The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You demonstrate commitment, determination and ambition in your leadership of the school. You respond rapidly and effectively when issues arise, bringing about immediate improvements when required. Consequently, pupils achieve well. You develop leaders’ skills effectively. This is having a positive impact on raising standards. Leaders, including the governing body, have a strong, shared commitment to school improvement. Pupils are proud of their school. They work hard, showing high levels of engagement in learning. Pupils are confident and form excellent relationships with adults and with each other. Their excellent behaviour reflects their commitment to the school’s vision, ‘learning together’. The school promotes pupils’ personal development well. High levels of care ensure that pupils feel safe and valued. This view is strongly endorsed by both pupils and parents, as one parent commented, ‘Support for my child has been absolutely incredible.’ With leaders and governors, you have successfully tackled the areas identified for improvement in the previous inspection report. You were asked to improve opportunities for the most able pupils and improve the quality of writing. Teachers offer a variety of challenging tasks to help engage and deepen the learning of the most able pupils. Pupils challenge themselves by applying skills in unfamiliar contexts or by selecting an activity that makes them think more deeply. You have rightly identified that, although the proportion of pupils who achieve the expected and higher standards is similar to other schools nationally, pupils have the potential to do even better. There is a good range of opportunities for pupils to write longer pieces of work in subjects such as history and geography. Pupils are provided with a wider range of opportunities to write in more imaginative contexts, such as ‘African animals’ in Year 2 or ‘deathly dinosaurs’ in Year 4. As a result, the quality of pupils’ writing is improving across the school. Regular handwriting sessions are improving pupils’ fluency and presentation. Safeguarding is effective. There is a strong culture of safeguarding in the school. Governors and leaders take safeguarding seriously. This is reflected in the overall high standards of care that pupils receive. Pupils say they feel safe because the adults ‘take care of us’. The overwhelming majority of parents agree that their children are safe and well cared for. Staff are knowledgeable and well trained in child protection procedures. Any concerns are recorded promptly, reviewed, and followed up rigorously. Procedures for vetting staff are detailed and robust. Safeguarding records are regularly monitored by governors. The school’s children and families officer supports pupils and families effectively. She works closely with outside agencies to make sure pupils and families get the help they need to keep pupils safe. Inspection findings During this inspection my focus areas were: the quality of teaching in key stage 1; standards in writing across the school; outcomes in phonics for disadvantaged pupils; attendance of disadvantaged pupils; and the strong outcomes in the early years. The quality of teaching at key stage 1 is good. You have responded rapidly and effectively to the dip in 2016 key stage 1 results by ensuring that pupils who are in danger of falling behind are given extra support. Middle leaders work closely with individual teachers to improve their skills and understanding of how pupils learn best. Accurate observations with clear actions for improvement identify what teachers need to do so that pupils can improve their skills. A sustained focus on building on what pupils already know and can do has improved the progress that pupils are making. As a result, the proportions of current pupils making accelerated progress in Year 2 are rapidly improving. You rightly identified that writing across the school needed to improve. Pupils now have greater opportunities to write in a variety of contexts in different subjects to meet the demands of the new writing curriculum. For example, younger pupils are focusing on writing more complex sentences to describe events and convey meaning when writing reports. Older pupils are widening their vocabulary to express emotion or to create an atmosphere. Teachers make sure that those pupils who struggle with basic grammar and punctuation are effectively supported. For example, teachers make sure pupils have mastered a particular skill, such as using speech marks, before they are allowed to move on and practise another. Consequently, pupils are catching up and make accelerated progress in writing. In 2016, although overall pupils did well in phonics in Year 1, the proportion of disadvantaged pupils who met the expected standard was low. You have taken swift and effective action to support these pupils. Teachers’ rigorous assessment and record-keeping identifies gaps in pupils’ knowledge. Targeted interventions build up pupils’ skills so that they make accelerated progress. Consequently, disadvantaged pupils are on track to achieve the expected standard in phonics by the end of Year 2. The same approach to teaching phonics in Year 1 is ensuring that disadvantaged pupils in that year group are making the same accelerated progress. Some disadvantaged pupils have had low attendance in the past. The children and families officer is effective in making sure that pupils come to school more often. As a result of her work in partnership with parents and outside agencies, the proportion of disadvantaged pupils who have low attendance is reducing and is now similar to national levels. Children enter the early years with skills and knowledge that are below those typical for their age. As a result of good teaching, children make good progress and a high proportion of children achieve a good level of development. The setting has very well developed routines for making sure that children settle quickly, and are secure and happy. Parents appreciate being able to visit the setting when children join because, as one parent explained, ‘It’s excellent in helping us parents understand what they do and how we can help.’ As a result of good, purposeful leadership teachers and support staff have high expectations of what children can achieve. Support from the local authority focuses on developing children’s early language skills. Adults ask interesting questions and challenge children’s thinking effectively. Teachers emphasise basic skills in writing and mathematics, and good-quality phonics teaching develops children’s vocabulary and reading. As a result, children are very well prepared for when they enter Year 1. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: Pupils’ progress accelerates further in reading, writing and mathematics to improve the proportion of pupils achieving both the standards expected for their age and the higher standards of attainment. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner, and the director of children’s services for Milton Keynes. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely William James Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection I visited a number of lessons across the school, accompanied by the headteacher. I looked at a range of work in pupils’ books. I examined a wide range of school documents, including those that relate to safeguarding, leaders’ self-assessment information and local authority reports, as well as attendance and assessment information. I talked to pupils during lessons to gather their views. Meetings were held with the headteacher, senior leaders, governors, the children and families officer and the leader of the early years. I had a meeting with a representative of the local authority. I took into account the views of 74 parents who responded to Parent View and a parent that I met during the inspection. I also considered 29 staff questionnaires.