini-beasts’ feet. Such is the quality of teaching that this year almost a third of the Reception class have exceeded the expected level of development in mathematics. Assessment across the school is accurate, detailed and well supported by evidence from your monitoring. You track the progress of every pupil in the school each term and have a raft of support available for any individual who may be falling behind in their learning. This ensures that pupils make good progress from their starting points. However, you recognise that there is variability between year groups in the proportion of pupils making the faster progress needed to reach the higher standards, particularly in mathematics. This is an area for further improvement, which you acknowledge. Parents take assurance from your calm leadership. The parents that spoke to the inspector and those that responded to the online questionnaire, Parent View, emphasised the caring nature of the school. They said how much they valued the time invested in their children to ensure that they are well cared for and well supported. Governors are well informed and dedicated to securing the best outcomes for pupils. They have well-established systems in place to monitor the work of the school, and the minutes of their meetings demonstrate the level of challenge given to leaders to improve outcomes. They aim to ensure value for money and that additional funding to support disadvantaged pupils is spent wisely to improve outcomes. Governors acknowledge that more detailed targets for improvement, identified in the school development plan, would enable them to evaluate with greater precision.