The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Your strong and effective leadership has provided the school with long-term stability and successful outcomes for pupils. You have worked well with your head of school to ensure that there is clear continuity and progression between year groups. As you prepare for your retirement, you have secured the ongoing success of the school through working with governors to enter into a partnership with a local outstanding provider. The executive headteacher designate is highly skilled and shares a realistic understanding of the strengths and areas for development needed to move the school forward. Governors are very supportive and fully involved in the life of the school. Governors ask the right questions to ensure that successful outcomes are maintained. They contribute well to school development plans and are aware of the key priorities for the future. Classrooms are attractive and well managed and outdoor areas offer rich learning opportunities. Pupils’ attitudes to learning are very positive and the school’s values of pride, cooperation, independence, responsibility, respect and resilience make pupils feel safe and listened to. One pupil explained: ‘Learning is fun and we all engage in the lessons. I rarely see sad people in this school.’ Parents and carers also report that their children enjoy school and are well cared for. At the time of the last inspection, inspectors reported that by the end of key stage 1, the most able pupils needed to attain higher outcomes in reading, writing and mathematics. You have worked well with senior leaders to present greater challenge in Year 2 and outcomes are much improved. Inspectors also recommended greater challenge for the most able pupils in key stage 2, but this remains inconsistent in Years 3, 4 and 5. Boys were also identified as requiring additional support in Year 1, and you have successfully introduced intervention groups to support their reading progress. Safeguarding is effective. You have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and that records are detailed and of a high quality. The school has a rigorous and robust safeguarding culture where pupils’ safety and well-being are of paramount importance to all staff. Clear systems are in place for raising initial concerns and making referrals. The designated safeguarding lead is well known to all staff and the school works closely with the Local Safeguarding Children Board. Certificates for safer recruitment and child protection training are up to date and all pre-employment checks are in place. The local authority designated officer for safeguarding has delivered training to ensure that staff are aware of and follow the latest statutory guidance regarding keeping children safe. Leaders ensure that staff keep up to date with any changes through training in school. All governors and staff have had training on keeping pupils safe from radicalisation and extremism. British values are widely promoted across the school. All staff are aware of potential signs of risk and are vigilant to report any concerns through the clear school procedures for initial concerns or whistleblowing. Inspection findings My first line of enquiry to evaluate whether the school remained good focused on the quality of teaching and pupils’ achievement in reading. Outcomes for pupils at key stage 1 are typically strong. However, the most able readers at key stage 2 achieve less well than these pupils do nationally. The teaching of phonics is effective and provides pupils with a strong foundation in the development of their reading skills. When hearing younger pupils read, I saw a wide range of decoding strategies being used. However, those pupils who are confident in their reading skills and are therefore ready to apply them in their writing, do not always get sufficient opportunities to do so in Reception and Year 1. You and your team carefully track how well pupils learn and achieve in reading. Pupils’ reading ages and assessment information are monitored closely and a new scheme has been introduced to assess pupils’ understanding of the books they read. As a result, leaders identify pupils at risk of underachieving and put in place additional support so they do not fall behind. During my visits to the classrooms, it was clear that the teaching of reading skills is effective. However, I found that in Years 3, 4 and 5, teaching does not routinely stretch pupils’ comprehension skills and help them to explore the meaning of books in greater depth. This limits pupils from achieving to the very best of their abilities in reading, particularly the most able pupils. School leaders agree that pupils are ready for greater challenge in the application of key reading skills to deepen their understanding of texts. My second line of enquiry focused on whether leaders ensured that all groups of pupils attend school as regularly as they should. The most recent information indicated that absence and persistent absence rates were high for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, including for those pupils who have an education, health and care plan. You have appointed an attendance leader to work with parents whose children have high levels of absence. First-day absence calling has been introduced and any absence is followed up rigorously. Together with the local authority’s education welfare team, you hold meetings with families where attendance is a cause for concern. As a result, pupils receive support that is personalised to their individual circumstances. The school keeps detailed records to monitor absence. After scrutiny of the records, you and your team quickly explained why individual pupils were absent. I found that the school has strong and effective strategies in place to monitor and improve pupils’ attendance. The evidence I gathered during my visit demonstrates that you have been successful in strengthening outcomes for pupils since the last inspection. Therefore, my final line of enquiry examined your work to ensure that improvements in pupils’ achievement are sustainable over time. Working in partnership with a local outstanding school has already offered exciting development opportunities for your staff and pupils. The executive headteacher designate has a history of high expectations and successful learning outcomes for all pupils. I found that the school is well placed to build on its current achievements. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: pupils routinely use their strong phonics and reading skills to help them improve the quality of their writing the teaching of reading in key stage 2 routinely stretches pupils’ reading skills and supports them to deepen their understanding of the books they read. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Greenwich. This letter will also be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Tom Canning Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection. During this inspection, I held meetings with leaders including the head of school and the executive headteacher designate. I also met with the chair of governors, a staff governor and an adviser from the local authority. I visited classrooms with senior leaders, spoke to pupils, looked at pupils’ books and listened to pupils from Year 2 and Year 6 read. I spoke to members of the school council and class representatives and reviewed the 126 responses to Ofsted’s online pupil survey. A meeting was held with the attendance leader to scrutinise and monitor attendance records. I also met leaders with responsibility for safeguarding to review the effectiveness of the school’s procedures. I met with parents informally at the beginning of the day and considered the 12 responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View. I met with staff at the start of the day, spoke to them about safeguarding procedures and reviewed the 28 responses to Ofsted’s online survey for staff.