The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have worked effectively to build a strong ethos which places pupils at the heart of all of the school’s work. This means that pupils enjoy coming to school and value their learning. Lessons are calm and relationships between pupils and staff are very positive. Behaviour in lessons and around the corridors and the dining hall is very good and pupils are proud of their school. Since the previous inspection, you have improved the way that you check on the quality of teaching. This has led to improvements in the quality of teaching. You make regular visits to lessons and provide teachers and teaching assistants with high-quality feedback. This ongoing dialogue between you and the teaching staff is supportive and challenging in equal measure. Teachers value the opportunity to discuss their work and are committed to making further improvements. Teachers have raised their expectations of what pupils can achieve. This is most evident in pupils’ mathematics work. Standards in this subject are improving in all classes because of the focused work that you and the staff have undertaken. All of the pupils that I spoke to were very positive about mathematics – more than half of them said that it was their favourite part of the school day. Teachers are making this subject very accessible by using real-life examples to provide problems and questions. In addition, teachers’ use of questioning in mathematics is making a difference. Pupils are required to think carefully about how they are solving problems. This means that pupils are now more confident when they explain their work. Teachers are also providing pupils with work that is challenging them. Some of the work that the most able pupils are doing is well above that expected for their age. Progress in writing is not as rapid as that in mathematics. You have recognised this and have started to make changes. Importantly, you have revised your approach to the teaching of handwriting. Almost all pupils in key stage 1 are now producing clear and legible handwriting because of the new approach. The quality of handwriting and presentation of pupils’ work in key stage 2 is more variable, although the majority of work is undertaken with care and pride. The changes that you have made to the curriculum since the previous inspection have raised standards in several subjects. Pupils now have a much greater influence on the way that their ‘topic’ work evolves. This is helping to create and sustain some very positive attitudes to learning. The development of the curriculum is not yet complete. At present, all subjects are not taught equally well. There are examples of very good learning in history, geography and design and technology. In science, however, too much time is spent on recording the processes involved in an investigation and too little is devoted to understanding what has actually been learned in terms of the science. This means that pupils’ work shows detailed accounts of what was done in an experiment, but there is very little evidence of what they found out. In art, pupils make and create some exciting and interesting work. Sketchbooks, however, are underused and teachers are not consistently using them to teach and develop basic artistic skills. Governors know the school well and provide good support for its ongoing improvement. They are becoming more familiar with the revised national assessment arrangements and this is enabling them to effectively hold school leaders to account for pupils’ outcomes. Governors visit the school often, seeing its work and contributing to monitoring activities. School finances are carefully monitored. Parents spoken to during the inspection were positive about the school. They value the ‘family’ ethos that you have created and say that they are well informed about their child’s progress. They also say that pupils feel safe in school (a view echoed by all of the pupils spoken to) and that they are well cared for. Safeguarding is effective. The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are detailed and of high quality. Systems to check preemployment information are well established.