The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. As leaders and governors you are much closer now to realising your vision for the federation of Hannah More Infant School and its partner junior school. You have built a strong team of specialist leaders across the federation and this is helping you to address priorities swiftly and effectively. You and governors have a clear action plan to continue making improvements. Together with a skilled group of teachers you have, as one parent wrote, worked ‘to place the interests of children at the core of decisions’. This comment reflected the views of other parents. Pupils are confident learners. They behave very well and take great pride in their work. You encourage pupils to be active, to discuss their learning and to make some decisions for themselves about how to improve their work. You support pupils to try out their skills in real situations. For example, a group of pupils entered a 500-word national writing competition. On World Book Day the older pupils used their mathematical knowledge and writing skills to run a book stall. At the time of the previous inspection you were asked to improve the challenge for the most able pupils in mathematics lessons. You were also asked to encourage pupils to develop their ideas more fully in writing. Standards in all subjects have remained high at the end of Year 2 since the previous inspection and pupils’ progress overall has been good. However, you have not been complacent, but rather continued to strive for improvement. Recently you have focused strongly on improving teaching as a whole as well as developing the quality of teaching in mathematics and writing. As a result, teaching is now more consistently effective than at the time of the previous inspection. Teachers now assess pupils’ work more confidently against the new curriculum. They carefully check pupils’ understanding in lessons and change the teaching if need be. You regularly discuss pupils’ progress and adjust plans for pupils who need more help, but equally for those who need extra challenge. However, you are rightly continuing to develop the teaching of mathematics. Safeguarding is effective. This is a caring school where pupils are known as individuals and their needs are well met. Parents value the school as a safe place where their children can develop their confidence. Staff are vigilant for pupils’ safety and act responsibly to report any concerns to senior leaders. The school works closely with a range of agencies to ensure that vulnerable pupils and their families are well supported. Safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. The school carries out preemployment checks to ensure that adults working with pupils are safe to do so. Although leaders had not made a timely response to one aspect of recruitment guidance, this has now been completed and records are of a high quality. Governors update policies and risk assessments regularly in line with the latest guidelines. They discuss safeguarding policy and practice frequently with leaders and make regular checks. However, these checks are not recorded comprehensively enough to highlight whether the need for further improvements has been identified. Pupils feel very safe in school. One pupil described the best thing about the school as being ‘We all play fairly and work together as a team.’ They know that teachers will help them with problems and have confidence in the support they have at lunchtime from midday supervisors. Pupils are taught how to stay safe on the internet and know not to share passwords or give out personal information. Inspection findings In this inspection I firstly looked at the impact of improved mathematics teaching on the progress of all pupils. In particular, we looked at the achievement of boys and also at disadvantaged pupils and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. In lessons and workbooks, we could see that boys and girls have good skills in arithmetic and in recalling number facts and multiplication tables. Pupils are successful in mathematics lessons where they solve problems. Their work shows that, in all classes, an increasing number of pupils are now working at the higher standard. However, you recognise that teachers do not routinely question pupils at a level which would prompt pupils’ deeper mathematical thinking and reasoning skills. You have recently appointed a new specialist leader for mathematics and further opportunities for staff development are planned. You and governors demonstrate ambition for disadvantaged pupils and the additional funding is well used to support their achievement. Disadvantaged pupils are making equally good progress in mathematics as in other subjects.