The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. The executive principal officer of the Education South West multi-academy trust and the executive headteacher support you well. Since your substantive appointment in February 2018, you have worked well with new and existing leaders, including governors. This has enabled you to bring the school through a difficult period of strategic and operational change. You have successfully stabilised staffing and ensured that whole-school training and leadership support have resulted in continual improvement. You, your senior leadership team and governors hold a strong and principled belief that every child deserves the best start at school. Christow offers every opportunity for pupils to achieve well, whatever their circumstances or needs, ‘building a love of learning’, as the school motto explains. You have the confidence of staff, pupils and parents and have established an open, caring and inclusive school community where everyone is valued. As one parent highlighted, ‘Children are rewarded and acknowledged and made to feel special no matter how small the achievement.’ Nearly all the parents who responded to the online inspection survey would highly recommend this school to other parents. The school’s caring and nurturing ethos is demonstrated by pupils’ positive relationships. This view is confirmed by parents. Parents’ comments on Parent View typically value the ‘positive, kind and encouraging staff’, with one parent explaining how ‘Christow staff and pupils have made us all feel so welcome from the start.’ Pupils are kind and considerate towards each other and adults. Older pupils are supportive of younger ones and are sensitive to others’ needs. They are polite and well mannered. Standards have improved in many areas since your appointment. Your relentless drive to improve the school is ably supported by your current middle leaders. For example, you collectively identified that pupils’ weak phonics skills were holding back their ability to write effectively. Your leadership to bring about improvement in the teaching of phonics was highly effective. You ensured that staff are trained to teach phonic knowledge and skills effectively as a priority. Pupils’ phonics skills improved and the proportion meeting the expected standard is now well above the national average. However, the outcomes in writing in the early years and key stage 1 have not yet reflected the improvement in pupils’ phonics skills. The proportion of key stage 1 pupils attaining the expected standard in writing is below the national average. The areas for improvement in the previous inspection report have been successfully addressed. By Year 6, pupils’ work, including that of the most able pupils, shows they confidently transfer skills learned in their English lessons to their written work in other subjects. For example, they write lists, reports and instructions in science and extended narrative texts in history and geography. They have opportunities to write at length in English lessons in a range of genres that provide a real-life context for writing, such as letters. Pupils enjoy writing stories and solving problems in mathematics and love to challenge themselves each day. For example, pupils in Year 6 said they liked to choose the medium, hot or extreme ‘chilli challenge’ when attempting mathematics problems. Pupils’ responses illustrate their keenness to improve. Pupils achieve well in the end-of-key-stage-2 tests and are well prepared for the next stage of their education. Safeguarding is effective. The multi-academy trust, alongside the leadership team, has ensured that safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. There is a positive safeguarding culture across the school. Records of recruitment, training and issues of child protection are detailed and of high quality. Staff receive regular and up-to-date training on how to keep pupils safe from abuse, sexual exploitation, and the influence of radicalisation and extremism. You liaise well with external agencies, when appropriate, so that pupils get the extra care that they need. Leaders have responded effectively to the school’s health and safety audit to ensure pupils are kept safe at all times while on the school site. Nearly all parents who responded to the online survey agreed that the school keeps their children safe. All the pupils I spoke with told me they feel safe in school and that bullying is rare. They said they would have no hesitation in speaking to a member of staff if they had concerns. They know these concerns would be treated with sensitivity by staff. Pupils know how to keep themselves safe online as teachers ‘talk about it a lot’.