The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You and your staff have created an ethos where everyone is valued and respected. Parents say that they know you are all ‘open and approachable’. You listen to their concerns and often offer support before they ask for it. You make sure that children and pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities swiftly access additional support, and you always engage their parents in planning what is needed. Your respectful approach extends to the staff as well. They say that you are very aware of how demanding their roles can be, and are very supportive towards them, making sure that their workload is manageable. You and the governors see staff well-being as a priority, particularly during the recent period of turbulence due to budget reductions. You always give staff every support when they are working with the most vulnerable families. Teachers and support staff are dedicated and committed to improving their practice. They quickly act on advice and guidance that comes from your sharply focused and frequent evaluations of their impact and they receive appropriate training. The most recent focus has been on early years and school readiness, and phonics. The impact of this work is clear because the progress and attainment of children and pupils continue to improve. Parents talk of the rapid progress that their children make during their time at the school. Although most children enter school with limited English language skills, perhaps having only two or three known words, the majority leave the Nursery with a good level of achievement. Boys’ progress and attainment are now in line with their peers nationally, and girls are rapidly catching up. By the time pupils leave school at the end of Year 2, their phonics knowledge is better than all pupils nationally. They reach expected outcomes in other areas of learning such as mathematics and writing. You know, through efficient analysis and assessment, that there is still work to do. You want to embed the successful work with the younger boys across the whole school, and you want all staff to challenge higher ability pupils more consistently. This will really stretch these pupils and enable them to exceed expectations. Children and pupils are robustly involved in the development of the school. This is a strength. Their thoughtful responses to the curriculum consultation, as well as the school council, are taken seriously. Through these and other forums such as the regular lunchtime consultation group and eco schools representation, you have ensured that their views are listened to and acted on. Their ideas drive the design of the curriculum and other aspects such as the outdoor area development. This ensures their engagement in learning and the continuing improvement in progress and attainment. It also effectively develops a practical understanding of democracy and British values. Safeguarding is effective. Leaders and managers have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and that records are detailed and of high quality. Parents say that they know their children are safe at school because they are happy to come and are progressing well. You regularly check that all staff training is up to date and that all the required security checks are completed before anyone works in the school. Parents say how effective the teaching of online security and ‘stranger danger’ is in helping to keep their children safe outside of school too. They feel that staff ‘look out’ for the children and go the ‘extra mile’ to keep their children safe. Inspection findings The dedicated staff team has taken decisive action to secure improvements. Subject leaders and managers effectively use observations to astutely identify any areas of improvement in practice. They robustly monitor these against outcomes for pupils. Subject audits have supported staff in improving the learning environment and redesigning the curriculum with reference to engaging boys in writing. In all observations of literacy during the inspection, boys eagerly participated and their imagination was captured. For example, when writing an adventure story about travelling to another planet, boys were engaged because of the subject matter and the dramatic interpretation. The most able were challenged to identify the parts of the sentence and expand their understanding of grammar. However, this level of challenge is not always seen when looking in pupils’ workbooks.