The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the previous inspection. You have been pivotal in continuing to drive school improvement to ensure better outcomes for pupils. Your evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the school is accurate and you have constructed comprehensive plans to promote further improvement. Leaders are aspirational for pupils to experience the best possible education. Robust and comprehensive management systems have ensured that teaching has continued to improve over time. Procedures to improve the quality of teaching are personalised and effective. For example, leaders’ rigorous monitoring processes identify areas for improvement for each teacher and link to a comprehensive programme of professional development. Across the school and over time, teaching is good and pupils in upper key stage 2 in particular are making rapid and sustained progress. Your clear focus on behaviour and personal development has resulted in pupils who behave well and have a good attitude to learning. Pupils say that they enjoy school. They participate enthusiastically in lessons. Increasingly, pupils develop an understanding that learning is sometimes a struggle but that they can overcome difficulties if they keep trying. This means that pupils challenge themselves to achieve as much as possible. A Year 6 pupil summarised the comments of a range of pupils when he said, ‘It’s a fun place with interesting learning and opportunities to do well.’ Safeguarding is effective. Leaders have created a culture where safeguarding is central to all of the school’s activities. Effective training ensures that staff and governors have a good understanding of the potential risks that pupils may face. Processes are wellestablished to record and monitor any safeguarding concerns and also to analyse any patterns or trends over time. The school undertakes stringent checks when recruiting staff and governors. Staff manage playgrounds well. This enables pupils to feel safe. Pupils are confident that if they have any concerns, an adult will help them. E-safety is a high priority for the school. Consequently, teachers ensure that pupils know how to use the internet safely. Teachers and leaders deal well with the rare occurrences of bullying. Pupils understand what bullying is and they know what to do should it happen. The majority of parents who responded to the online questionnaire, Parent View, were positive about the school’s approach, although a minority disagreed. Inspection findings The first line of enquiry explored how the early years provision is meeting children’s needs, particularly for boys. In 2017, children made good progress from their starting points. However, the proportion who achieved a good level of development was just below the national average. Boys did not achieve as well as girls in most of the areas of learning. Leaders plan carefully for children’s transition to school and early years assessments identify children’s starting points. Teachers have identified that language and communication is a barrier to learning for a significant minority of the children entering the school. However, assessments do not identify precisely for each child which aspects of language and communication are weak. As a result, teaching does not consistently meet children’s needs well enough. This limits the progress some children make. Children learn well: both boys and girls are able to sustain concentration on learning tasks. Teachers ensure that learning is intriguing for the children. For example, when ‘mysterious footprints’ had ‘arrived’ in the classroom, the children had to find out who had left them by measuring and comparing sizes with people in the school. Teachers’ strong knowledge of phonics ensures they effectively help children, including the youngest, to develop good phonic skills. Children successfully blend and segment words which helps them with both their reading and their writing. Second, we focused on how effectively school leaders and governors are ensuring that teaching is meeting the needs of the most able pupils. This is because in 2017, although the proportion of pupils meeting the expected standards in reading, writing and mathematics combined was just above the national average, the proportion achieving the higher standards in reading, writing and mathematics combined was below the national average. Leaders identified the need to develop greater challenge for the most able pupils, which they have communicated effectively to staff. As a consequence, staff now work more effectively to cater for the needs of the most able pupils. They provide these pupils with appropriate challenge. This has resulted in a significant increase in the proportion of current pupils working at the higher standards. We also looked at how effectively the additional resource base (ARB) provision is in ensuring that pupils with complex needs make good progress from their starting points. The ARB is well led by a knowledgeable and experienced leader who has created a safe, secure and supportive learning environment for the pupils. Staff are well trained and manage pupils who have challenging emotional and behavioural needs highly effectively. Teaching within the ARB is creative and responsive to the interests of the pupils. Regular assessment of pupils’ progress involves the pupils themselves in setting targets and results in pupils understanding their next steps well. As a result of an individualised curriculum that supports the pupils to become increasingly independent, the pupils who access the provision are making good progress. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: assessment in the early years, particularly around speaking and listening, is more precise so that staff identify children’s barriers to learning promptly and provide activities that rapidly develop children’s achievement in language and communication. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Cornwall. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Janet Ross Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection, we visited classes with either you or your deputy headteacher. We looked at the work in pupils’ books during lessons, as well as looking separately at samples of work with your leaders. We talked with pupils during our visits to the classrooms as well as in separate discussion groups and on the playground. We met with you and your leadership team during the inspection and spoke with your administrator. I also met with three governors, including the chair of the governing body.