The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Based on the evidence gathered during this short inspection, I am of the opinion that the school has demonstrated strong practice and marked improvement in specific areas. This may indicate that the school has improved significantly overall. Therefore, I am recommending that the school’s next inspection be a section 5 inspection. You challenge and support the whole school community to ensure that pupils achieve the best they can. You listen carefully to pupils and staff and empower them to contribute to the school’s improvement. This work has helped to develop an extremely strong culture of learning and positive behaviours in pupils, and strong levels of professionalism in the staff. Leadership at all levels is characterised by a considerable determination to make any improvements needed. You provide many opportunities for staff within school to effectively take on new responsibilities. This trust and faith in their ability to lead and develop initiatives is clearly appreciated, as shown in the overwhelmingly positive responses to the Ofsted staff questionnaire. Equally, it impacts on the high standard of teaching that pupils overall experience across each key stage. Through regular formal and informal monitoring, leaders have a detailed understanding of the school’s strengths and areas for development. All leaders play a clearly defined and effective role in monitoring the effect of the work of the school. New ways of working are carefully evaluated to ensure they are having a positive effect on pupils’ progress. A continuous focus on ensuring that pupils receive the most effective teaching and learning is evident across the school. Ongoing assessment is rigorous and it is used effectively to inform teachers’ planning and identify any additional support required for individual pupils. Detailed analysis of performance information enables staff to know the learning needs of their pupils extremely well. This results in very focused teaching and the production of personalised resources for individual pupils that carefully target their needs. Staff have regular, planned opportunities to access high-quality training both within the school and also via the local authority. This enables staff to further develop their expertise and share good practice with their colleagues. However, leaders are aware of the need to even further extend teachers’ opportunities to benefit from the expertise in school, therefore developing even greater consistency. All children begin their education at St Joseph’s in Reception and make increasingly strong progress from different starting points. Further work is needed by leaders to ensure the proportion of children achieving a good level of development by the end of Reception continues to increase and is in line with that seen nationally. This is an area for improvement. Leaders are very aware of this and are already putting into place appropriate actions. In 2018, the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics in key stage 1 was above the percentage that did so nationally. However, in terms of achieving a greater depth of understanding, particularly in mathematics, pupils by the end of Year 2 did not reach the national standards. Decisive action has been taken by yourself and the leader for mathematics and this is already improving the proportion of pupils achieving a greater depth of understanding. In discussion, pupils say they are seeing the change in the teaching of mathematics and recognise the positive effect it is having on their learning. In key stage 2, pupils are currently making strong progress. In Year 6 in 2018, the proportion of pupils reaching the expected and higher standard in reading, writing and mathematics combined was well above the percentage that did so nationally. In writing alone, however, the proportion of middle-ability pupils achieving the higher standard in 2018 was below the national average. You and the leader for English have already taken swift action and current evidence in pupils’ workbooks indicates that an increasing proportion are now achieving the higher standard.