The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Your strong leadership is complemented well by that of your committed deputy headteacher and knowledgeable governors. The consistency in senior leadership and governance over recent years has enabled you to make continual improvements to the school. Governors challenge and support you in equal measure. In response, you have ensured that there are rich opportunities for pupils to learn through an exciting and dynamic curriculum. Staff appreciate the support that they receive in developing their skills. All of the staff responding to Ofsted’s staff survey said that they were proud to be part of the school. More importantly, pupils demonstrate a calm and considered nature. Pupils enjoy their learning. They are attentive, polite and well mannered. They are a delight to talk to and are a credit to staff and parents and carers alike. There is a purposeful atmosphere across the school that enables them to focus on their learning. They appreciate the wealth of opportunities that they have to attend a range of extra-curricular activities, which includes clubs as diverse as those for street dance, computing and gardening. This contributes to the vibrant learning culture in the school. You have taken effective action to address the areas for improvement from the last inspection. The knowledgeable mathematics leader has brought about improvements to ensure that pupils are challenged to achieve well in mathematics. Pupils use their problem-solving skills more frequently and in a range of practical contexts. For example, Year 5 and Year 6 pupils learned about profit and loss when they organised a Macmillan coffee morning to raise over £500 for charity. In 2018, pupils at the end of key stage 2 made good progress to achieve well in mathematics. Safeguarding is effective. The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Staff and governors subscribe to the principle that ‘it could happen here’ when it comes to safeguarding pupils. They have regular training and updates to ensure that there is a culture of vigilance. Safeguarding practice at the school is based on the excellent relationships that staff have with pupils. Staff know pupils well. They are well placed to spot any signs or symptoms of abuse. Pupils say that the high levels of care at the school make them feel safe. For example, they say that poor behaviour is dealt with effectively by staff and so they feel safe from harm. They know how to keep themselves safe because of the effective opportunities that they have to learn about issues such as ‘stranger danger’ and online safety. Inspection findings As part of this inspection, we looked at a number of key lines of enquiry. The first of these was to see how effectively leaders identify and support pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). These pupils are identified well. There are clear procedures for supporting pupils and placing them on the register of need. From very different starting points, pupils with SEND make at least good progress in all aspects of their learning. Additional funding is spent effectively on staffing and resources. The targets that are set for pupils’ achievements are relevant and address their individual needs, including aspects of behaviour and personal and social development. Pupils’ work shows a very structured approach. Staff question pupils clearly to direct their thinking and offer appropriate support to enable them to achieve well. We also looked at how successfully staff challenge pupils to make good progress in writing in key stage 2, particularly the most able pupils. Pupils’ work shows that they make good progress. The work in their literacy books focuses on developing specific skills and on broadening their vocabulary. They use interesting and engaging language in their independent work. Staff challenge pupils well, and according to their different abilities. The work of the most able pupils exhibits a greater command over structure and composition, including when writing for different purposes. These pupils use punctuation well to develop complex sentences. The leader for English understands the strengths and weakness of this subject well and has responded to the lower than expected spelling scores in the 2018 national tests at the end of key stage 2. The measures that he has put in place are improving pupils’ engagement in spelling and in their knowledge of different derivatives of words. This new method of addressing pupils’ spelling has improved the accuracy of their written work in upper key stage 2. However, this precision is not yet evident in lower key stage 2 as the system has not been fully implemented across the whole key stage. In lower key stage 2, common spelling errors relating to vowel sounds persist in pupils’ work. Finally, we considered how well leaders have designed a broad and balanced curriculum. They have designed the curriculum to engage pupils through wellthought-out topics. Staff bring their own interests to add a fresh perspective to the material studied, such as when Year 3 and Year 4 pupils developed their own superlatives to describe the different planets in Star Wars. Schemes of work meet all the requirements of the national curriculum and develop pupils’ skills well. For example, in science, pupils carry out investigations and in computing, pupils use algorithms of increasing complexity. Topics are studied in depth. The curriculum is extended further by a wide range of visits, visitors and clubs that enthuse pupils. However, leaders’ monitoring of subjects such as geography and science does not have a sharp enough focus on developing staff skills in order to improve teaching and learning. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: improvements in the way in which spelling is taught are applied more consistently across key stage 2 leaders’ monitoring has a clearer focus on supporting staff in improving their skills in science, geography and other subjects across the curriculum. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Blackburn with Darwen. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Steve Bentham Her Majesty’s Inspector Information about the inspection I met with leaders and governors to discuss safeguarding and aspects of the school’s leadership and management. We visited classes together and I looked at samples of pupils’ work in writing and other areas of the curriculum. I looked at the work of a sample of eight pupils with SEND from across the curriculum. I spoke with pupils from across the school formally about safeguarding, behaviour and different aspects of their education. I reviewed safeguarding documentation, including the record of checks undertaken on newly appointed staff. I analysed documentation for the design of the curriculum, the school’s own evaluation of its strengths and weaknesses and the school development plan. I took into account 22 responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View, 20 responses to the staff survey and 54 responses to the pupil survey.