The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have established a school ethos of enjoyment and inspiration. Pupils come willingly to school, attend regularly and engage well with their learning. Pupils are respectful and courteous consistently. Through your inclusive leadership, you have established a harmonious staff team. Relationships between staff and pupils are strong and productive. There is an infectious buzz about the school that reflects the pupils’ positive energy for learning. Parents value the work you do. This comment is typical of many: ‘The leadership, the quality of teaching, the happiness, caring, empathy, inclusiveness of this school is above and beyond anything I could ever hope for my children.’ Since the last inspection, you have improved pupils’ reading so that the progress they make is significantly above the national average. Pupils read Shakespeare, Beowulf and a range of age-appropriate texts in preparation for their next steps in education. Not only are you preparing them well for a comprehensive understanding of literary history, but you are encouraging a sophisticated understanding of British culture, past and present. Pupils’ inference skills are strong and support them well in their end of key stage tests in Year 6. You provide reading lists for pupils and parents on the website so that pupils read suitable books at home as well as at school. You have trained year leaders to oversee and check the work of teachers and pupils. These leaders understand assessment information and use it to support pupils who are falling behind. Similarly, English and mathematics leaders ensure that planning covers the expected curriculum in their subjects well. They are supporting teachers in their preparation for pupils’ learning so that there is uniformity of understanding. This uniformity is reflected in the pupils’ positive progress in reading and mathematics. There is further work to do in writing still, but you and the English leader are aware of this. In 2016, the school became part of the Harbourside Learning Partnership, a multiacademy trust of six local primary, infant and junior schools. You and your staff have gained from the breadth of expertise within the trust. The previous headteacher of the school is the chief executive officer of the trust and he provides valuable support and challenge to you and other leaders. There are many new governors since the last inspection, including the chair. Governors have a complementary skill-set. They are keen to move the school forward on its successful trajectory to further improvements. They ask insightful questions of you and other leaders and seek to make sure that additional funding is spent wisely and with an impact on pupils’ progress. Safeguarding is effective. You and the deputy headteacher, who is the safeguarding designated lead, have created a culture where risks are considered and managed well constantly. The school has appropriate policies to ensure that pupils are well protected. All staff, including governors, undertake training in child protection. The checks undertaken on staff, visitors and recruitment are stringent. Staff know how to keep pupils safe from abuse, sexual exploitation and from the influence of radical or extreme views. You protect pupils well once the school day begins. All volunteers have to attend workshops on safer practices in addition to the expected checks. Inspection findings We looked at the range of writing taking place in the school as, despite improvements in results, this has been a weaker area at key stage 2. You have a comprehensive curriculum that allows pupils to develop their writing skills in English but less so in other subjects. Pupils can articulate their learning about stylistic devices, such as the different aspects needed in diary writing. However, when this understanding translates to the page, pupils’ work is too variable. Some pupils develop competently and, by Year 6, they are skilful in using more complex punctuation, such as colons and semicolons. Their sentence and paragraph formation is secure, and their vocabulary is broadening. However, other pupils are struggling to place commas correctly and are making basic spelling errors too regularly. Teachers are not checking this consistently, so mistakes continue. There is no clear school expectation on presentation and handwriting. Some pupils join the school with inappropriate pencil grips. This issue is not rectified, which has a negative impact on pupils’ writing skills and stamina as they progress through school. Some teachers fail to model legible handwriting. As a result, presentation of pupils’ work in too many books is careless. In this large junior school, you and other leaders are aware of the imbalance of numbers of boys and girls in some year groups. In Year 5, there are 18% more boys and in Year 4, there are 8% more boys. In last year’s Year 6, there were 12% more girls. Historically, you know that boys have underachieved in writing. You have taken steps to rectify this by a careful consideration of topics and class reading texts that will engage both boys and girls more. You evaluate initiatives constantly and make changes accordingly. Boys spoke enthusiastically about their learning, such as the work on Egypt in Year 4. Now that engagement is stronger, you are aware of the need to extend the writing opportunities across subjects. The deputy headteacher oversees the spending of pupil premium funding. You have worked closely together on initiatives to ensure that disadvantaged pupils attend school regularly. In addition, you support disadvantaged pupils’ emotional well-being and intellect in the breakfast reading club. Parental engagement is developing through an online system that sends positive messages home about pupils’ school successes. This has helped parents who do not wish to attend school in person have regular updates on their children to which they can respond as the tool is interactive. One of the most successful initiatives is a system that you call ‘conferencing’. This is small-group intervention work which includes both preparing pupils for topics, as well as picking up on identified errors that need extra explanation. Highly skilled practitioners prepare resources that match pupils’ needs so that pupils’ learning is more proficient. Because of this work, pupils reintegrate to the classroom with confidence and continue to succeed. This level of planning to match pupils’ needs is not prevalent in everyday teaching which is why you need this expensive, though successful, resource. The streamlining of actions and focus on disadvantaged pupils is showing increased impact. In some cases, disadvantaged pupils are excelling at a faster rate than their peers because of the support they are receiving. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that they improve the quality of teaching by ensuring that: teachers use assessment information in future planning so that they meet every pupil’s needs the level of challenge continues so pupils deepen their thinking and learning in the core and wider curriculum pupils show pride in the presentation of their work consistently.