The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. The effort and commitment of skilled leaders and governors have made sure that Matching Green Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School continues to provide its pupils with a good standard of education. You were appointed after a turbulent time for the school, with three different headteachers having been in post following the previous inspection before you took up the role in 2016. During this time of instability, standards in the school declined. However, the local authority has guided and supported you and your governors wisely since your appointment. As a result, you and the governors have rapidly become more confident and effective in your roles. You share the same commitment to creating the very best educational experience for every pupil in your care and, along with your staff, you and the governors are all making strong progress towards achieving this aim. Standards and outcomes for pupils have improved. Children make a positive start in the high-quality early years provision and continue to make good progress as they move through the school. Your school is a smaller-than-average primary school and this helps your staff to get to know each pupil individually. You, your staff and governors use this personal approach to ensure that pupils’ social and emotional needs are effectively met alongside their academic development. Many parents and carers mentioned this in their comments to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, saying how well the staff help their children both to learn and to grow as individuals. Typical comments included ‘Matching Green School is a caring and nurturing community that values each pupil’ and ‘the school is more like a family and the staff genuinely care about the individual child.’ There is a happy, purposeful atmosphere in classes and around the school. Pupils are friendly and confident. They told me that they enjoy coming to school because ‘everyone is kind here’ and ‘we learn a lot in our lessons.’ Our joint observations in all classes confirmed that pupils behave well. In lessons, they willingly get on with their tasks and respond readily to the staff who work with them. Pupils are proud of their achievements. They talk positively about their work and their learning. You, the leadership team and governors have taken effective action to attend to the areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection. For example, one area for development was to provide more training opportunities for staff in order that they improve their practice further. Since the previous inspection, there have been many changes in staff and you have appointed new leaders. You have worked hard to build a successful and effective staff team. All 13 staff who responded to Ofsted’s online staff survey agreed that the school is led and managed well. Staff enjoy working at the school and feel well supported because there are systems in place to share ideas and plan together. The school works in partnership with a group of local schools. This provides further opportunities to strengthen provision. Joint work between these partnership schools means that teachers and governors are able to discuss, observe and share the best practice. Consequently, the quality of teaching is securely good throughout the school and staff morale is high. Your evaluation of the school identifies the strengths and points out accurately where improvements are needed. For example, pupils’ achievement in phonics has not been as strong as nationally, and this is a current priority. You also know that the most able pupils do not always achieve as well as they should. The school’s action plans point clearly to the targets that you are working towards and how you intend to achieve them. Safeguarding is effective. You, governors and staff work hard to ensure that safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. There is a strong culture of safeguarding in the school. Rigorous checks are carried out on all adults who work or volunteer in the school. Staff receive regular and helpful training to ensure that they know their safeguarding duties. You and the other leaders for safeguarding have effective systems to make sure that staff know what to look out for and that potentially vulnerable pupils are quickly identified. Where there are concerns, you take swift action to support these pupils, including making referrals to the local authority where appropriate. You are tenacious in making sure that referrals are followed up and action taken where needed. You keep detailed and well-organised records.