The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You and your capable senior team clearly understand what is required to ensure the continual development of the school, including the quality of teaching. All leaders bring clarity and purpose to their work. Staff work well together. Their responses to the inspection questionnaire show that they understand your vision for the school. Underpinning all your work is the motto for the school, ‘diversity, independence, aspiration’. This drive to meet all pupils’ needs and respond fully to the academic, social and emotional needs of your pupils is reflected in all aspects of the school’s work. As a result, pupils across the year groups and those with complex needs are making good progress and their personal development is a strength. The additional resource provision for pupils who have a diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder is also a strength of the school. You monitor provision carefully and have a good understanding of the next steps that are needed for the school to improve further. You know that teaching has improved and is well placed to ensure that outcomes for disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) can improve further. Although the governing body has an accurate overview of the school’s priorities, it lacks sufficient information or precise targets in improvement plans to hold leaders fully to account for pupils’ progress. Parents and carers are overwhelmingly supportive of the school and feel informed about their children’s progress. This is very evident in the many positive comments made by parents on Parent View, Ofsted’s online questionnaire, and during the inspection. For example, one parent said the school is ‘great’ and another wrote, ‘a very special school with a wonderful atmosphere’. Pupils behave extremely well, both in class and around school. They are respectful, kind and supportive of each other, especially those with complex special educational needs, resulting in a harmonious learning environment throughout the school. Pupils are highly enthusiastic learners. They respond well to teachers’ expectations. Through the curriculum, you have ensured that pupils develop an understanding of the importance of tolerance and fairness. You give pupils many opportunities to take responsibility by being ambassadors, mentors for younger children and play leaders. Safeguarding is effective. Senior leaders and the governors have successfully created a strong safeguarding culture and ethos. The leadership team gives safeguarding the highest priority and has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Senior leaders ensure that staff are well trained and know what to do if they have a concern. The school is diligent in utilising outside agencies when necessary to support vulnerable pupils. You regularly review procedures well to make changes if needed. For example, the school site safety has been improved, following the last inspection, with appropriate adaptions to fencing and safety procedures. Pupils are clear about what the school does to keep them safe. They can talk knowledgably about keeping safe on the internet. Pupils understand what bullying is and explained that on the rare occasion it may happen, staff resolve it quickly and effectively. As one commented, ‘I have always someone to talk to if I am worried.’ Inspection findings At the start of the inspection, we met together to confirm the key lines of enquiry for my day in school to ascertain whether the school remains good. The first of these lines of enquiry concerned pupils’ progress in writing and the quality of teaching in this subject. The school’s accurate assessment records show that pupils in all year groups are making secure progress from belowaverage starting points in writing, including grammar, punctuation and spelling. Information about pupils in key stage 2 shows that the proportions reaching greater depth or higher standards have improved quickly, including those with average or higher starting points. Visits across lessons quickly confirmed the differences that improvements to teaching have made. Teachers make effective use of assessment information to plan activities which help pupils of different abilities and pupils with SEND to overcome previous barriers. In English, pupils write with imagination, purpose and control, especially in the structure of sentences, and the use of punctuation and of tenses. Fewer opportunities for, or examples of, effective writing in other subjects are evident. We agreed that this should be a focus for improvement in your development planning. The second line of enquiry was about disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND. The proportion of disadvantaged pupils within each class is generally higher than average. The progress of disadvantaged pupils has accelerated since September because the use of pupil premium is effective. Strategies to support disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND are bearing fruit. Effective intervention plans are in place to support all pupils in this group. These plans are rigorously monitored. As a result, progress is accelerating. However, the most able disadvantaged pupils are not reaching the higher standards required in writing, for example, as they have few opportunities in other subjects to write at length in different writing styles. My final line of enquiry for the school examined how you have developed the curriculum since the last inspection, when areas for improvement were identified. You have already identified that this is an area where further improvement is still needed. Your deputy headteacher is currently reviewing the curriculum, which shows some considerable strengths in the breadth and range of curriculum opportunities but also areas to be developed further. Pupils are rightly positive about provision for music, art and sport. They say that they have plenty of opportunities to develop skills in these and other curriculum areas, both in lessons and clubs. Opportunities for pupils to apply their reading, writing and counting skills in different subjects exist. However, I found that work in science and in topic books is uneven in quality. While there are some good work and exciting topics, pupils do not always learn well enough while studying them. I could see in pupils’ workbooks that teachers do not always expect enough of their pupils, especially in writing and the application of mathematical skills, so that they develop the full range of skills, knowledge and understanding required by the national curriculum. Governors have limited information to challenge leaders fully about the rate of progress expected. We agreed that to help improve provision more quickly in these subjects, the school needs to have clear expectations of leaders, governors and staff to bring about rapid improvement. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: pupils, including the most able disadvantaged, receive opportunities to develop their extended writing skills in other subjects across the wider curriculum as well as in English work in science and topic books demands enough of pupils and helps them develop a wider range of skills, knowledge and understanding governors receive timely information to enable them to hold leaders fully to account for pupils’ progress and school improvement.