The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have taken considered action to build leadership capacity across the school. You have established a senior team that combines an effective mixture of experienced colleagues working alongside new leaders, supporting improvement in a sustainable and dynamic manner. You have given middle leaders increased responsibility for leading change, monitoring standards and evaluating the effects of improvement strategies. Your leadership team has worked with teachers to raise expectations and respond more purposefully to new curriculum demands. Your teams are working even more closely with their colleagues in first and high schools to moderate standards and create a coherent curriculum. These partnerships are helping to raise standards and leading to more demanding curriculum content across a wider range of subjects. Your team is becoming increasingly adept in helping pupils to meet the demands of the national curriculum. Standards of attainment are consistently well above those seen nationally at the end of key stage 2, although progress for some groups, such as disadvantaged pupils, has been more variable. You recognise this in your development plans and are effectively bringing in more focused support to improve pupils’ progress. Your capacity for success is underpinned by strong systems. You have developed clear processes to review the quality of teaching and the progress pupils make. Your teams carry out termly reviews of the work of each department and use findings from these reviews to support ongoing improvement. Subject leaders and class teachers are completing detailed breakdowns of standards of teaching and pupils’ progress. Your teachers are increasingly using joint planning to develop shared resources and to strengthen the curriculum. These actions are improving the quality of teaching, although some inconsistencies remain. One of the areas for improvement identified at the last inspection was to ensure that the best teaching practice was shared more widely with colleagues. You have raised the profile of key subject leaders by placing them in whole-school leadership roles where they are more influential in sharing good practice. In addition, your team has intensified professional development opportunities and networking links with neighbouring schools. You are currently refining your assessment processes through participation in new research and development initiatives. Where this work is securely implemented, it is enabling pupils to significantly improve the quality of their work, although it is not used to consistent effect in all areas. Your pastoral team know their pupils extremely well. They check attendance closely and support families where absence is more prevalent. Their actions support good levels of attendance for the majority of pupils. Your teachers promote positive behaviour, as reflected in the very good conduct and constructive attitudes that pupils display in lessons, assemblies and at social times. Rates of exclusion are low and leaders strive to ensure that pupils learn lessons from the rare instances when exclusions are used. Your pastoral team are receptive to pupils’ well-being and are developing additional expertise in responding to pupils’ emotional and mental health needs. Many pupils have benefited from the initiatives they have introduced. Your work to raise standards and increase expectations is supported by your trustees. Their monitoring committees carry out regular checks on the school’s work, reviewing work and talking to teachers and pupils to explore how well school priorities are being met. Trustees recognise those areas, such as the progress of disadvantaged pupils, that have not improved as rapidly as they would like. They have the expertise to hold leaders to account and use the insights of a school improvement partner to secure objective scrutiny of school performance. The additional layers of accountability provided by trustees add further capacity for ongoing improvement. Safeguarding is effective. The leadership team has ensured that safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Leaders make thorough checks on the suitability of adults working at the school. School leaders undergo appropriate training to enable them to carry out their safeguarding responsibilities. They are represented on local safeguarding groups to maintain an up-to-date awareness of safeguarding issues. Staff show a good awareness of safeguarding procedures and the actions to take if they have any concerns over pupils’ welfare. Leaders work with families and external agencies to support pupils’ welfare. Leaders pursue concerns over pupils’ welfare in a prompt and determined manner, although written records do not always fully reflect the actions they take.