Emmbrook Infant School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Ensure that leaders exploit fully the best practice in the school, so that recent work to deepen pupils’ learning is reflected consistently well across all year groups and areas of learning.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

• Leadership across the school is capable and determined. The headteacher’s high aspirations and clear vision are translated successfully into every part of the school’s work. Consequently, pupils at Emmbrook Infant School are safe, happy and very well prepared for their next steps in learning. As one parent stated: ‘A great school that has given my child the best start on their school journey.’
• The headteacher and deputy headteacher make an extremely effective team. Together, they have secured the confidence and dedication of all the staff, giving them clear direction for their work. This enables staff to sustain the very high standards of learning and care that exist across the school, while constantly striving to make things even better.
• Adults work seamlessly together, demonstrating a shared ambition and understanding that each plays a vital role. They are held to account very effectively for the difference their work makes to the pupils in their care. Useful and timely training and support are shared between colleagues as a matter of routine. This enables constant reflection on, and development of, processes and practice so that they meet pupils’ evolving needs closely.
• Pupils experience an outstanding curriculum, which stimulates their thinking and satisfies their thirst for knowledge. Leaders’ recent work to develop opportunities for pupils of all abilities to think more deeply across a range of subjects is ongoing, with its impact currently most evident in Year 2. As a result, pupils demonstrate secure knowledge, skills and understanding that they transfer readily across their different areas of learning. Planning for subject progression from early years to the end of key stage 1 is a focus of leaders’ current work, to make it even more clearly defined and monitored.
• Leaders have established a powerful and positive culture across the school, based on clearly identified core values. Pupils benefit from rich opportunities to develop their spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding in an age-appropriate way. They demonstrate these values in their mature and thoughtful interactions with each other and the adults around them. For example, in religious education, pupils reflected on how they could be a friend to the paralysed man in the story they were learning about. Visitors to the school help pupils to see fundamental British values, such as democracy and tolerance, in action.
• Additional funding for disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) is used very effectively. Leaders have a highly developed understanding of pupils’ additional needs and the barriers which might otherwise risk impeding their learning. Their considered and prompt action provides pupils and their families with helpful and timely support. As a result, disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND, including those supported by the hearing-impaired resource provision, are catered for very well. They thrive as a result, both academically and personally.
• Leaders give careful thought to how they use sport premium funding. Their planned investment complements physical education (PE) learning in lessons very well and provides pupils with stimulating opportunities to engage in physical activity during break and lunchtimes. Staff are confident and skilled in teaching PE as a result, and pupils enjoy engaging in physical activities that support their good health.

Governance of the school

• Governance is a strength in this school. The governing body is skilled, experienced and capable. Governors are deeply committed to the school and to ensuring that pupils have the best possible experience.
• Governors understand their responsibilities very well and fulfil them successfully. They access useful external training to fill any gaps that they identify in their collective understanding, sharing what they learn promptly with each other. New governors are supported extremely well, ensuring that they understand the commitment they are making and helping them to get up to speed quickly. This enables them to become effective rapidly in their contributions to the governing body’s work.
• Governors share senior leaders’ aspirations and ambitions for the school and its work. They are rightly bold in their challenge to leaders, asking astute and rigorous questions, and checking wisely on what they are told about standards in the school. This provides the senior leadership team with useful feedback that contributes to the school’s ongoing development and constant determination to improve.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• The culture of safeguarding is unquestionable in this school. The impact of the very high quality relationships between staff, pupils and families is evident throughout. Parents who spoke to inspectors or responded to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, reflected the value they place in this aspect of the school’s work. One simply stated: ‘Our child’s welfare and safety are paramount, and we trust the staff 100% with this responsibility.’
• Leaders ensure that the school’s systems and processes promote and support safeguarding extremely well. Staff have a deep and well-developed understanding of their responsibilities, showing a strong awareness of local contextual issues that are particularly relevant to the pupils in their care. Timely and useful training ensures that safeguarding is a constantly high-profile aspect of the school’s work.
• Pupils develop a mature understanding of how to keep themselves safe, relevant to their age and stage of learning. Opportunities to be reflective encourage them to think carefully about how they can take responsibility for their own safety, and when it is important to seek support from an adult. Pupils trust the adults around them and are very confident that they could raise concerns and that these would be addressed promptly, sensitively and effectively.
• Safeguarding is high on everyone’s agenda across the school. Useful systems enable staff to report any concerns about pupils promptly and be confident that they will be addressed. Leaders are vigilant in their approach, taking swift and appropriate action to support pupils who may be vulnerable. Their work with parents, carers and experts from beyond the school is very effective.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

• Pupils learn exceptionally well across a broad curriculum because teaching is consistently of very high quality. Teachers’ thoughtful and thorough planning builds carefully and successfully on pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding, from their different starting points. Teachers have strong and well-developed subject knowledge of the foundation subjects, which they use meaningfully to plan learning activities to maximum effect.
• Teachers and other adults work seamlessly together for pupils’ benefit. Adults have a sharp and shared understanding of their respective responsibilities within the classroom, as well as of pupils’ different learning needs. As a result, learning evolves in a timely and effective way, ensuring that no opportunity is wasted. Pupils who fall behind receive prompt and useful support, enabling them to catch up quickly.
• Adults make highly effective use of accurate assessments to support pupils’ learning. They adapt teaching swiftly in response to what they learn. Pupils receive timely and precise feedback, in line with the school policy. This enables pupils to know exactly what they are doing well and what they need to do to improve. They act promptly on these development points, rightly showing pride in their achievements.
• Pupils are very keen to learn. They conduct themselves extremely well at all times, working enthusiastically. Pupils work cooperatively and supportively with each other. This enables them to make highly effectively use of learning time.
• Classroom environments are typically vibrant, stimulating and well resourced to support pupils’ learning. Pupils demonstrate high degrees of resilience when working on tasks, choosing wisely from the resources that are available to help them. Adults’ clear and focused questioning encourages pupils to link different aspects of their learning together. This approach enables pupils to tackle problems and apply their knowledge, skills and understanding successfully to unfamiliar contexts.
• Pupils from the specialist resource base make very good progress. Adults with specific and relevant skills provide useful and effective support that enables pupils to access learning in classrooms. As a result, pupils with hearing impairments are an integral part of the classes they belong to and make strong academic progress over time.
• Phonics teaching is of very high quality. Regular sessions are very well organised and delivered skilfully by adults, starting in the Reception Year. Pupils who struggle are supported extremely well, and their progress and attainment improve as a result. Consequently, pupils typically have well-developed reading and writing skills, which support them in accessing the wider curriculum successfully.
• Teachers’ expectations for pupils’ learning are consistently high across the curriculum. Work in humanities, science and the arts, for example, is stimulating, relevant and interesting. Key stage 1 pupils’ topic and religious education books show that they usually complete work in these subjects to the same high standards and level of detail evident in their reading, writing and mathematics work, but that teaching is not always as effective in stretching all pupils fully and ensuring that they think deeply.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is outstanding. This was captured by one parent, who commented on the ‘amazing teachers, who really get to know the pupils and help them grow and mature to be lovely young adults.’
• Opportunities for personal development are steeped in the school’s work to promote its core values, such as respect, resilience, empathy, curiosity and self-discipline. Pupils not only understand these values but demonstrate them daily in their actions. Pupils take great pride in their behaviours and characteristics being recognised, through having their name displayed on the rainbow in the hall.
• Pupils say that they look out for each other. From a very young age, they are confident about helping others to make positive choices, personally and academically, and develop their skills. Pupils in Year 2 demonstrated their growing understanding of how their personal characteristics can help them to achieve at home in their families, as well as at school – taking their learning about core values successfully into real life.
• Pupils are extremely well cared for. Instances of bullying seldom occur and are dealt with effectively. Adults meet their needs successfully, seeking appropriate and timely support from beyond the school when this is warranted. Parents value the diligent and conscientious approach demonstrated by the staff, saying that they are confident that their children are safe and very well looked after.
• Pupils have a clear, age-appropriate understanding of how to keep themselves safe from dangers, including on the internet. They demonstrate maturity in how they use what they know to protect themselves and each other from potential harm.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is outstanding.
• Pupils maintain highly positive relationships with each other and the adults that help them. They are unfailingly polite, demonstrating respect and sharing resources sensibly. They live the school’s values because they are modelled so well to them by adults.
• Attendance and punctuality are excellent. Pupils love school and so arrive happily and on time. Parents say that their children cannot wait for the school gate to open in the morning. Pupils waste no time in being ready for learning, demonstrating attitudes that enable them to excel.
• Pupils understand the school rules and know why they are important. As a result, almost all pupils follow them successfully and there are very few behavioural incidents. When a minority of pupils occasionally behave less well, adults support them expertly in returning to the high standards of behaviour that they know are expected.

Outcomes for pupils Outstanding

• Throughout their time at the school, pupils achieve very well. They make strong progress from their broadly average starting points at the beginning of the Reception Year. Consequently, they are extremely well prepared for their key stage 2 learning.
• Children make very good progress during their time in the early years. Leaders identify children’s strengths and development priorities accurately, reshaping future learning promptly in response. Consequently, children achieve very well overall, and do particularly well in mathematics and English. The proportion that reach a good level of development by the end of the academic year is above average and increasing over time. More pupils exceed the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics than is the case nationally.
• High levels of attainment and progress continue into key stage 1. Standards in phonics are very high. The proportion of pupils who achieve the required standard in the phonics check by the end of Year 1 is consistently well above the national average. This enables pupils to access the curriculum very successfully and without impairment, which supports their high-quality learning in other subjects.
• Pupils attain similarly high standards in reading, writing and mathematics throughout Years 1 and 2. The percentage of pupils who attain a greater depth of learning in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 2 is consistently better than is the case nationally. This represents very strong progress from the end of the early years foundation stage.
• The quality and depth of pupils’ learning across the wider curriculum are impressive. Pupils demonstrate secure and broad knowledge and understanding across the range of foundation subjects, including history, geography and science. They use their literacy and numeracy skills adeptly to demonstrate and develop what they know. The standard of their work is consistently as high across the foundation subjects as it is in reading, writing and mathematics.
• Provision for disadvantaged pupils is highly effective. Leaders know these pupils very well and have a deep understanding of their barriers to learning. They champion pupils’ needs successfully, ensuring that they do not get forgotten. As a result of the specific help they receive, disadvantaged pupils make very good progress over time. They achieve very well in relation to all pupils nationally.
• Pupils with SEND are similarly well supported. Some, including those who are part of the specialist resource provision, have very specific needs which are met successfully. Consequently, they thrive and make strong progress over time, although not always in ways that are easily measured.

Early years provision Outstanding

• Children’s experience in the early years prepares them extremely well for their future learning.
• Staff work effectively together to meet children’s emerging needs closely. Leaders ensure that adults’ shared expertise and understanding are put to very good use. Leaders rightly identify aspects of provision that could be even better and explore sensibly how this could be achieved.
• Throughout the day and in the different areas of the early years base, children are settled, happy and confident. They relate very well to each other and to the adults around them. They relish opportunities to engage in creative activities that fuel their imaginations very well. They respond very well to clearly established routines, enjoying healthy snacks and outside play.
• Adults use assessment very well to support children’s learning and development. The curriculum is very carefully thought through, in order to develop children’s knowledge, skills and understanding across all the areas of learning. Activities and opportunities evolve constantly to target those areas where children show themselves to be less confident or competent. As a result, children make strong progress from their broadly average starting points, reaching high standards in all the areas of learning.
• Safeguarding is as effective as in other parts of the school. Statutory welfare requirements are met. Leaders and teachers work closely with parents to ensure that children make a smooth transition into the school, which helps them to feel safe and to settle in quickly. Any concerns about a child’s welfare are identified and addressed promptly and successfully.
• Parents value how well informed and involved they can be in their children’s learning and development. During the inspection, several came in to help out during an afternoon of club activities that included crafts and games. This enriched children’s opportunities to develop their language skills, as well as practising the school’s core values of patience, honesty, self-discipline and teamwork.
• Outcomes are strong in the early years, including for disadvantaged children. High proportions of children achieve the early learning goals by the end of the year, which demonstrates their strong progress and the breadth of their development. Some children currently in the early years have already achieved some of the early learning goals, despite being less than halfway through the academic year. Consequently, children are very well prepared to meet the challenges of learning at key stage 1, especially in reading, writing and mathematics.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 109855 Wokingham 10058150 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Infant School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Maintained 4 to 7 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 173 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Mr Tony Charters Mrs Corrina Gillard Telephone number 0118 9784259 Website Email address www.emmbrookinfantschool.co.uk admin@emmbrook-inf.wokingham.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 1–2 October 2013

Information about this school

• Emmbrook Infant School is a maintained infant school for pupils aged four to seven years. There are two classes in each year group.
• The school incorporates a specialist resource provision for pupils who have education, health and care plans linked to hearing impairments. It is funded by the local authority and run jointly with the adjacent junior school. There are currently two pupils in the resource base who attend the infant school.
• Most pupils are of White British origin. A similar percentage of pupils speak English as an additional language as is the case nationally.
• The school is in an area of low social deprivation. The proportion of pupils who are eligible for free school meals is well below the national average.
• A playgroup operates on the school site. It is registered and inspected independently of the infant school. A separately run breakfast and after-school club operates from the bungalow adjacent to the school.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors met with leaders, and with groups of staff, pupils and governors. The lead inspector met with a representative of the local authority.
• Inspectors visited all classes to observe learning across a range of subjects. They looked at pupils’ books and talked to them about their work. Some of these visits were carried out with school leaders.
• Survey responses from 79 pupils and 27 members of staff were considered. Inspectors also took 123 responses to the Parent View online questionnaire into account, including 66 free-text responses, and spoke informally to some parents at the start of the school day.
• Inspectors scrutinised a range of documents available on the school website and provided by school leaders. These included the school’s self-evaluation and improvement planning, records of meetings, curriculum planning and leaders’ information about pupils’ behaviour, attendance and academic performance.

Inspection team

Kathryn Moles, lead inspector Linda Jacobs

Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector