The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Following your appointment in September 2017, you have worked effectively with other schools and leaders in the expanding multi-academy trust (MAT), including the school monitoring committee, formerly the governing body. The high expectations of pupils’ academic achievement you hold are not at the expense of developing their important life skills such as resilience and collaboration. For example, a parent who completed the online survey wrote, ‘I particularly like the fact that academic work is well balanced with outdoor activities.’ You have developed very positive relationships with parents who, overwhelmingly, would recommend the school to other parents. Since becoming head of school, you have listened to pupils, staff and parents, who typically agree that you have built well on the school’s strengths. For example, parents agree that the school is ‘fabulous’ and ‘values each child as an individual by staff and pupils alike’. One parent commented, ‘This is a very well run small local school that provides a good foundation in life for all of its pupils.’ You and your school monitoring committee recognise the need for further support from leaders in the trust to continue to develop respective roles and responsibilities. You have an accurate and realistic understanding of the school’s current performance. Your plans clearly set out what needs to improve further, with specific and measurable targets. For example, you identified that not enough pupils reached the expected standard in the spelling tests in 2017 and took prompt action to address this. Teachers set more challenging work for most groups of pupils, particularly those whom the school has identified as falling behind in their work. However, other identified pupils do not make rapid enough progress because the level of challenge is not yet sufficient. At the previous inspection, you were asked to ensure that teachers check progress frequently so that they can move pupils, especially the most able, on to more challenging work as quickly as possible. Your work to achieve this is generally effective. Teachers in your two mixed-age classes plan for many levels of challenge within lessons after first assessing pupils’ understanding of the task. This enables them to set challenges for pupils which are meeting their next academic and personal needs effectively. Adults are good at helping pupils to select appropriate tasks which develop their knowledge, skills and understanding. You were also asked to improve individual pupils’ behaviour and attitudes to learning. This aspect has been accomplished successfully. Pupils are typically engaged and interested in tasks presented to them. Older pupils discuss their learning with each other and with adults enthusiastically. They say that they love to learn new things. Across the school, the range of activities planned promotes pupils’ good learning behaviours. Pupils enjoy and focus on their own tasks as others work on different activities in the room, needing little prompting. Leaders and staff expect pupils at Lerryn to be consistently well behaved and take on key responsibilities in school. Pupils are invariably polite and well mannered. Pupils enjoy school and attendance rates have improved considerably. Safeguarding is effective. The culture of safeguarding pupils is strong. You, your staff and the MAT give the safety of pupils a high priority. All staff and the monitoring committee are appropriately trained in identifying possible signs of risk and harm. School records show that staff are up to date in their training in recognising the dangers of extremism and radicalisation. Statutory guidance for recruiting and vetting new staff is followed diligently by the MAT. Those leaders responsible for safeguarding check that the school central record is maintained accurately and all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. You and your staff are tenacious and know what to do to keep pupils safe. You are diligent and take timely action to respond to pupils’ needs. The strong emphasis you place on pupils’ personal development ensures that they develop the skills they need to keep themselves safe, including when using modern technologies. Pupils report that they feel safe at school and would happily seek the support and guidance of an adult if they had any concerns or worries. Parents are very confident that their children are safe at school. You actively seek specialist support to find solutions for pupils and their families. You are resolute in promoting good attendance and checking when pupils are not at school. As a result of this, attendance has improved considerably. Pupils’ excellent behaviour, and the positive way in which they work and play together, reflect the confidence they have that they are safe and looked after well at school.