Lee Royd Nursery School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Ensure that teaching in the nursery routinely promotes children’s early reading and writing skills, so that more start school with skills typical for their age.
• Ensure that governors ask leaders more challenging questions about the progress that children make in all areas of their learning, and especially in literacy, to help leaders improve the nursery even further.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• Leaders and governors at Lee Royd Nursery School are deeply committed to their mission statement to ‘develop all children to their full potential emotionally, cognitively, physically and socially’. They are proud of its standing within the local community. Parents speak highly of the nursery. One told an inspector, ‘I wouldn’t send my children anywhere else.’
• Leaders and governors understand the importance of strong, positive relationships between children, families and adults in the nursery. They lead by example in ensuring that children and their parents feel welcome and secure, for example when they are new to the nursery. Parents say that their children settle in quickly and enjoy their learning.
• Since her appointment in January 2018 the new headteacher has motivated governors and staff alike to share her drive and enthusiasm for the nursery’s continued improvement. She leads her team by example through her positive, energetic approach and her relentless focus on outcomes for children. Staff who responded to Ofsted’s questionnaire were unanimous in their view that the nursery is well led and managed. They value the opportunities that leaders provide for their professional development.
• Governors and leaders consider a wide range of information to help them understand the nursery’s strengths, and where it needs to improve. For example, they ask parents to complete questionnaires to find out whether they are satisfied with the nursery and with the information it provides about their children. They look carefully at the information from the nursery’s assessment systems, and at useful reports from the local authority. As a result of all of this information, their evaluation of the quality of education is accurate.
• Since the short inspection in March 2018 leaders and governors have taken swift action to improve children’s attendance at nursery. As a result of the initiatives they have put in place, attendance is improving quickly for almost all groups of children. Leaders are determined to improve this even further, so that all children develop good attendance habits in readiness for school.
• Leaders and governors are ambitious for children to achieve well. The curriculum ensures that children have plenty of opportunities to learn through first-hand experience, in a range of ways that reflect their different stages of development. Leaders ensure that the nursery is well resourced and clearly organised. Every space, indoors and outside, is utilised and children become absorbed in play and learning. This has a positive impact on the progress that children make.
• Leaders carry out a range of activities to monitor the quality of teaching, learning and assessment in the nursery. They provide staff with appropriate feedback and training to help them improve. Consequently, children across the nursery, including those who are disadvantaged and those who speak English as an additional language, make strong progress in their learning, especially in their personal, social and emotional development.
• Leaders and governors know that despite strong overall progress, some children still lack the early literacy skills they need to make a strong start in Reception class when the time comes. This is because teachers do not routinely make the most of the many opportunities in classrooms and outdoors to promote children’s early reading and writing skills across a range of activities. In a decisive response to the recommendations of the short inspection in March 2018, leaders provided important training for staff. They have also developed the roles of teachers who have middle leadership responsibilities, so that they can better support colleagues to develop skilful teaching. These initiatives are at too early a stage to see the impact on improving teaching and progress.

Governance of the school

• Governors ensure that leaders promote fundamental British values, and that children develop well spiritually, morally, socially and culturally. Governors have a very strong understanding of the needs of families within their local community. They value its diversity and ensure that leaders make the most of the opportunities that this presents to develop children’s attitudes of tolerance and respect for each other.
• Following the short inspection in March 2018, governors wasted no time in securing appropriate training to help them strengthen their own effectiveness. This has enabled them to improve their own knowledge, especially in safeguarding, and to provide better inductions for the new governors that they have recently recruited.
• Governors welcome the wide range of information that the new headteacher provides about children’s achievements, including their attendance. They agree that this is helping them to have a much better understanding of outcomes for different groups of children. Governors are still at the learning stage of asking leaders enough challenging questions about children’s progress in all areas of learning, especially in literacy, to help leaders improve the nursery even further.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Leaders and governors have established a very strong culture of safeguarding at the nursery. Parents agree with this view. The procedures that leaders have established for checking the suitability of adults to work with children are robust.
• The nursery’s work with a range of agencies is highly effective because they communicate with each other well. Information is shared in a timely manner and is clearly recorded.
• Staff are highly vigilant because leaders have made sure that they have the right training to recognise signs of abuse. There are no breaches of the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the early years foundation stage.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Teachers use their good professional knowledge to plan a wide range of activities that capture children’s interests. They organise the learning spaces indoors and outdoors so that children can find the resources they need and tidy them away afterwards. This helps children to make good choices for themselves, and to become busy and involved in their learning.
• Teachers have established clear, regular routines for children to follow. For example, children know where to gather together and sit when it is time for a story. Teachers provide children with useful, predictable prompts to help them listen and stay focused. Children settle quickly and happily, know what is expected of them and behave well.
• Teachers use assessment to build on what children already know and can do. They provide opportunities for children to try out their skills in different ways. For example, children enjoy trying to paint the ice cubes that teachers provide. They notice that as they paint, the colour mixes with the water from the melting ice cubes. As a result, children’s understanding of melting deepens and they make links between experiences.
• Teachers and staff are skilled observers of children. They use the information they gather to make accurate assessments of children’s stages of development across all areas of learning. This helps them to plan effectively to meet the needs of individuals and groups of children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).
• Parents speak highly of the information they receive from teachers about their child’s progress. They enjoy sharing in their child’s learning by submitting comments and contributions on the nursery’s computer-based assessment system.
• Adults promote children’s communication and language skills effectively. They engage children in conversation about what they are doing. Adults model language by ‘thinking aloud’ as they play alongside children. This enables children, including those for whom English is an additional language, to hear a wide range of vocabulary and to understand the meanings of new words. Teachers provide extra support for those children who need it. As a result, children make strong progress in communication and language from their various starting points, including those with SEND.
• Teachers and staff value the extra training they have had to improve the way in which they promote children’s understanding of letters and sounds, or ‘phonics’ skills. They help children to develop a better awareness of sounds in a range of interesting ways. For example, children listen to the rhythm of musical instruments, or take turns to identify objects with names that sound similar. This helps children to recall the letters and sounds.
• Children enjoy listening to the stories that adults read. They have access to a wide range of attractive books and to materials to make marks and experiment with writing. However, teaching does not always encourage children to select these resources for themselves and do not routinely promote reading and writing across a range of activities. As a result, by the time they leave nursery some children do not develop the literacy skills that are typical for their age, and which they need in order to make a strong start in the Reception Year.
• Teachers have made sure that the learning environment promotes children’s emerging mathematical skills. Numerals are displayed indoors and outdoors, together with equipment to help children make links between numerals and quantities. Children make good attempts at using their fingers to count. Teachers make sure that they promote opportunities for children to encounter mathematics in a range of activities. For example, children practising jumping and running were keen to time themselves using a stopwatch.
• Adults who work in the nursery’s provision for two-year-olds have created a calm, welcoming and safe place for very young children. Children are well supported when they separate from parents and adults offer the right comfort when children need it. The knowledgeable staff team interact sensitively and are supportive with children. They allow time and space for those who prefer to watch before joining in. Consequently, children develop confidence and self-esteem, and build strong, appropriate attachments with adults.
• Teachers grasp the opportunities presented by the nursery’s diverse community to challenge stereotypes, and to promote equality of opportunity. Children learn at first- hand about each other’s cultures and beliefs and grow up in a happy atmosphere of tolerance and respect. Teachers ensure that the images they display and the books that they use with children promote difference in a range of ways, including, for example, in the working roles of men and women.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Leaders and teachers have carefully planned learning spaces indoors and outdoors that encourage children to explore and to develop a sense of curiosity. Children enjoy mixing natural resources such as sand, bark and leaves to make ‘potions’ outside, for example. Others eagerly thrust their hands into the creamy mixture called ‘gloop’ and smile as they tell their friends it feels ‘sticky’. As they play and explore, they learn to share and to work cooperatively with each other.
• Children develop positive attitudes to learning and demonstrate a determination to succeed. This is because adults teach them the skills they need to ‘have a go’ for themselves and encourage them to keep trying. This has an impact on the progress they make, because they do not need to wait for adult help. For example, children learn useful ways of putting on their coats and zipping them up independently so that they can move quickly to learn outdoors.
• Children play happily alongside each other, regardless of their different backgrounds. They chat to each other about their own family experiences and as a result learn about difference and diversity in appropriate ways.
• Children have an appropriate understanding of how to keep themselves safe. They learn, for example, how to carry scissors safely from one place to another. They know who to go to on those occasions when they do need help. They trust their teachers and know that they will comfort them if they are unhappy.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Children behave well because adults have established simple but consistent rules and routines for them to follow. For example, they know that they can only play in the water area if a blue apron is available. They are not afraid to remind each other of these important requirements should the need arise!
• Children clearly enjoy coming to nursery. They chat happily to their parents on the way in, sometimes racing them up the path or counting the steps up to the nursery door. Once inside, they separate from their parents with confidence and go straight to their favourite areas to play. Parents welcome the support their children receive, especially when they first start nursery. They say that this support also helps them to feel confident when they leave their children.
• Although children are usually too busy to squabble, teachers support children very sensitively when disputes do occur. They encourage children to explain how they feel, to listen to each other, and to make amends where appropriate. As a result, children learn to use talk to reach solutions and to solve problems for themselves.
• Children, especially those who are older, are learning the importance of coming to nursery regularly. As a result of the initiatives that leaders have introduced, fewer children are now absent. Absences are always followed up quickly if they are unexplained. Leaders are determined to continue improving children’s attendance even further, in readiness for when they transfer to school.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• The majority of children start Lee Royd Nursery School with skills below those typical for their age. Some face particular challenges in relation to their communication and language skills.
• As the result of the good teaching they receive, children make good gains from their starting points. By the time they leave to start school, the majority of children are demonstrating skills across almost all areas of learning that are more typical of those for their age. This represents strong progress, particularly in the case of their important personal, social and emotional development.
• Since her appointment, the new headteacher has ensured that leaders and governors have a strong focus on the outcomes of disadvantaged children. She and her team have worked with great sensitivity to ensure that disadvantaged children are now identified much more quickly. The good teaching and support they receive is enabling disadvantaged children to make strong progress from their often low starting points. In some cases, they make better progress than their non-disadvantaged peers.
• Children with SEND also make good progress from their individual starting points. Their needs are identified quickly and plans to support them are detailed with clear targets and timescales. The nursery has strong links with a range of services to support children and families with SEND. Where necessary, leaders and staff make timely referrals to other professionals to secure the extra help that children need.
• Despite the strong overall progress that children make, fewer children develop the early literacy skills typical for their age than in other areas of learning. Although the nursery is extremely well stocked with attractive books and a range of writing and other mark-making materials, children tend to choose other activities first. Leaders acknowledge that adults do not make the most of every opportunity to promote children’s love of reading and writing across a range of activities. This has an impact on their literacy development, and therefore on the readiness for school of some children.
• Following the short inspection in March 2018, leaders have provided extra training for staff to strengthen their skills in the teaching of phonics. This training is beginning to have a positive impact on pupils’ progress. Children learn about phonics in small groups according to their particular stage of development. Some are beginning to identify the sounds at the beginning of words, and to know when two words sound the same.
• Children who speak English as an additional language (EAL) learn well because of the good support that they receive. They make progress from their starting points that is at least as good as, and sometimes better than, other children.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 119064 Lancashire 10054383 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Nursery School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Maintained 2 to 5 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 108 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Mr Bernard Holden Mrs Karen Smith 01254 231725 www.leeroydnursery.co.uk head@lee-royd.lancs.sch.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• This nursery school is maintained by the local authority.
• Children move on to various local primary schools when they leave the nursery.
• Most children are of either White British or Pakistani heritage.
• The proportion of children with SEND is similar to average.
• The nursery offers provision for children from two to four years old. Some children attend for full days, and some attend on a part-time basis.
• The nursery operates breakfast and after-school clubs, under the management of the governing body.

Information about this inspection

• The inspector observed teaching at different times of day during the inspection. One observation was carried out jointly with the headteacher.
• Meetings were held with the headteacher, staff and governors. The inspector also spoke to a representative from the local authority.
• The inspector spoke to parents on arrival at nursery.
• The inspector looked at records of children’s learning and at their work on displays.
• A range of documentation was scrutinised, including the school’s self-evaluation, improvement plans and minutes from governing body meetings, attendance records and safeguarding documentation.
• The inspector took into account of 35 responses to Ofsted’s Parent View questionnaire, and 12 responses to the staff questionnaire.

Inspection team

Mavis Smith, lead inspector

Ofsted Inspector