Pupils and staff work in harmony with one another at The Brier. Staff really care for pupils. They work hard to make sure pupils’ special needs are met so that they are ready to learn. From school councillors to playtime door monitors, pupils take on responsibilities to make their community safe and happy. The school’s motto, ‘Preparing for life, building our strengths’, underpins the sensitive approach staff take to help pupils manage their own behaviour. Pupils and parents and carers agree that this is successful. Pupils trust staff and confide in them if they are worried about something. Bullying hardly ever happens, but if it does, staff deal with it quickly. The positive relationships between staff and pupils means there is a calm and peaceful atmosphere across the school. Pupils’ academic progress is not as strong as it should be. For example, in phonics, some teachers do not help pupils to learn letter sounds well enough. This means that some pupils do not learn to read as well as they could. The headteacher has developed new ways to help pupils to learn really well, but some teachers are not yet using these new approaches well enough to enable pupils to make strong progress in all subjects.