The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Your leadership is based on a very strong moral and ethical foundation that holds the Christian faith at its heart. There is no doubt that improving the life chances of all your pupils is at the very centre of your work. Your inclusive approach, which seeks to support all pupils, even those who find it difficult to remain within the behaviour boundaries you set for them, is something of which you and your governors can be justly proud. You have created a calm and orderly environment in which pupils can learn without interruption. When I spoke to pupils about their lessons, they were keen to impress on me that they feel the school is a warm and friendly place where everyone ‘just gets on’. You benefit from a very strong governing body. They offer a wealth of experience and they know the school well. They receive good, clear reports from you and they broaden their understanding by working with middle leaders directly. As a result, they are able to hold the school to account well. You and your leadership team have rightly placed a great emphasis on ensuring that middle leaders are effective. You have developed a culture which holds them to account well and ensures they are focused on the quality of pupils’ experience in their classrooms. Middle leaders feel they benefit from the management structure, which they say supports them well in their role. In recent years, pupils have made good progress from their starting points and achieved good standards. When my colleague and I went into lessons with you and your senior staff, we could see from their books that current pupils continue to achieve well and that they are making good progress towards the challenging targets you set for them. The unit which you host, which supports pupils with complex communication difficulties, is well run and meets the needs of the pupils it serves. Staff know their pupils very well and work hard to ensure they can be successful in the mainstream lessons they attend. A very noticeable strength of teaching in your school is the time and effort teachers put into explaining to pupils how they can improve their work. Pupils value this and say it helps them to learn. Pupils also benefit from the quality of questions that teachers ask. The precision and focus on technical detail in questioning is helping older pupils to prepare well for their GCSE examinations. You and your senior colleagues have made it clear to your staff that you expect them to know their pupils well and to adapt their teaching to meet pupils’ needs. The information you provide to teachers about each pupil helps teachers to do this, and pupils are benefiting as a result. While teaching, learning and assessment presents a positive picture overall, you are aware that there is still too much variation in quality between subjects. You have plans in place to work with these areas to ensure that they are as strong as the best in the school. When you have addressed this variability, the school will be very well placed to drive up standards further. Safeguarding is effective. Safeguarding is very strong. The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are detailed and of high quality. Systems for checking the suitability of staff are rigorous and robust. Staff are well trained and understand what to do should they have concerns about the safety of pupils. Pupils know how to keep themselves safe online and know who to talk to if they have a concern. Attendance is also monitored carefully and there are good systems in place to check on those who are absent. Vulnerable pupils are well cared for. The team that supports these pupils has a broad range of skills and experiences and they have the time allocated and the skillset to meet pupils’ needs. There are good relationships with the local authority, which ensures a strong safety net is in place for pupils who need that level of care.