The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have built a united, professional team and morale is high. Of the 19 staff who responded to Ofsted’s survey of their views, 100% ‘strongly agree’ that they enjoy working at this school. You are skilful in spotting potential in members of staff at all levels. There are many examples of staff who have developed their skills under your leadership. Several staff who began their careers as teaching assistants have gone on to gain the necessary professional development to achieve qualified teacher status. You also develop teachers’ leadership skills. Several staff who began as newly qualified teachers in your school are now performing well as middle leaders. You use the other school within the federation creatively to share expertise across both staff teams. This is mutually beneficial to staff and pupils in both schools. The experienced governing body provides effective challenge and support. Their wise management of the school’s finances has included investment in developing the beautiful school grounds. This richly enhances learning. For example, pupils’ scientific knowledge is brought to life through the opportunities pupils are given for pond dipping, hatching quail chicks or feeding chickens. Pupils’ love of reading is nurtured because they are excited about reading in the shaded outdoor classroom, reading tipi or special reading boat. Pupils are thriving in this happy school environment. One parent told me: ‘You know when you’re a new parent, and you imagine the perfect school for your child? Well this is it.’ At the time of the last inspection, inspectors asked leaders to provide pupils with more opportunities to practise their writing and mathematical skills when completing work in subjects beyond English and mathematics. This has been successfully tackled. You were also challenged to ensure that teachers provide work that is challenging enough for the most able pupils. You have also addressed this particularly well in writing and mathematics. As a result, the proportion of pupils reaching the higher standards in these subjects by the end of key stage 2 in recent years has been on a rising trend and in 2018 was above average. An above-average proportion of pupils also reached the higher standards in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of key stage 1. You acknowledge that making sure that current pupils’ work is equally challenging in the wider curriculum subjects is now an important next step across the school. Safeguarding is effective. The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. The designated officer for safeguarding is well qualified, very experienced and currently undertaking training to develop his skills even further. The designated officer’s expertise has been recognised by children’s services for the East Riding of Yorkshire. They invited him to join their education reference group and an early help review team. Parents and grandparents told me how pleased they are with the school’s arrangements for keeping pupils safe. Adoptive parents told me that the quality of care and support that their whole family receives is remarkable. The safeguarding governor is a general practitioner. She uses her specialist knowledge to challenge leaders about the health and well-being of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), including those pupils who have additional medical needs. Safeguarding governors have also ensured that there are frequent reviews of risk assessments for pupils’ safe use of the pond. Inspection findings During this inspection, I wanted to check whether learning gets off to a good start in the early years and that children make good progress from their starting points. Early years provision is good. Effective partnerships with the children’s centre and excellent relationships with parents and carers ensure that children get off to a flying start. Staff, including teaching assistants, are well qualified. Teaching is adapted well to meet children’s varying needs. Children who have difficulties with speech and language, for example, are well supported. In the outdoor learning area, teachers ensure that there is a good balance between high-quality fixed and temporary homemade resources, such as the cardboard pirate ship. All adults question children skilfully to move learning on quickly as they play. As a result, children make good progress. The early years leader is also well qualified, having years of experience as a nursery nurse as well as having achieved a foundation degree in early years. Although expectations of what children can achieve are typically high, leaders are already taking steps to improve early years provision even further so that the proportion of children reaching and exceeding a good level of development by the end of Reception Year increases. Leaders have recently introduced a new approach to the teaching of mathematics, adding new resources that increase the level of challenge for all pupils. There is clear evidence that this is working. The most able pupils say that they find their work in mathematics really hard. Pupils say that they enjoy the more-difficult tasks and feel a great sense of achievement when they succeed. One Year 6 pupil said: ‘It’s quite tricky at times, and I wouldn’t really want it to be any harder than it is now.’ Pupils were confident and articulate when discussing their work, which is of a consistently high standard in English and mathematics. In English, pupils enjoy the wider range of reading books available now. These high-quality texts are used as a stimulus for writing. Pupils enjoy getting into the minds of the characters in the stories and this motivates them to write. The local authority moderated teachers’ assessment judgements in writing in Year 2 and Year 6, and all teachers’ judgements were verified as accurate. This includes those pupils who have been assessed as writing at the higher standard. Apart from in English books, we found some lovely examples of high-quality writing linked to history. For example, having read the novel ‘Once’, about a young Jewish boy growing up in the 1930s, Year 6 pupils were asked to imagine the next chapter when the story had ended. One pupil wrote: ‘Zelda was moving, clearly in agony, but at least she was alive! In synchronisation, Zelda and I looked at Chaya. Immediately, we both wished we hadn’t. Deafeningly, the train raced away; gunshots still echoing around the valley.’ We also saw teachers taking opportunities to let pupils practise their mathematical skills in other subjects. For example, in a religious education lesson on Pentecost, Year 5 pupils were asked to write the number 2.2 billion, representing the world’s Christians population, as a number. The teacher then discussed the distribution of the world’s Christian population using fractions and percentages, ratio and proportion. Middle leaders, and pupils, could easily find evidence of the high level of challenge to the most able pupils in their English and mathematics books. There was insufficient convincing evidence that this is happening consistently across the wider curriculum, however. Leaders know that the challenge currently offered to the most able pupils in subjects other than English and mathematics is not yet high enough. Leaders already have plans to address this in September. The quality of support for pupils with SEND in lessons is good. This is helping these pupils to make good or better progress. Additional plans have been coordinated with other professionals to support pupils who have additional social and emotional mental health needs. Leaders are not monitoring carefully enough whether the milestones and timescales within these plans are being met or otherwise. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: they continue to develop the wider curriculum to ensure that there is enough challenge for the most able pupils in all subjects they carefully monitor plans that involve other professionals to ensure that milestones are being met, taking decisive action if they are not. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the director of education for the Diocese of York, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for East Riding of Yorkshire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Tracey Ralph Her Majesty’s Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection, you and I observed lessons together in every class. Pupils’ work in all year groups and in all subjects was scrutinised alongside middle leaders. Meetings were held with you, the English and mathematics subject leaders and the early years leader. I also met with the designated safeguarding leader, five members of the governing body and the principal primary improvement adviser for East Riding local authority. Various documents were evaluated, including the school improvement plan, the school’s self-evaluation document, curriculum planning documents, governors’ meeting minutes, reports from external challenge partners and records of recent local authority key stage 1 and key stage 2 external moderation events. I spoke to several pupils individually about their work and spoke to other pupils in lessons. Safeguarding documents were reviewed and discussed. I evaluated individual plans for pupils with SEND, including reports from the educational psychologist. I checked to make sure that all legal equality duties are being met for this group of pupils. The responses to Ofsted’s questionnaires from 19 staff and 74 pupils were considered, along with the 15 responses to Ofsted’s questionnaire, Parent View. Several comments were made personally to me by several parents who were taking their children to school at the start of the day. I listened to two separate parents who had asked to speak to me individually, so that they could give their personal views privately.