The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You and your senior colleagues have led the school with determination, care and integrity. A very large majority of pupils, staff, parents and carers recognise and appreciate the way you have created a learning environment in which pupils can thrive. The school has continued to improve since the previous inspection. The overall progress that pupils make at key stage 4 has, on average, been consistently in line with, or better than, the progress made by pupils nationally. Students make similar overall progress in the sixth form. You have been determined to fulfil the school’s espoused commitment to help all pupils ‘aspire and achieve’. Pupils are incredibly proud of their school and clearly enjoy attending. They value the school’s unique blend of buildings, combining considerable history and character with modern sports facilities. As a result, they move around the site in a calm and orderly fashion and treat their facilities with care and consideration. They wear their uniforms smartly and they are very polite and courteous to adults and each other. They wholeheartedly engage in a very wide range of extra-curricular opportunities. Teaching continues to improve. There is an industrious, purposeful and productive atmosphere in all lessons. Pupils work diligently, reflectively and with enthusiasm. Teachers consistently create and sustain constructive, trusting relationships. Pupils are confident in contributing to lessons and they ask and answer questions articulately. They are never afraid of being wrong. Overwhelmingly, they maintain neat, clear, written records of their work which will aid future revision. You and your senior colleagues have focused appropriately on following the recommendations made in the previous inspection report. You have worked very successfully to improve behaviour and the school’s behaviour policy is applied consistently. It is now extremely rare for any pupil’s learning to be disrupted by the behaviour of others. Teachers use questioning skilfully to explore and strengthen pupils’ understanding and they effectively use detailed assessment information to plan their lessons. You are certainly not complacent, and school leaders and governors are ambitious to improve the school further. The school’s self-evaluation is thorough and perceptive and school leaders have established detailed plans to work towards the targets identified, such as ensuring that the remaining inconsistencies in the performance of different subject departments can be eliminated. Most importantly, you are very conscious that, over time, disadvantaged pupils at the school have not achieved as well as they should. All school leaders are clear that current strategies, which are successfully accelerating the progress of disadvantaged pupils currently in the school, need to continue to be implemented with rigour and consistency. Safeguarding is effective. Leaders, including governors, have successfully focused on ensuring the safety and well-being of pupils, and this has contributed to the creation of a vigilant and transparent culture of safeguarding. The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are detailed and of high quality. All staff and governors have had relevant safeguarding training which is regularly updated. Staff are clear that no concern is too small to report, and all concerns are followed up methodically. Effective use is made of an electronic system of collating and storing records. Staff make referrals to external agencies that are timely and appropriate. Information is shared effectively with parents when it is appropriate, and constructive working relationships with other agencies help to keep pupils safe. Links with agencies concerned with mental well-being are particularly well developed. Opportunities for developing pupils’ understanding of how to stay safe are successfully threaded through the curriculum. These are found in assemblies, tutorial periods and lessons throughout the school. This includes helping pupils to deal with any risks they may routinely face, including the use of the internet and social networking sites. A very large majority of pupils and parents say that pupils feel very safe at the school. Pupils are very confident that there are adults at school they can talk to if they need advice and that the school will deal effectively with any concerns they report.