The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You provide strong leadership and are very well supported by the deputy headteacher and a skilled governing body. As you know, in January 2015, governors worked with the local authority to form the Westcliffe Federation. You and the governors skilfully brought together two school communities and you and the governing body now have oversight of West Felton and one other local primary school. The federation enables staff from both schools to see and share best practice. This is having a positive impact on sustaining improvements to teaching at West Felton, as well developing the leadership and coaching skills of your staff. All the parents I spoke to see the federation as a positive move. I agree, as it is helping small schools, such as yours, to utilise and share expertise for the benefit of the pupils. The vast majority of parents are right to be satisfied with the education and welfare provided for their children. One parent, reflecting the views of most, commented in writing, ‘The school constantly strives to provide a positive and caring learning environment.’ Parents are right. Since the previous inspection in 2011, you, your staff and governors have successfully maintained a strong ethos, culture and community spirit with the church and wider community. You engage successfully with parents. This ensures that the school takes exceptional care of their children and makes an excellent contribution to their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Pupils told me how much they enjoy school and many confirmed that they form long and lasting friendships in and beyond the school community. We analysed the reasons why last year’s national assessments in key stage 1 showed an untypical decline in standards reached by pupils in reading, writing and mathematics. I understand that when there are small cohorts taking national tests, the results can vary considerably from year to year and an interpretation of trends needs to be treated with caution. For this reason, we focused on pupils’ current work and assessments to establish whether the quality of teaching remains good in all five classes. Recent assessments, pupils’ work in books and direct observations of teaching and learning show that the large majority of pupils make good progress. There were only 10 pupils in Year 1 last year and half (five) reached the expected standard in phonics. Currently, the majority of pupils in Year 2 is on track to reach the expected standard in reading and writing. This means those that did not reach the expected standard last year have already caught up. Pupils’ current work in books in key stage 2 shows that their writing is improving very well and they make good progress. Pupils write interesting and creative stories and factual accounts about a range of stimulating topics and projects. Although spelling, punctuation and grammar improves rapidly in Years 3 to 6, pupils in Years 1 and 2 make relatively slower progress in handwriting and, in some cases, with spelling. Leaders and staff recognise this and have already put in place measures to improve writing in key stage 1. We also focused on pupils’ achievement in mathematics. I could see that this subject is led and coordinated by a very well-qualified teacher who supports other staff across the federation. The focus on number, calculation and problem-solving is the right one and this is reflected in the priorities set out in the school development plan. There has been good improvement since the previous inspection as pupils have more opportunities now to apply their numeracy skills to a variety of problems. In addition, pupils are improving their mental arithmetic skills well, which was an area for improvement at the time of the last inspection. The large majority of pupils are on track to reach or exceed age-related standards in mathematics. However, some pupils could still reach higher standards in mathematics as assessments show that some fall just short of their expected learning targets. You, the staff and governors have maintained the positive and supportive ethos that was found at the time of the previous inspection. This is largely as a result of very strong care and welfare provided by the staff. This is acknowledged and appreciated by the vast majority of parents. Pupils are enthused by the varied and stimulating curriculum you and the staff provide. In addition, the school has very clearly maintained strong provision for children in the early years. It was encouraging to see that governors expanded early years provision to include parttime education and care for three-year-olds in the Nursery class. The strong foundations laid in both the Nursery and Reception classes are clearly evident in the rapid progress children make in language, literacy and mathematics. Safeguarding is effective.