Hindley Nursery School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Make sure that next steps recorded in children’s two-year-old progress checks are equally as precise as those identified in other nursery records for these children.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

• Clarity of vision, perceptive self-review, determination to improve and a willingness to learn from external challenge and training characterise the leadership and management of the school.
• Leaders have steadily transformed the work of the school over the last seven years, moving the school forward significantly. They have not rested in seeking to further improve the quality of education provided. Given the school’s current strengths and the track record of improvement, its capacity to improve further is excellent.
• Consistency of high-quality teaching is a striking aspect of the school’s work. Practice throughout the school is worthy of dissemination. The local authority encourages other schools and early years settings to visit Hindley. The high quality of practice in the school has strengthened over time. Leaders actively support other schools and share the work of Hindley Nursery School.
• Staff throughout the school are highly confident in their work and are able to explain the rationale for their approach to teaching and learning as well as what this means for children at this school. Middle leaders play a vital role in helping the school to improve.
• Provision for two-year-old children at the school is led skilfully and successfully.
• Leaders use funding to support disadvantaged children carefully to improve the quality of their learning and enhance their progress. Funding to help children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is used successfully to provide extra help to improve the lives of children.
• Leaders make sure that the curriculum is extremely well considered, designed and evaluated. The school promotes an approach that enables children to be confident to ask questions, to cooperate and to investigate. Children’s ideas and interests matter at Hindley. The school’s curriculum is giving children a superb grounding for their ongoing learning at primary school.
• The school is a calm, welcoming and special place for children to learn, to develop and to thrive. Resources for children’s learning are high-quality and set out thoughtfully each day.
• Leaders’ arrangements to set targets for the work of individual staff are used precisely to improve teaching and children’s outcomes.
• Leaders have a deep and well-informed understanding of the school, the early years foundation stage framework and current national and international research in education. They use their knowledge to maximum effect to challenge themselves and staff. Leaders make sure that training and development opportunities raise staff confidence and skills. Staff benefit from many opportunities to learn from one another and from links with other schools.
• The spiritual, moral, social and cultural aspect of the school is very well developed, for example, teaching children to understand homelessness. Wider activities, such as fundraising to help people affected by terrorist atrocities, help children to understand the fundamental values of modern Britain.
• Leaders are unafraid of challenge and so have sought external reviews of the school through strong partnerships with other nursery schools.
• Leaders make sure that the school is outward-facing, with frequent participation in local and regional initiatives. National speakers are brought into the school to train staff. The school makes purposeful and considered use of internationally recognised methods of evaluation to assist with improvement.

Governance of the school

• Governors know the school in detail. They challenge, they question and they expect high standards from all staff and leaders.
• Governors are fully engaged in offering insight into how the school might develop further. They review and identify strategic priorities for the school with precision, knowledge and passion.
• Governors keep a close check on safeguarding and the impact of leaders on the work of staff.
• Governance has strengthened significantly since the previous inspection, when it was good. New members have brought additional expertise that is used fully to benefit the strategic oversight of the school.
• Governors manage finance very carefully and make sure that the school is ready to tackle national changes in the funding of nursery schools.
• Governors are not complacent about their success and have recently commissioned an external review of their own work. They are determined to be the very best they can.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. There is a strong culture of keeping children safe and protected.
• Staff are watchful, vigilant and responsive. They understand key issues affecting children’s lives and they know how to act to make sure that children are safe.
• Leaders give staff frequent, detailed and thorough training about safeguarding. Staff know fully about the risks to children if they are exposed to radicalised views of the world. Staff understand issues such as neglect.
• Staff relationships with parents are very positive. Lots of communication takes place between home and school. Notices around the school explain very clearly the school’s duties and expectations regarding keeping children and families safe.
• Children benefit much from regular opportunities to develop their knowledge of safety, for example through meeting local police community support officers.
• Over recent years, leaders and governors have strengthened policy and procedure in safeguarding and made sure that their checks on safeguarding are exemplary.
• The curriculum and the school website make maximum use of opportunities to promote messages about safeguarding including e-safety.
• Staff records of safeguarding issues are of a high standard.
• Referrals of concerns to other agencies are prompt and appropriate.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

• There is considerable consistency in the high quality of teaching over time. This shows across different rooms and between staff. The skilled work of staff is worthy of dissemination to help other nurseries consider how best to support children’s learning.
• Teaching at Hindley is based very carefully and precisely on regular assessment. There is thorough tracking of children’s progress from their starting points and perceptive, analytical review of children’s development. Staff identify carefully the next steps for children’s learning and make full use of information to inform their plans for teaching. Leaders make sure that well-developed arrangements assist staff to make assessment judgements that are of equal quality and consistency across the school.
• Common strengths of teaching in the school include staff talking to children patiently and adapting their language skilfully to the needs of different children. Staff model language well, pose questions that provoke children to think and give children time to consider and comment.
• Staff arrange the nursery classrooms very thoughtfully to stimulate children’s thinking and their language. Children benefit greatly from discovering interesting resources set out around the nursery. Staff support children to investigate, experiment and discuss their findings.
• There are well-planned visits to children at home prior to them starting at nursery. This helps children to make a smooth transition to school. Staff evaluate all visits thoroughly. Information is used very carefully to identify where individual children need extra support. Children’s learning and parents’ understanding are further enhanced before taking up a nursery place because they attend a series of introductory sessions at school.
• Staff make children’s learning at school meaningful through well-planned activities, for example by bringing visitors regularly into nursery and arranging trips to the local shops.
• Strong improvement is evident in the teaching of mathematics, following extensive professional development and review of the work of staff.
• Staff have a deep knowledge, not only of the requirements of the early years foundation stage and how children learn, but also of child development. For example, staff understand how children acquire new language and how they can be helped to become confident communicators. They use this knowledge to great effect in their teaching.
• During activities, staff draw on their finely-honed skills to encourage, support and extend children’s learning. Children are given precise and positive feedback about their work and this enhances their confidence to learn.
• Provision to support children’s early writing skills is excellent. Staff give children extensive and meaningful opportunities to write. Children’s writing efforts are valued highly by staff.
• Throughout the nursery, children are given many opportunities to look at books. For example, children are helped to think about healthy eating through the factual books about food and eating displayed next to the snack area. Staff place much emphasis on reading stories to and with children. Staff also teach them to make rhymes and identify the sounds that letters make.
• Because of the exceptional skills of staff, new children settle quickly into lessons. Children at the school are extremely keen and eager to learn. They are extremely curious. Those children who have attended for some time feel very good about themselves and are highly confident learners.
• The school has worked successfully since the previous inspection to establish high expectations for children’s learning. This has helped staff to work more precisely to tackle gaps in children’s abilities and help them to progress even more.
• Assessments of two-year-old children are evaluated thoroughly to identify common issues and barriers across the group of children. The frequent assessments in place are used very well to help children learn. Even so, when staff and health visitors work together to make a shared assessment of two-year-olds, some of the next steps recorded are imprecise. In contrast, other nursery assessments are clear about what two-year-olds need to learn next.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote children’s personal development and welfare is outstanding.
• Staff give great care to making sure children use resources and the environment safely. Children are taught to take sensible risks, for example when climbing and jumping outdoors in the mud pit. Children develop great confidence in their physical skills.
• Leaders and staff make sure that excellent transition arrangements are in place to help children and parents to become familiar with nursery school for the first time.
• The patient and supportive approach of staff in the two-year-old classroom makes sure that the youngest and most disadvantaged children are developing the skills they need to part from their main carer.
• Throughout the school, children are happy, settled and full of enthusiasm for learning.
• Older three-year-old children pay visitors little attention because their learning is so interesting and they feel very at ease in their class.
• Children listen very well to one another and to adults.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is outstanding. Children are very kind, considerate and thoughtful towards one another.
• The learning environment is attractive, homely and well organised. Classrooms are arranged thoughtfully to give children many quiet spaces to play and relax. Lighting and furniture are selected to give a homely feel. Staff speak gently and the whole nursery has a wonderful air of calm.
• Staff set a positive example to children about how to look after their school. Children take great care of their classroom and resources.
• Given that most of the children are new to nursery school this past week, the many strengths in children’s behaviour seen during the inspection are very striking.
• There is no bullying and incidents of poor behaviour are extremely rare. Children who need help to manage their behaviour and feelings are supported sensitively and skilfully by staff.
• Children listen well to staff instructions throughout lessons. Older children model sensibly to new children how to respond when staff announce the end of the lesson and that it is time to tidy up the classroom.
• New children respond splendidly to guidance from staff about how to behave in a new environment. They part from their parents and settle very quickly at the start of the nursery sessions.
• Children arrive at school promptly. New children do not want to leave at the end of the session as they are enjoying learning so much.
• Attendance is not statutory and some parents do not take up children’s full entitlement. Nevertheless, leaders promote and celebrate attendance keenly, as readiness for primary school. Attendance is good and improving over time. Absences are treated with due seriousness and chased up by staff. Where appropriate, links are made with other agencies to enhance support for parents about children’s attendance.

Outcomes for pupils Outstanding

• Children make outstanding progress from their starting points. When starting nursery many children show weaknesses across the areas of learning and particularly in their personal skills, their language and communication and their physical development. By the time they leave the school, they are prepared extremely well for continuing their learning at primary school.
• Although children start nursery with limited reading and writing skills, very quickly they develop a love for rhymes and stories and a confidence to try writing words for themselves. They want to write and record their ideas.
• Children make significant and impressive strides forward in their learning at Hindley. This is because of excellent teaching over time. Since the previous inspection, staff have raised their expectations of all children and they strive to help all children excel. A precise focus on the needs of most-able children means that these children are mastering skills and knowledge in greater depth, for example in their ability to solve problems.
• Two-year-old children start school with significant obstacles to overcome in their learning. Because of the skilled support from staff, they gain a wonderful head start in their learning. They are learning the importance of using the toilet and how to communicate their needs and feelings to adults.
• Children receiving extra support through the early years pupil premium make great strides forward in their learning. They are catching up with their peers. In some aspects of their learning, for example their communication and language skills, they are doing even better. This is because of the skilled extra help they are receiving.
• Children become keen, confident, skilled learners, ready for the exciting challenges ahead at nursery school. They are keen to experiment and to try things for themselves.
• Children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities make significant steps forward in their learning. This is because of well-organised, skilful support from staff. The thoughtful expenditure of extra funding and clear coordination of staff’s work by the special needs coordinator also contribute to individual children making progress.
• Across groups of children, progress in mathematics is excellent because of the considerable improvements in teaching. Children learn to recognise shape and patterns quickly, to spot differences in size and quantity and to recognise and use numbers meaningfully.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 106397 Wigan 10032222 This inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was also deemed a section 5 inspection under the same Act. 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 120 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address David Haskayne Rachel Lewis 01942 488 228 www.hindleynurseryschool.co.uk enquiries@hindleysurestart.co.uk Date of previous inspection 26–27 February 2014

Information about this school

• Hindley is an average-sized nursery school and provides education and care for children from age two to five years.
• Most children are of White British heritage.
• The school has identified 23% of children as having special educational needs and/or disabilities.
• A quarter of children attending the school are eligible for pupil premium funding.
• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.

Information about this inspection

• The inspector observed learning and teaching in classrooms and outdoors and considered examples of children’s work. Several observations were made jointly with the headteacher.
• The inspector spoke with parents as they brought their children to school. He reviewed 16 responses from parents to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View. He considered school information from a recent survey of parents’ views.
• Meetings were held with several staff and leaders and with two representatives of the local authority.
• The inspector met with six governors, including the chair.
• The inspector considered a range of school documents. These included reviews of how well the school is doing, plans for the future and information about the progress of children.
• The inspector reviewed information about the school’s work to protect and care for children and their families.

Inspection team

Tim Vaughan, lead inspector

Her Majesty’s Inspector