The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You and your leaders have a clear vision for Two Mile Hill. You are determined that all pupils receive the best possible education. Your vision is shared by your staff team and you continually reflect on how you can improve the school. As a result, the school has made great strides since the previous inspection. Pupils’ achievements, especially in mathematics, are good. However, you know where the school needs to improve further, and leaders demonstrate a relentless drive to continue to improve the school. During visits to classrooms, it was clear that staff build very positive relationships with pupils. Pupils told the inspectors that they feel safe at the school and have great trust in their teachers to provide high-quality care and support. Consequently, pupils’ behaviour in lessons and at break and lunchtimes is good and their attitudes to learning are very positive. Parents appreciate the work staff do to ensure that their children thrive at school. ‘I am proud to say my child attends this school’ was typical of the many positive comments inspectors received. Pupils also confirmed that ‘staff sort out any bullying quickly’, which reassures them and helps them to feel safe and secure. Staff and leaders appreciate the support you and your deputy headteacher give to them to improve the quality of their teaching. They say that you encourage them to ‘try out new ideas and innovate’. This approach has helped the school to improve since the previous inspection. Subject leaders are ambitious and share your passion and drive to improve pupils’ achievement further. Your continued focus on improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment has resulted in pupils’ achievement continuing to rise. Pupils routinely check comments their teachers have made and take time to improve and edit their work, often with a partner. As a result, pupils become independent and resilient learners. They leave Two Mile Hill ready to meet the high expectations of secondary school. Since the previous inspection, you have ensured that the whole school community is involved in drawing up the school’s plans for improvement. As a result, there is a strong sense of a community working together and going in the same direction to provide a high-quality education for the pupils. However, you and your governors confirm that these plans would benefit from a sharper focus on arrangements for checking the achievement and progress of groups, such as the disadvantaged and boys. Safeguarding is effective. The culture of safeguarding is strong. This is because you, your leaders, staff and governors give safeguarding the highest priority. All staff and governors receive appropriate training to identify concerns and spot signs of possible risk and harm. Records of training confirm that teachers are up to date with the most recent guidance to keep children safe. In addition, training includes guidance in recognising the dangers of extremism and radicalisation. Staff take great care to identify safeguarding concerns swiftly. They work closely with local agencies to ensure that pupils receive the care and support they need. This work is a strength of the school. Parents recognise the lengths to which staff go to provide a welcoming and inclusive school where every child is valued. The governor in charge of safeguarding visits the school regularly and checks that the school’s single central record is maintained accurately. All checks are carried out appropriately when you recruit staff. Records are of a high quality. This strong culture of safeguarding is having a positive impact on ensuring that pupils feel safe in school and achieve well. Inspection findings At the start of the inspection, we discussed the main lines of enquiry. The first was to evaluate how well leaders have continued to improve the school and address the areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection. In addition, we examined the impact of subject leaders on raising standards in their subjects. You and your deputy headteacher have concentrated relentlessly on improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment since the previous inspection. You set high standards and staff have responded to these raised expectations. Staff welcome the coaching they receive to improve their teaching as well as opportunities to work together to learn from each other. As a result, you have built a strong staff team who are determined to teach high-quality lessons and enable pupils to achieve well. However, there is no complacency at the school. You work together to ensure continued improvements to the quality of teaching to raise standards further, especially in writing. Your systems for checking pupils’ learning and progress are thorough and effective. Consequently, teachers have an in-depth understanding of pupils’ progress. Each term, teachers meet together to examine pupils’ achievements. The rigour of this work enables you to plan and implement interventions swiftly so that any pupils who have fallen behind ‘catch up’ and make up lost ground. Achievements in 2016 were positive in English and mathematics. Pupils make good progress from their starting points. The school’s information confirms that pupils are on track to achieve well in 2017. Subject leaders are ambitious and highly motivated to improve standards in their subjects. They analyse pupils’ achievement and progress carefully and lead staff training to ensure that staff have the knowledge and skills to deliver the demands of the English and mathematics curriculum. This work has resulted in improved achievement over time. Leaders regularly check learning in pupils’ books and in lessons. In addition, they check that standards of presentation and handwriting are of a high quality. However, this work does not focus precisely enough on the learning and progress of groups, such as the disadvantaged and differences between the achievement of boys and girls, especially in writing. Next, we discussed how well leaders ensure that the most able pupils, including the most able disadvantaged, achieve their potential in reading and writing by the end of Year 6. You were not satisfied with the achievement of these pupils at the end of Year 6 in 2016. Consequently, you have analysed the reasons for this and implemented new strategies this year to help the most able pupils achieve well. You have specifically recognised that some pupils, and especially boys, need help to choose appropriate books to read. In addition, your teachers carefully choose texts to engage pupils and motivate them to read and write. Teachers skilfully question pupils, using their good subject knowledge, to encourage pupils to discuss texts and develop their comprehension and vocabulary effectively. As a result, an increasing proportion of pupils are on track to reach the highest standards. Work in books confirms that differences in the achievement between boys and girls and those who are disadvantaged and those who are not substantially diminish by the end of Year 6. Nonetheless, you recognise the need to continue to focus on the learning and progress of groups of pupils across the school. We then evaluated how well children achieve in reading and writing in the early years, particularly the boys and those who are disadvantaged, so that they are well prepared for Year 1 and Year 2. The early years leader has strengthened the systems to check children’s learning in the Reception classes. Consequently, staff know their children very well. They implement interventions swiftly when they identify that a child is at risk of falling behind. Staff have identified that children need support to develop their speech and language skills to help them to learn to read and write effectively. They plan and put in place speech and language programmes to help children make faster progress. In addition, leaders have improved the school’s approaches to teaching phonics in Reception and Years 1 and 2. Children in Reception quickly learn their initial sounds and were observed reading and writing sentences with confidence during the inspection. The children were thrilled to discuss and write about the owl which visited their class on previous days. Boys, in particular, were very engaged in this ‘owls’ topic. Staff carefully consider children’s and pupils’ interests when planning topics to ensure that the boys in particular engage successfully with learning. Work in books confirms that a higher proportion, including the boys and those who are disadvantaged, are on track to achieve a good level of development this year. Pupils in Year 1 and Year 2 increase their capacity and resilience to write and are heading in the right direction to make good progress and achieve well. Finally, we evaluated the school’s actions to improve pupils’ attendance. The learning mentor works tirelessly to follow up absences and work with families to ensure that their children attend school regularly and are safe. All absences are followed up. As a result of this work, you identify immediately when pupils are absent from school for extended periods of time. You waste no time in contacting the appropriate agencies to ensure pupils’ safety. In addition, you have taken decisive action with parents to underline your stance on improving attendance for a minority of pupils who are persistently absent. Nonetheless, despite your strenuous efforts and personalised support for families, you have identified the need to continue to focus on this important aspect of your work to improve attendance further. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: the quality of teaching, learning and assessment continues to improve further so that pupils, including the most able and the most able disadvantaged, achieve the highest standards, especially in writing leaders, including subject leaders and governors, focus precisely on the achievement and progress of groups across the school when carrying out their monitoring activities leaders continue to implement their principled approach to monitoring attendance so that fewer pupils are persistently absent from school. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Bristol City Council. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Catherine Leahy Her Majesty’s Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection, the inspectors met with you and other leaders, including the leader for early years and your subject leaders for mathematics and English. Also, we spoke with teachers, support staff and pupils, and met with the chair of the governing body. I spoke by telephone with the representative from the local authority with responsibility for this school. During the inspection, both inspectors visited classrooms to carry out a learning walk, accompanied by the deputy headteacher and yourself. We observed pupils’ learning, looked at the work in their books and listened to pupils read in their lessons. In addition, I evaluated the school’s plans for improvement and its self-evaluation, together with records of monitoring of teaching and learning and minutes of the most recent governing body meetings. The inspectors carried out a full review of safeguarding, including an evaluation of the single central record, records of meetings with local agencies and staff training, recruitment and safeguarding policies and procedures. We took account of 31 responses to the Parent View online questionnaire and further responses to the free text service. In addition, the inspectors analysed 22 responses to the staff questionnaire.