The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have created a calm and purposeful environment in which pupils and staff work very well together. You and your deputy headteacher have created a culture of high expectations and a school that all staff are proud to work in. Consequently, pupils are making good progress and learning well. At the previous inspection, you were asked to make sure that pupils were challenged by the work set for them. You and your leaders have provided effective professional development for staff and reorganised schemes of work to provide greater challenge, especially in reading and mathematics. As I visited classrooms and analysed pupils’ work, I noted that the ‘pitch’ of work is appropriately challenging for all abilities, including middle-ability pupils, and that pupils set to work with confidence and enthusiasm. As a result, pupils are making good progress. I noticed that pupils’ attitudes to learning are very positive and, particularly in key stage 2, even greater challenge would assist more pupils to attain the very highest standards. I was keen to find out how teachers are using questioning to deepen pupils’ learning. This was another area identified at the previous inspection. I found that teachers are asking supplementary questions to make sure pupils think fully about what they are learning. Pupils were keen to answer at length and provide a good amount of detail to show how much they had understood. I found that teaching assistants are skilled in questioning pupils about their work, especially when helping pupils to learn about phonics. You and your team were disappointed with the progress pupils made at the end of Year 6 last year. You quickly set about improving the teaching of reading with the full support of teachers and teaching assistants. Staff have embraced new systems for the teaching and assessment of reading in key stage 2. As a result, pupils’ comprehension skills and their vocabulary are developing well. Furthermore, you and your staff have made sure that pupils have suitably challenging texts to meet the new assessment requirements at the end of key stage 2. Currently, pupils are making strong gains and enjoying the stimulating work that teachers plan for them. I saw skilled teaching of phonics in Year 1, with pupils set into six ability groups. I noted teachers and their assistants using a wide range of techniques to challenge pupils, including those who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities, to learn well. Safeguarding is effective. You and your governors have made sure that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Your safeguarding team has established high-quality systems to make sure that pupils, including the most vulnerable, are safe and protected from harm. There is a clear ethos across the school that sets the safety of pupils as a high priority. Safeguarding records are kept meticulously. Your staff are vigilant and have a clear understanding that the safety of children is the responsibility of all staff. Child protection training for staff ensures that they are knowledgeable and know what to do should they have any concerns about children’s welfare. The school works closely with external agencies, parents and carers to ensure that children are safe. Members of your safeguarding team are tenacious in making sure that matters relating to safeguarding are followed up quickly to ensure that children are safe. Governors make sure that all adults on the site are checked to confirm they are fit to work with children. The school’s central record of these checks is exceptionally well kept and checked regularly by you and governors. All pupils I spoke to told me they are safe and happy in school. They told me they enjoy school and that pupils care for each other. Pupils are very confident that staff will listen to them and resolve any worries or concerns. They told me that there are regular reminders in lessons about how to stay safe when using the internet and training for them about how to keep safe when not in school. Inspection findings I was very keen to find out how well reading skills in key stage 2 are improving. Pupils’ reading skills are improving quickly across key stage 2 because of good teaching. I saw staff using a very structured and effective system consistently well to develop pupils’ reading. Teachers prepare interesting tasks that match the needs and abilities of pupils because you, and other leaders, have made sure that they are skilled in assessing the quality of pupils’ work. Pupils make a very strong contribution to reading by focusing well on independent pre-reading tasks and using dictionaries and glossaries to make sure that they understand the vocabulary. They are ready to engage fully in group sessions and develop extended answers to comprehension work. Occasionally, pupils’ work is not checked swiftly so that misunderstandings can be spotted and pupils can overcome them quickly. At times, this slows progress and limits the setting of additional challenge for pupils. Pupils are keen to present their work well, and this was very noticeable in the strong presentation of work in mathematics. In mathematics, pupils are making good progress because interesting and challenging tasks are set. Usually, teachers pick up misconceptions quickly, and pupils are keen to improve their work. Occasionally, misconceptions are not addressed swiftly before moving on to additional tasks, and this impairs some pupils’ ability to tackle the more challenging tasks. An analysis of pupils’ work showed pupils’ good reading skills, helping to strengthen the quality of their writing as they are using more extensive vocabulary. However, I noted that pupils’ handwriting skills vary and are not consistently well developed. Across the school, including in early years, pupils have very positive attitudes to learning because they are interested in the work set for them. In Reception, I saw teachers supposedly taking questions across the telephone from a ‘member of the Royal Family’ about mathematical shapes. Children were highly engaged and keen to provide very detailed answers about the properties of shapes. Pupils enjoy school and willingly take on a wide range of roles and responsibilities that you make available for them, such as sports coaches, school councillors or anti-bullying ambassadors. You, your assistant headteacher and your family support worker are tenacious in making sure that pupils’ attendance is at least average so they can enjoy the benefits of attending a good school. You make sure that parents know they are obliged to ensure that children attend well. Most parents make sure that their children do attend regularly. You and your governors do not sanction holidays in term time and make every effort to dissuade parents, although a small minority of parents do not heed your advice. Governors make a good contribution to the leadership of the school. They are astute and know the school exceptionally well. They are well aware of the effective use of pupil premium spending and its impact. They told me that the new computer reading schemes you have purchased are helping disadvantaged pupils, in particular, to strengthen their reading. I saw pupils, including disadvantaged pupils, using computers to improve their reading skills. They told me how much they are enjoying using the systems and how their skills and interest in reading are improving. Your deputy headteacher provided information from your very sophisticated tracking systems to show that pupils are making good progress.