The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You know the community the school serves well. You are keenly aware of its needs and aspirations. You are realistic and accurate in what needs to be done to improve the school further. You have ensured that the school has the leadership capacity to continue to improve. This is because you have skilfully developed a vision for the school where all staff take responsibility for the quality of the provision the school offers its pupils, including those who are disadvantaged, and the wider community. You have encouraged staff to take on leadership roles throughout the school. You have ensured that staff at every level have opportunities to develop their skills. For example, you have encouraged your skilled recently qualified teachers to take on specific, whole-school roles that focus on English and mathematics provision across the school. You and your leadership team monitor the quality of provision effectively. You are aware of the areas where there is still some inconsistency and you work systematically to address this. For example, during the inspection, you and your deputy, as you accompanied us on our visits to classrooms, were able to identify clearly and accurately where more needed to be done to deepen and extend pupils’ experience and learning further. The school’s previous inspection identified the need to develop pupils’ ability to apply their skills in subjects across the school. You have addressed this effectively. Pupils report that they enjoy engaging with the wide range of subjects and extra- curricular activities on offer at the school. They told me that they considered the breadth of the curriculum a particular strength of the school. They cited the study of art and Spanish as particular pleasures. They also said that they enjoyed the opportunities the school gives them to take on roles of responsibility such as being librarians or supporting younger pupils as Wibsey Workers. However, inspection evidence suggests that there is still more that could be done, especially as pupils get older, to develop their subject-specific skills in subjects beyond English, mathematics and science. For example, the class records of discussions and activities associated with the study of religious education give a real sense of pupils’ class experience as they discuss key issues about belief. However, there is less evidence of pupils writing and developing their individual skills, knowledge and understanding about faith issues from a range of beliefs. You are very clear about what still needs to be done to improve and deepen pupils’ reading skills. You have worked carefully to improve the quality and status of reading. The well-stocked library has been augmented by an attractive reading area at the heart of the school. You have introduced whole-class reading sessions and more challenging books to stretch pupils and develop their vocabulary. There is also more focus on the ways that writers use writing to create conscious effects. These initiatives are having a positive impact on pupils’ skills and love of reading. They are also beginning to have a positive impact on pupils’ own writing. You are clear that there is still more to be done to embed reading in the life of learning at the school. Governors know the school well. You and your staff provide them with detailed information about pupils’ progress and what needs to be done to improve it further. However, governors do not rely on this information alone. They are adept at gathering information and insights into the school through targeted visits that give them first-hand understanding of the service that the school provides. This means that they are very focused in their work for the school and stringent, yet supportive, in holding you and your team to account. Safeguarding is effective. You, your staff and the governing body take their safeguarding responsibilities very seriously. There is a culture of safeguarding at the school. There is regular and effective training for all staff and governors to ensure that they are up to date in their knowledge and understanding. Your designated safeguarding lead has strong links with outside agencies. Your records of engagement with these agencies are detailed and show your meticulous approach to this aspect of the school’s work. You deal with the local authority promptly and follow safeguarding issues through effectively. You and your leadership team have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Records are detailed and of high quality. Inspection findings Children are well prepared for Year 1 because of their experiences in Nursery and Reception. The proportion of children achieving a good level of development by the end of the Reception Year has been increasing over the last four years and is consistently above the national average. Reading is a growing focus. Children in the Nursery and in the Reception class enjoy books and reading. The school-wide approach to writing and presentation is evident in these early years. The teaching of phonics is a strength. An inspector saw examples of teaching assistants teaching phonics with quiet assurance, developing children’s skills and moving promptly and effectively to address misconceptions. The proportion of pupils who achieved the standard in the Year 1 phonics screening check has been similar to or better than national averages over the last four years. Although still developing, the school-wide focus on reading is having a positive impact on pupils’ attitudes to books and reading in key stage 1. Most pupils make good progress through key stage 1 from their starting points. You ensure that staff monitor the progress of pupils carefully and use the information they gather to focus their teaching on meeting pupils’ needs. However, there is still some inconsistency in teachers’ and teaching assistants’ expectations of what pupils can and should do. There is some inconsistency in the neatness of work in books. You responded promptly and effectively to the relatively disappointing outcomes in reading in 2017 key stage 2 tests. You planned for improvement carefully and there are clear signs that your planned actions are having a positive impact on both pupils’ skills and their attitudes to reading. Reading now has a much higher profile in the school. Pupils told us that they have noticed and welcome this. We saw examples of staff expertise in the use of questioning to extend and deepen pupils’ thinking, often at a fast-moving pace. We saw staff using a combination of persistence and kindness to stretch pupils’ understanding by asking questions that enquire about ‘why’ and ‘how’ rather than the more mundane ‘what’. However, opportunities were also lost to deepen pupils’ understanding and enjoyment. The school offers its pupils a wide range of opportunities to learn in a range of subjects and areas, both in and out of the classroom. However, inspection evidence shows that opportunities are missed to extend and deepen pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding by writing at greater length in subjects beyond English. You have worked effectively to improve attendance across the school, including that of disadvantaged pupils. Overall attendance is now at or above national averages. You have developed a series of effective strategies to address the needs of pupils and their families who, from time to time, find regular attendance challenging. There is still more to be done with a small group of pupils but you and your team are adept and persistent in your engagement with them and their attendance is improving steadily. Pupils told us that they are safe, felt safe and know how to stay safe. They told us that there is regular training at school that helps them to keep themselves safe in a range of situations, including when online. They said that they knew about and were alert to the range of forms that bullying can take and what to do if it happened to them or to a friend. They said that they would tell an adult and that they were very confident that adults at the school would deal with any bullying promptly and well. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: they continue to develop the whole-school approaches to reading by further developing pupils’ understanding of how writers use language to create a range of effects to persuade, inform and entertain they further extend and deepen the curriculum beyond English, mathematics and science, especially in the upper school, so that pupils develop, and are more confident in, subject-specific skills, knowledge and understanding in subjects such as history, geography and religious education they continue to eradicate any inconsistencies in teaching by sharing good practice systematically they continue to bear down relentlessly on the poorer attendance of the small group of pupils who are persistently absent from school. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Bradford. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Mark Evans Her Majesty’s Inspector Information about the inspection Ofsted inspector Lee Haynes and I met with groups of parents at the beginning and end of the day. I met with you and your deputy to discuss the school’s effectiveness and what you have done to ensure that the school continues to improve. I met with two assistant headteachers, the early years leader, phase and subject leaders and with the chair, and vice-chair, of the governing body. I also met with the coordinator of the school’s work to support inclusion and pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. In addition, I met with your school improvement partner, who helps assure the quality of your work, and with a representative of the local authority. I read a range of documents, including your evaluation of the school’s effectiveness. I also scrutinised the school’s safeguarding systems, records and associated documents. I checked information about pupils’ achievement along with evaluations of aspects of the school’s work and minutes of meetings of the governing body. Accompanied either by you or your deputy, we visited almost all classes to observe teaching, learning and assessment. We checked pupils’ progress in their books. We talked formally with groups of pupils from Years 4 and 6. We also talked informally with pupils in lessons and around the school at lunch and playtimes. We listened to and discussed reading with pupils from across the school, including the Nursery. I considered 39 responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire (Parent View), 32 freetext comments, four responses from pupils and 19 responses from staff to the online questionnaires.