The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Much has changed since your appointment. You have recruited staff throughout the school and recently created a new leadership team. Together with your assistant headteachers, you provide clear leadership, drive and enthusiasm that motivate staff and enable pupils to achieve well. You have improved outcomes for children in the early years and for pupils in key stage 1 in reading, writing and mathematics. All groups of pupils typically make good progress, including disadvantaged pupils and the most able. However, you recognise that the 2016 outcomes for Year 6 pupils were not good enough. You responded with urgency to these disappointing key stage 2 results. Current pupils are making rapid progress as a result of your improvements to teaching and learning. However, you are aware that the proportion of pupils achieving at a higher standard needs to improve further. Teachers told me that they feel empowered by your leadership to explore the most effective ways of helping pupils to learn. You support teachers well and encourage them to share their best practice with other schools. This inspires staff, so morale is high. You recognise that staff changes have hampered the pace of improvement in some classes within the school. Your investment in teachers’ professional development is helping you to recruit and retain high-quality staff, bringing stability to the school. Governors play an important role in that they provide helpful support and challenge to your leadership. You have maintained the strengths identified in the last inspection. St John’s is clearly at the heart of your diverse community, and pupils and parents are rightly proud of their school and all that it achieves. A typical parental view was: ‘I can’t praise the staff enough for all they have done over the years for my children.’ You support new arrivals to the country well and parents value the way you embrace all languages. The pupils I spoke with said that they enjoy school, particularly the extra-curricular activities, visitors and the many trips that complement the vibrant curriculum. I listened to pupils rehearse enthusiastically for their forthcoming performance at the regional heats of a music festival. The anticipation of winning was tangible. Pupils are keen to work hard and improve their work. Behaviour and conduct around school are extremely positive. St John’s is an inclusive school where everyone is encouraged to aspire, improve and ‘go forward together’. This is a sentiment captured in the words of the school’s song, and echoed by many pupils. You are very clear about how you will continue to build on these strengths. For example, you are keen to develop pupils’ resilience in mathematics so that they are able to reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses as learners. At the time of the last inspection you were asked to ensure that children in the early years were supported to achieve better. Your newly appointed early years leader has taken swift action to address this and outcomes are improving this year for all children, particularly in writing. We observed children writing instructions to sow seeds. Adults extended children’s vocabulary well. You were rightly proud of the writing on display, which shows children are forming letters well and spelling words accurately. More children in the early years are demonstrating high attainment in reading, writing and mathematics than in the past. You have accurately identified that there are other aspects of the school’s work which need to improve further. We agreed to make these areas the focus for this inspection. In the past, teaching did not match the needs of all pupils. We discussed how this had not prepared Year 6 pupils well enough for the 2016 reading and mathematics tests. You have identified that pupils require even more opportunities to develop vocabulary, to strengthen problem-solving and reasoning skills in mathematics, and to make inferences when reading. You have improved the quality of teaching by working with other schools in your cooperative. You have recruited specialist staff and strengthened planning and resourcing in mathematics and reading. In addition, you and other leaders are effective in monitoring the quality of teaching. You know your pupils well which enables you to thoroughly check teachers’ assessments and planning for learning. It is evident that teachers’ questioning and feedback which is part of your ‘catch up, keep up’ strategy is ensuring that pupils make rapid progress. We observed this approach in most classes, across reading, writing and mathematics. As a result, and despite some pupils having low starting points, more pupils are working at agerelated expectations than before.