The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You are an inspirational headteacher who leads by example. You have a drive to ensure the school is the best it can possibly be. You know your school well and are accurate in your judgement of where Prince Edward Primary is on its improvement journey. Governors and the local authority adviser agree that the school has continued to improve under your committed, determined and collaborative leadership. The school has many strengths, including pupils’ good behaviour, you and your staff team’s commitment to the welfare and care of pupils and their families, and the progress pupils make. You, your leadership team, staff and governors have developed a welcoming and warm feel to the school, with strong relationships between staff, pupils and their families. This is evident in the importance you place on ensuring that all staff are visible at the beginning of the day, with all teachers welcoming pupils and their families to school on the playground. There is a tangible family ethos, and all members of the school community recognise the importance of fostering strong relationships with the community. Leaders are determined to raise aspirations for all pupils. The nurturing and inclusive ethos is a key factor in breaking down barriers to pupils’ learning. High expectations permeate the school. Teachers set high expectations for pupils and are relentless in their drive to achieve the best outcomes possible. Children in early years make good progress from their lower than typical starting points. Pupils’ progress through key stages 1 and 2 is also good, and sometimes outstanding. In recent years, by the time pupils leave at the end of Year 6, standards of attainment have been above average. Leaders rightly identified, however, that in 2017, pupils’ achievement in reading at the end of key stage 2 lagged behind that in writing and mathematics. You have put in place a full range of strategies to support current pupils to make better progress in reading. This includes targeting individual pupils, providing additional support and introducing more challenging texts for example, ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Frankenstein’. Such strategies have been successful in improving pupils’ progress overall. You rightly identify that you need to continue to improve the consistency of the teaching of reading across the school. School leaders have taken effective action to address the areas for improvement identified at the last inspection. You were asked to improve the quality of pupils’ handwriting skills and to ensure that writing in topic books is as high quality as in English books. The leader for English has been relentless in her drive to improve standards of writing across the curriculum. Through her leadership, the quality of writing in all pupils’ books is now a strength. Pupils write at length, and at a high standard both in English and other curriculum areas. Handwriting and presentation are consistently good in all books. In most classes, teachers plan work that matches their assessments of pupils’ learning needs. Teachers’ effective questioning supports and challenges pupils to achieve well. However, you agree that in some classes, there is more work to do to ensure that activities consistently challenge the most able pupils to think more deeply about their learning, so that a higher proportion of pupils achieve the higher standards in all year groups. Governors have a good understanding of the school. Their knowledge of the local community and their varied range of skills enable them to support school improvement well. Governors use a range of information effectively to challenge school leaders. They ensure that their regular visits to school enable them to see, first hand, the work of school leaders. Safeguarding is effective. The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Leaders and governors are diligent in all matters relating to safeguarding and take their responsibilities very seriously. They make sure that all recruitments checks are carried out on the suitability of staff and keep up to date with safeguarding regulations. All staff have received training, for example on the ‘Prevent’ duty, so that they know how to recognise and report causes for concern. Records show that leaders take prompt and effective action to ensure that pupils receive the support they need. You involve external agencies as appropriate and are tenacious in following up referrals. Records are detailed and of high quality. Pupils said that they feel happy, safe and settled in school. They told me that they know how to keep safe, for example, when using the internet. Pupils also said that bullying is rare, and if it does happen, staff quickly sort it out. They confidently stated that they can talk to any adult in the school about any worries they may have, including class teachers, lunchtime staff and senior leaders. Pupils are taught to keep safe through activities such as the recent visit from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, road safety lessons and cycle training. Effective monitoring of attendance and specific approaches taken with individual families have improved rates of attendance and punctuality. Incentives, such as discos and film afternoons, are used to reward those pupils with appropriately high attendance. Your staff are relentless in following up on absences to ensure that pupils are safe. This includes carrying out home visits and regular meetings with parents about attendance and punctuality. These, together with targets for improved attendance, are having a positive impact on attendance rates for all groups of pupils. Consequently, attendance rates are improving towards national averages. Inspection findings At the start of my visit, we agreed a number of key lines of enquiry for the inspection. Firstly, I looked at whether children in early years were making good progress from their starting points. This is because published information shows that the proportion of children reaching a good level of development (GLD) by the end of Reception has been below average in the last three years, especially for disadvantaged children. Inspection evidence shows that early years is a real strength of the school. The proportion of children achieving a GLD is set to increase this year, including for disadvantaged children. Early years teachers know the children very well and, as a result, they adapt learning to meet their needs and interests. An example of this is how the early years team changed a topic to ‘stickers’ as the children became really enthusiastic about earning stickers. From this, the children wanted to know about ‘why stickers were sticky’, and so learned about properties of materials. They used stickers as part of story sequencing, and investigating pattern and data handling in mathematics. This illustration shows that staff are confident to restructure learning to ensure that children are engaged and motivated in their learning. Children in Nursery Year are challenged to a high level and produce excellent work. In one lesson, children dictated their own full stories and acted them out confidently in front of the class. They showed a desire to learn and even gave each other, and responded to, next steps on how to improve their stories. I also looked at how well you and your leaders ensure that pupils are challenged across the school so that they achieve the higher standards in reading, writing and mathematics. This is because at the end of key stage 2, the proportion of pupils achieving the higher standards is generally in line with or above average; however, at key stage 1, the proportion achieving greater depth is generally in line with or below averages. Leaders regularly track pupils’ progress in English and mathematics. This has allowed teachers to become more aware of pupils’ prior attainment and has improved their awareness of what pupils are capable of achieving. The majority of pupils are challenged appropriately. Work is well matched to their needs and challenge is evident through differentiated work and levels of support. Additional adults are used well to challenge pupils through well-framed questions that develop pupils’ thinking. However, the most able pupils do not always receive work that challenges them to achieve the higher standards in year groups other than Year 6. A further inspection focus was on how the school supports those pupils who did not reach the expected standard in the phonics screening check in Year 1. Phonics teaching is strong. Class teachers have a good understanding of pupils’ needs. All adults have a sound understanding of phonics teaching. Pupils who did not achieve the expected standard in Year 1 are supported well in Year 2 through high-quality teaching and bespoke programmes of support to catch up with their peers. Finally, you and I looked at how the school’s curriculum is designed to promote high standards in curriculum areas other than reading, writing and mathematics. The curriculum is bespoke and meets the needs of pupils. The school has recognised that pupils do not always have access to physical activity outside school. Leaders have introduced a ‘daily mile challenge’ for key stage 2 and a ‘Take 10’ active session for all pupils, where pupils are given 10 minutes of directed physical instruction every day. The school works hard to nurture pupils’ talents. They recognise art, sport, music and drama as vital parts of a child’s learning and development. A resident artist, a leader for outdoor learning and a poetry- and story-teller have worked with each class weekly and, as a result, have raised the profile and standard of work produced in these subjects. School facilities have been designed to allow pupils to experience meaningful learning activities they may not have outside of school. This includes the ‘secret garden’ for outdoor learning; a bio-dome to grow tropical fruit; an allotment, where pupils in each class grow produce; and a ‘play pod’ where pupils use real-life recyclable items such as crates, tyres, suitcases and computer keyboards for imaginative play. Pupils talk with enthusiasm and passion about these experiences and say that they ‘help them to learn about things we have never even heard of’. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that they: continue to improve the progress and attainment in reading by addressing inconsistencies in the teaching of reading ensure that teachers consistently challenge the most able pupils so that a higher proportion of pupils achieve the higher standards in all year groups.