The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You lead a skilful staff team that puts pupils’ learning, development and well-being at the centre of all that is done. Pupils typically join your school after having experienced difficulties in their earlier school placements. The vast majority of them settle quickly to make strong progress. Parents praise the noticeable changes that they see in their children. They told inspectors that, at Holy Brook School, their children feel valued and appreciated. Their children become interested in learning and talk in positive terms about what they have done during the school day. For parents, this is a welcome change from their former experience. Pupils told inspectors that they enjoy the wide variety of subjects that they learn and recognise that they are making progress. As pupils deepen their experience of being in the school, they understand your expectations and the emphasis on showing respect for others. Pupils appreciate the ways in which staff keep them safe and carefully talk them through difficult situations. Inspectors identified many strengths when the school was last inspected, such as leaders’ clear aims for the school. They noted the good quality of teaching and learning, pupils’ high levels of attendance and good achievement. These remain strong features of your provision. Inspectors previously asked you to make further improvements to teaching and learning, school improvement planning and the ways in which staff record behavioural incidents. You have addressed these areas diligently and with success, although there have been some barriers to the further improvement of the quality of teaching and learning. The school has been through some recent and ongoing turbulence with staffing. Currently, all senior leaders have taken on a full-time teaching role to ensure that pupils’ needs continue to be well met. You have taken particular care to improve the reporting of behaviour incidents. Pupils’ behaviour remains well managed. All incidents are meticulously recorded and followed up with adults and pupils. Leaders train all new staff to understand that pupils communicate their feelings through their behaviour. A comprehensive risk assessment is in place for every pupil, which identifies specific strategies to support their behaviour. Staff adapt plans regularly to ensure that they are helpful and up to date. Staff are alert to pupils’ emotional needs and moods and help pupils to make good choices in their behaviour. The school day is organised so that pupils are busy with interesting things to do, including during breaktimes and at lunchtime. You also teach pupils how to benefit from calm, quiet times. Clear policies and procedures support staff to use consistent approaches when de-escalating incidents at the earliest possible stage. This keeps everyone safe and maintains a calm atmosphere throughout the school. Specialist training supports all staff to manage serious incidents safely. A new system of electronic recording is helping leaders to analyse information about pupils’ behaviour quickly and to respond quickly to any trends. Pupils learn to build strong relationships with each other well, which inspectors observed during the weekly celebration assembly. It was evident that many pupils feel proud of their achievements. Displays in classrooms and corridors reflect the high standards that many of your pupils reach. In spite of the governing body’s many efforts to recruit to their team, they are currently few in number. The chair of governors, in particular, knows the school very well. Governors appreciate the information that you provide but they do not use it sharply enough to hold you and your leaders to account. Safeguarding is effective. You have created a school where all staff have an in-depth understanding of their responsibilities to keep pupils safe. You are one of the three designated leads for safeguarding and, as a team, you ensure that all procedures are fit for purpose. All staff are thoroughly trained as soon as they join the school, and this is revisited at the start of each school year. Daily briefing sessions help staff to be regularly updated and to share relevant information. You help pupils to understand how to keep safe when they are on the internet and you promote their understanding of British values to reduce the risk of radicalisation. Staff record any safeguarding concerns on the school’s electronic system and the designated safeguarding leads follow these through diligently, making decisions about referrals to other agencies, where needed. The single central record of recruitment checks, on all adults who work with pupils, is carefully maintained.