The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the previous inspection. You are an effective headteacher who has quickly gained the confidence and support of staff at St John’s. As a result, the vast majority of staff who responded to the online survey agreed that the school is well led and managed and that they enjoy working at the school. You took up your post as headteacher at St John’s in September and already have a clear plan for the school. Your governors know the school well and are very aware of the impact of many staff changes over the past few years. Together you have a clear, shared understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses. You work closely with the local authority and the diocese to improve the school, through, for example, undertaking joint monitoring activities. The behaviour of pupils around the school and in lessons is calm and purposeful. This is because pupils are respectful and accepting of others. Pupils have a clear understanding of bullying and know what to do if it occurs. They listen carefully in lessons and are enthusiastic about their learning. The vast majority of respondents to Parent View (Ofsted’s online questionnaire) agreed that the school ensures that its pupils are well behaved. One parent spoke for many in saying that St John’s is, ‘a lovely school, where children are well behaved and have strong values reinforced regularly in a positive way. We are so pleased with our son’s progress, and it’s lovely to see him so happy to run into school every morning.’ Safeguarding is effective. You and your staff ensure that there is an effective culture of safeguarding. Safer recruitment procedures are followed and all pre-employment checks are in place. Records of safeguarding incidents are detailed and demonstrate that you engage well with other agencies to keep pupils safe. Consequently, all parents who completed Parent View agree that their child feels safe in school. Staff were equally positive about the school’s culture of safeguarding, with all respondents to the staff survey agreeing that, ‘pupils are safe at this school’. Staff receive regular safeguarding updates and are clear whom they should go to if they have a concern. While staff know what to do to keep pupils safe, they were not always clear about where they can go to find out further information around safeguarding, for example where details can be found on the school’s website. Pupils told the inspector that they are taught how to keep themselves safe both in and out of school. They are knowledgeable about areas ranging from e-safety to road safety. Pupils said that they could talk to any member of staff if they were worried and knew the adults in school were there to help them keep safe. Almost all pupils who completed a survey indicated that they feel safe when they are at school. Inspection findings My first line of enquiry was to look at attendance. This was because in 2016, overall pupil attendance was above the national average. However, the attendance of pupils who are disadvantaged was below the national average and in the bottom 10% of schools nationally. You have quickly and clearly identified this issue since you took up post in September. You and your staff have acted swiftly to ensure that all pupils attend school regularly. The school works closely with the county attendance improvement officer to reduce the absence rates for specific families. As a consequence, the attendance of pupils who are disadvantaged has risen in 2017. The concern about the attendance of disadvantaged pupils is that it can have a detrimental effect on their progress. Unvalidated results for key stage 2 tests in 2017 show that the progress of pupils who are disadvantaged is in line with or better than that of other pupils nationally. Equally, the majority of pupils’ work seen during the inspection shows that disadvantaged pupils are making good progress. To confirm that the school remains good, my second line of enquiry focused on how effectively leaders and governors secure the best outcomes for all children in early years. During the inspection, observations took place in both the Nursery class and the Reception class. In both areas, fun activities were set up for the children to explore, including those intended to improve their mastery of mathematics and phonics. For example, a range of one- and two-digit numbers up to 20 had been drawn in chalk on pieces of backing paper. The children took great delight in filling up water pistols, identifying a number and squirting the number to erase it. Equally, children excitedly identified for the inspector uppercase and lower-case letters they had searched for and found in a tub full of foam.