The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You work closely with your deputy headteacher as a highly effective team that has a shared common purpose to provide excellent education for the pupils. As a result, the quality of education that pupils receive continues to improve. The governors and staff share your ambitions and together you have been rigorous in tackling the two areas for improvement identified in the last inspection. Since the last inspection, the development of writing across the school has been a priority. Along with your dedicated and hardworking staff, you have ensured that the standards of writing in the school have risen quickly. Consequently, pupils, including those who are disadvantaged, make strong progress in writing from their starting points. Greater proportions of pupils now reach the expected standards in writing than the national average. Most-able pupils are suitably challenged to enhance and apply their writing skills through high-quality teaching. Consequently, a greater proportion of most-able and most-able disadvantaged pupils reach the highest standards than seen for other pupils nationally. Governors have evaluated their effectiveness and identified any gaps in the skills of governors. The targeted recruitment of new governors, including associate members, with specific specialist skills, strengthens the governing body. Governors have increased their understanding of pupils’ assessment information through additional training and, as a result, they hold you more closely to account for the achievement of pupils. Governors’ sharply focused visits to school enable them to check, more effectively and independently, the information they receive. Governors regularly attend parent information evenings in the role of ‘governor on duty’ and seek parents’ views. As a result, governors have a deep understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and the effectiveness of leaders’ actions to address these. You make good use of the pupil premium funding and effectively promote the learning of disadvantaged pupils, including those who are most able. Well-trained and committed teaching assistants are deployed effectively to deliver targeted support for learning. The school’s timetable is appropriately balanced and carefully constructed. Consequently, pupils who participate in targeted activities to help them catch up in English or mathematics do not miss opportunities to learn in other subjects. The work of the school attendance officer, paid for by pupil premium funding, has led to a strong improvement in the attendance of disadvantaged pupils. The school’s learning mentor works effectively with family outreach workers. This complements the work of the attendance officer in ensuring that pupils attend school to learn. You use pupil premium effectively to improve the spiritual, moral, social and cultural education of disadvantaged pupils by ensuring their access to a range of rich experiences. Theatre visits, residential trips to major cities and outdoor education activities provide inspiration for writing and develop pupils’ confidence. Most-able pupils succeed, particularly in mathematics and writing, because of your targeted use of small-group activities and after-school challenge clubs. You do, however, recognise that further work is required to accelerate the progress of pupils, including those most able in reading, so that a greater proportion reaches the highest standard. You closely monitor and maintain detailed records of the impact of each action provided by the pupil premium. You share these records with governors regularly. However, the information published on the school’s website by the governing body about the school’s strategy for the use of pupil premium does not reflect this detailed analysis. You are acutely aware that girls do better than boys in the early years and are taking effective actions to address this imbalance. Consequently, boys are accelerating their progress and the difference between girls and boys is diminishing rapidly. Your review of the early years curriculum and subsequent careful choice of topics has resulted in boys’ better engagement in their learning. For example, boys were eager to share their experiences of recent activities around the hatching and visit of a fictional young dinosaur in school. Effective deployment of staff provides targeted support for boys to improve their skills in handling different sorts of toys and equipment. Regular opportunities to apply writing skills are provided in all areas of the curriculum. As a result, boys make good progress from their starting points in writing. Similarly, effective deployment of staff to provide regular opportunities to read and a wide range of appealing books ensure that boys make good progress from their starting points in reading. Pupils receive a broad and balanced science curriculum that systematically develops their knowledge and practical skills. However, work in pupils’ book shows that most -able pupils sometimes do not receive sufficient challenge or opportunities to deepen their knowledge and extend their skills of scientific enquiry. Safeguarding is effective. Leaders and governors have ensured that safeguarding arrangements are secure and are followed meticulously, with detailed records. Statutory checks are carried out on the suitability of staff to work with children. All staff have up-to-date knowledge of current safeguarding requirements and are vigilant about the risks posed to pupils, including from radicalisation and extremism, because of the training and frequent updates they receive. Consequently, when concerns have been identified staff have acted quickly and appropriately to promote and secure pupils’ well-being. The school has appropriate monitoring and filtering in place for its internet connection and strong online safety procedures. Consequently, on the rare occasions when possible concerns about online content have been identified, school leaders’ quick and effective handling of the issue prevented any risk to pupils. Inspection findings You have an accurate picture of the school’s strengths and weaknesses because of your rigorous and robust monitoring. You track pupils’ progress regularly, evaluate improvement candidly and plan appropriate priorities for development. Your school development plan is detailed, well-constructed and contains the right priorities for further improvement. Well-targeted actions have resulted in improvements to the quality of teaching and the outcomes for pupils. These include changes to the school’s timetable that ensure work to improve pupils’ achievement in one subject does not negatively affect their outcomes in another. You have a clear understanding where further work is required and already have appropriate plans in operation that are bringing about improvement. These include improving the quality of teaching to provide more opportunities to challenge the most able pupils, including those who are disadvantaged, in science and continuing to accelerate the progress pupils make in reading. Governors have a deep understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the school because of the information they receive from you and other leaders. The governing body has been strengthened through appropriate recruitment and effective training. Governors hold you closely to account for the impact of your actions through probing and incisive questioning and their independent checking of the information they receive through their regular focused visits to school. Governors, several of whom have professional educational backgrounds, use their skills well and have a detailed understanding of the use and impact of the pupil premium funding because of your detailed monitoring of its impact on pupils’ achievement. Governors do not check the information they publish on the school’s website with sufficient rigour. Consequently, there were omissions about the declared interests of governors, the content of some aspects of the curriculum, and some information relating to their strategy for the use of pupil premium funding. Governors were able to respond quickly to these omissions because the information is in place within the school. The support and guidance provided for the school by the local authority is of good quality. The associate adviser provides you with accurate assessments of the school’s effectiveness, which you use effectively to check your own evaluations. You make effective use of guidance from the local authority to inform your decisions relating to safeguarding and equalities issues in school. Parents strongly support the school and recognise its positive impact on their children’s progress and well-being. Pupils in all groups read widely and often because of dedicated reading time within the curriculum. Leaders encourage reading strongly in all year groups and across the school. Least-able pupils read confidently using their phonic knowledge effectively to break down words into sounds. Most-able pupils are fluent readers who demonstrate empathy with characters. However, sometimes their comprehension skills do not match their levels of fluency. Pupils from all groups show a love of reading and confidently enter into discussions about their favourite books. The quality of teaching continues to improve. Teachers have high expectations of their pupils and good subject knowledge that they use consistently to set challenging tasks in a wide range of subjects. Teachers have a good understanding of pupils’ achievements because of their rigorous checking of pupils’ work and sharply focused use of ongoing assessment in their teaching. Regular and rigorous pupil progress meetings, sometimes attended by governors, hold teachers closely to account for the progress pupils make. Writing is taught systematically. Teachers ensure that pupils practise and improve their writing skills by the good use of opportunities to write at length in subjects including science and religious education. The systematic teaching of mathematics effectively develops pupils’ mathematical understanding. Teachers consistently provide a wide range of opportunities for pupils to deepen their understanding and apply their skills to solve academic and practical problems. Consequently, pupils, including the most able, make good progress from their starting points. Science is taught systematically in school. The curriculum ensures that pupils cover a wide range of science topics from all three sciences. Pupils have many opportunities to develop their practical skills and participate in experiments. However, work in pupils’ books shows that on occasion pupils, particularly the most able, do not cover topics in sufficient depth to deepen fully their knowledge. At times, pupils have limited opportunities to enhance their scientific enquiry skills so as to reach the highest standards. Children in the early years make good progress from their starting points because of the quality of teaching they receive. Over three quarters enter the early years with a level of development that is below that expected for their age. The vast majority of children are disadvantaged. Over time, the proportion of children leaving the early years having achieved a good level of development has risen quickly and consistently.