The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You are resolute that pupils should reach their potential and this continues to pay dividends. Senior and middle leaders have been successful in helping pupils to raise their aspirations and realise their ambitions. Adults’ and teachers’ tenacity in helping the most vulnerable pupils to overcome social and domestic difficulties is driven by their deep and passionate commitment to the community. Governors offer sound support but recognise the level of challenge they offer could be sharper. The school is particularly successful in securing a calm and productive working environment. Teachers manage pupils’ behaviour very well, particularly that of pupils who have identified behaviour difficulties. Teachers are patient and skilful in using a mixture of appropriate praise, encouragement and redirection to help pupils to maintain a good work ethos. As a result, most groups of pupils make the progress they should and often make better progress. Disadvantaged pupils and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities do equally well. You and your team monitor the quality of teaching and pupils’ work carefully. As a result you spot and act swiftly on any slippage in terms of teachers’ performance or pupils’ underachievement. For example, you have taken firm action combined with effective support to improve the quality of teaching in humanities subjects. While teaching in history and geography remains variable in quality, pupils’ work in books shows that it is improving. You also know that the most able pupils have not been making as much progress as others. As a result of senior and middle leaders’ coaching, teachers are becoming more skilled at offering a more appropriate level of challenge, which is leading to improved progress. Middle leaders’ skills in evaluating how well different groups of pupils are doing are improving all the time. For example, they keep a close eye on how well boys are doing and take effective steps to make sure that teaching engages them. Subject leaders value senior leaders’ support and coaching in honing their skills. They follow the established calendar of quality assurance activities assiduously, making sure they consider assessment information, observations of learning, the work in pupils’ books and discussions with pupils to gather an accurate picture of pupils’ progress and the quality of teaching. This group of middle leaders works very well together and they are keen to try new ways of improving their work. They recognise that they could be more precise in pinpointing their monitoring to look at the progress of specific groups such as the most able disadvantaged pupils. The progress pupils make in English is better than published results would suggest. This is because you and your team decided to enter pupils early for their GCSE examination to help them build up resilience in examination practice. This was a successful tactic because pupils gained confidence and subsequently achieved higher grades. Consequently, pupils were able to access the employment, training or further education courses that matched their aspirations. However, you recognise that this confidence building can be achieved through internal examinations and you are no longer using this approach. At the previous inspection, the school was asked to make sure that pupils knew exactly how to improve their work. Teachers now use the school’s marking policy consistently and pupils’ work usually improves as a result. For example, in Year 10 English books, the teacher asked pupils to make sure that they added quotations to support their views about ‘An Inspector Calls’ and pupils successfully weaved in appropriate quotations in the subsequent tasks. Pupils’ writing skills across the school have improved. Pupils are expected to write full answers and they are challenged to think carefully about their answers. Improving pupils’ speaking skills is proving to be a harder nut to crack but staff are persistent in tackling the underlying causes of pupils’ confidence and self-esteem. Pupils’ progress in mathematics is particularly strong and pupils’ work shows that other subjects, such as science, are sustaining a good rate of improvement. Learners in the studio school are making consistently good progress. Leaders effectively promote learners’ high ambitions. Strong careers information, advice and guidance can be seen in learners’ destinations, which closely match their career aspirations. The number of learners who improve their English and mathematics grades continues to rise year on year. The significant number of learners who come to the studio school from other schools are supported in settling in quickly, with learning coaches on hand to encourage learners’ good attendance and a professional approach to their studies.