The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. The school has experienced changes in school leadership following the last inspection and the progress of pupils slowed. To address this, the school worked closely with the local authority, and the governing body entered into a partnership with the Inspire Partnership. As part of this initiative, you joined the school as acting headteacher. You have worked relentlessly, ably supported by an executive headteacher from the Inspire Partnership, to accelerate the progress of pupils. You have provided enthusiastic and determined leadership and built a positive culture in which children thrive. In February 2017, the governing body confirmed your appointment as substantive headteacher. Safeguarding is effective. The leadership team has ensured that effective systems are in place to safeguard pupils and records are detailed and of high quality. All the necessary checks relating to the recruitment of staff are in place. The pupils say that they feel safe. The good relationships developed with staff enable them to share any worries they may have. They feel confident to tell staff if they are concerned about messages they receive on their mobile phones or other internet safety issues. Pupils were able to talk fluently, demonstrating good understanding, about the impact of bullying and how it is ‘being mean to someone’ and can ‘constantly hurt feelings’. Pupils I spoke to said that bullying is rare in their school, but if it does happen it is dealt with straight away by the teachers. Pupils spoke about the importance of showing respect to everyone and they felt fortunate to have children of different faiths and beliefs in their classes. At this school they said, ‘it is good.’ Staff I spoke to reinforced that the school has zero tolerance of bullying. There is a robust system in place to offer support. Records are kept well and used to monitor the behaviour of individual pupils. Staff are given clear guidelines if they have safeguarding concerns. The designated safeguarding officer demonstrates good knowledge and delivers training to staff and governors. Good links have been established with external agencies, including the local authority, and the school follows safer recruitment procedures. Inspection findings The previous inspection identified that in order to improve further, the school should make sure that writing tasks set for the most able pupils are always challenging enough. The 2016 national testing showed that the most able pupils had outcomes below the national average and this was my first line of enquiry. School leaders have ensured that pupils have a wide range of activities and reasons to write. English books in each year group demonstrate consistency between classes. Pupils in Year 6 are given the opportunity to read texts from challenging material intended for Year 7 and Year 8 pupils, but the impact of this is not yet reflected in the writing of the most able pupils. The second line of enquiry concerned good progress in the early years. Leaders provide an interesting learning environment and children move freely and confidently between the inside and outside spaces. They are able to make choices and have the opportunity to learn in a small group with a teacher or support assistant. I observed a group learning sounds as part of the phonics programme and another modelling with pastry. Children enjoyed the outside environment and enjoyed the builder’s yard, allotment, construction shed and music and movement activities. Key information was clearly displayed for parents in the nursery and children demonstrated good levels of concentration, for example when grating a bar of soap or pouring liquid into a tray for ice cubes. The early years foundation stage leader continues to focus on the progress of groups and the difference in performance between girls and boys is diminishing. The third line of enquiry was to consider how leaders ensure that pupils in key stage 1 make progress in line with the national average. During my learning walk with the headteacher, pupils demonstrated good behaviour in lessons. Books are neat and presented in line with school expectations. Senior leaders and class teachers identify pupils who are not making expected progress. Pupils are given the opportunity to attend high-quality intervention delivered by senior leaders, class teachers and support assistants. Senior leaders regularly monitor the outcomes of these pupils to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention programmes. The key stage 1 pupils are achieving in line with national expectations in reading, writing and mathematics. The last line of enquiry was to confirm how effectively school leaders monitor attendance and persistent absence. The school has a range of strategies in place to encourage good attendance and punctuality, with class attendance shared weekly in newsletters. The inclusion manager works closely with the home– school liaison officer to track attendance rigorously, and you receive regular reports from them. You also reinforce this by meeting parents during open evenings. There are robust systems in place to identify pupils with belowexpected attendance and parents are notified if this falls below 95%. The school expects at least 98% attendance, above the national. The breakfast club has ensured that pupils are on site in plenty of time for the start of the school day. Governors confirmed their involvement in the leadership and management of the school. They acknowledge that they are kept regularly informed about attendance. Governors have attended a range of training, including in safeguarding, and this is a rolling programme for all governors. The chair of governors is confident that the systems in place to ensure safeguarding are robust and effective. He visits the school to monitor this and reports to the governing body. A good relationship with the local authority has been developed and governors are positive about the Inspire Partnership. They are delighted with your appointment as headteacher and are confident that the raised expectations in the school will continue. They are particularly pleased with the continuing professional development opportunities provided by the Inspire Partnership. During their governors’ visit, they observed much better pupil engagement in learning. They agreed that progress had slowed down after the previous inspection and are grateful for the support of the local authority. They understand the importance of closely monitoring the progress of the most able pupils to ensure that a larger proportion achieve greater depth in their learning. School leaders have worked hard to ensure a consistent approach to pupils’ learning. Every piece of work identifies precise success steps and many tasks have clear next steps to encourage deeper learning. There is a clear ‘Mulgrave style’ evident across the school, which gives pupils security and confidence. Pupils know what to expect and they know what is expected of them.