Nyland School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Further develop pupils’ ability to manage their own behaviour so that there is less need for adults to physically intervene.
• Accelerate pupils’ progress so that attainment is higher by the end of Year 6 by:
  • ensuring that pupils have more opportunities to reflect on and improve their work
  • increasing further the consistency of teachers using homework more effectively, both to reinforce the work pupils have been doing in school and to develop their personal well-being
  • giving pupils more opportunities to experience and use a foreign language.
• Improve the communication with parents, including through the school’s website, so that they have a better understanding of the school’s expectations about homework and can better support their child’s learning and personal development.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• The leadership and management of all aspects of the school’s work are good. Everyone has a clear understanding of their role and responsibilities. Staff and pupils are proud to be a member of this school. Morale is high.
• Pupils often join Nyland following extended periods of time on a reduced timetable in a previous school, where they may only have been in school for a few hours each day. Pupils swiftly improve their attendance so that they can manage to attend for the whole school day. This is because of the welcoming atmosphere and experienced staff, who encourage and successfully support pupils to start to enjoy learning and be part of the Nyland community.
• As in the main school, the school’s specialist provisions have a clear focus on routines and planned activities to develop pupils’ social and emotional skills, while developing aspects of the broader curriculum.
• The school uses the funding for disadvantaged pupils wisely. As a result, disadvantaged pupils make good progress in their learning. Strong inter-agency work and the involvement of specialists and therapists ensure that all pupils have easy access to any additional support they might need.
• Pupils develop good spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding. The curriculum is carefully designed to give pupils good-quality first-hand experiences of life in modern Britain. Adults act as good role models. As a result, pupils’ development of social skills increases, enabling them to mostly play nicely together and work cooperatively with each other and staff.
• Good use is made of the sports fund. In addition to general weekly physical activities, during the year pupils take part in swimming and horse riding, and are given the opportunity to engage in dance and martial arts. There is an after-school football team which successfully competes with other schools.
• The school endeavours to provide extra-curricular activities for pupils as part of the wider curriculum. For example, pupils have opportunities to take part in a variety of The White Horse Federation-wide sporting and other events. However, the transportation arrangements for pupils hamper the flexibility needed to enable them to attend after-school clubs and activities.
• The school’s website is not easy for parents and others to navigate. It does not provide information in a way that is clear and helpful to families to support pupils in their learning and personal development.

Governance of the school

• Governance at all levels is strong.
• There are key lines of accountability and appropriate levels of challenge and support for the school’s leaders and managers. Regular staff training and continued professional development are effective in helping staff to develop their careers as well as their levels and areas of expertise. Moderation across The White Horse Federation helps make sure that staff are appropriately supported and rewarded for their work.
• Those responsible for governance make sure that all the required policies and procedures are in place. However, at the start of the inspection the school’s website did not contain all of the information, or the level of detail that it should have about safeguarding, the school’s curriculum and the use of the sports and pupil premium funds. This was mostly rectified during the inspection.
• The local governing body has a good understanding of the strengths and areas for development within the school. Governors are increasingly providing a greater level of challenge to senior leaders, for example by asking for, and getting, information in greater detail about pupils’ progress and behaviour patterns in formats that are more helpful to them.
• The White Horse Federation ensures that the school staff and those working as part of the school’s specialist provisions and outreach work are held firmly to account for their actions and the progress that pupils make.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Staff work closely with other agencies to make sure that pupils and their families are well supported, particularly when their circumstances make them vulnerable.
• All of the school’s safeguarding documents, records, processes and procedures are successfully implemented and fit for purpose.
• Leaders and those responsible for governance are vigilant.
• Relationships are built with pupils that help them to trust staff and share with them any concerns that they might have. Pupils are taught effectively in how to keep themselves safe.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Teachers and other adults help ensure that pupils develop good learning behaviours. Their modelling of good listening and their calm and consistent application of routines and structures embedded over time enable pupils to make good progress academically and in their personal development and well-being.
• Good planning by teachers enables the different sounds that letters make to be part of a specific area of focus for individual pupils. As a result, the younger pupils make more use of phonics skills to help them pronounce words properly and to build on their spellings.
• Teachers have a good level of general subject knowledge. In addition, there are specialists for the teaching of physical education (PE), design and technology (D&T) and for art and media studies. As a result, lessons are carefully planned and well targeted to provide pupils with the necessary skills and understanding to succeed.
• Learning activities are very personalised. Teachers regularly and accurately assess pupils’ work to identify the next steps of learning. School information, such as the phonics screening check, and records of pupils’ reading abilities are also used effectively by teachers in their planning, as seen in the day-by-day outcomes in class.
• Due to the small class sizes teachers know the different groups and needs of the individuals in their class. Particular care is taken to ensure that each pupil’s special educational need is taken into account in the planning of activities. For example, the development of fine motor skills is carefully linked with a pupil’s additional therapies.
• In the very best cases the work set by teachers is particularly challenging, and pupils learn from their mistakes to improve their learning. This is evident across a wide range of subjects. There is, however, a lack of consistency of approach in the way teachers help pupils improve their work. Not all pupils are given sufficient time to take into account the comments made by teachers in their books, or the encouragement to then focus on the next steps in their learning.
• Not all classes benefit from getting regular homework to help pupils develop key learning skills. Those that do generally practise their reading at home. The inconsistency in providing homework for pupils means that not all parents know what homework their child should be doing and what it should consist of.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good. This applies to all aspects of the school’s work. Staff are highly effective in promoting all pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
• Pupils have a good understanding of rules and regulations, including their own rights and responsibilities. They could explain to others about the recent American election and understand the general principles of democracy, although they found it hard to relate these principles back to other events.
• Pupils develop a good awareness of different cultures and faiths as demonstrated by their discussions with inspectors and the work seen in their topic books and through their attendance at The White Horse Federation ‘values festivals’.
• Pupils take pride in their work and were keen to show inspectors what they had been learning. Parents are encouraged to share in the successes that their children are making through initiatives such as ‘Fabulous Fridays’. Pupils said they liked these occasions where they can show their work and celebrate with their family.
• Staff are successful in developing pupils’ resilience. They help them face issues and tasks they do not like by encouraging them to take on special roles and responsibilities.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good. The school is a safe, welcoming and orderly environment in which to work, learn and play.
• When pupils occasionally use inappropriate language, often unintentionally, staff carefully explain why it might be offensive. Instances of such language are recorded appropriately and staff work one-to-one with pupils to reduce any recurrence.
• Pupils know who to talk about bullying if it should happen, and they have confidence in staff dealing with it appropriately.
• Pupils enjoy coming to school and attendance is high.
• When pupils first join the school their levels of anxiety and discomfort are high. At this stage they find it very difficult to manage their emotions. In order to keep themselves and others safe, staff need to intervene until they are calm. The number of interventions drops over time. However, the school is rightly continually reviewing the ways in which staff manage behaviour in order to reduce the need for adult intervention still further.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• When pupils join the school their skills, knowledge and understanding are well below those expected for their age. They also have significant weaknesses in their learning skills, due to their special educational needs, which initially hinder their progression to higher or deeper levels of learning.
• Pupils’ progress from their individual starting points is consistently good across a wide range of subjects and areas. There are no differences between groups of pupils by gender or ability. Disadvantaged pupils also make good progress.
• Those pupils who have been in the school the longest make the best progress in English, mathematics and a wide range of other subjects.
• Pupils of all ages can read and understand the information provided by teachers and have a good comprehension of different texts. The most able pupils can understand texts at a higher level. Pupils are confident and willing to read aloud and show their skills.
• Overall, progress since September 2016 is more rapid than that seen in the last academic year. This is due to the changes to the curriculum and a greater focus on filling individual pupil’s learning gaps. However, this progress has not yet been rapid and sustained across all year groups.
• The specialist units are successful in getting pupils back into their mainstream school, where they remain and make good progress in their learning. Pupils in the main school also return to a mainstream setting when, and if, they are able.
• The outreach team is successful in reducing the proportion of pupils being referred to further specialist services.
• In the past, pupils have developed very basic skills in French. Leaders are aware that for those pupils who will be returning to, or moving on to, a mainstream school, more needs to be done to develop pupils’ knowledge of a foreign language. Leaders are also aware that other pupils need more exposure to a foreign language and for attainment to be higher at the end of Year 6 for all pupils.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 138307 Swindon 10002664 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 Primary School category Academy special converter Age range of pupils Gender of pupils 5 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 40 Appropriate authority Academy trust Chair Principal Ian Cooke Lauren Costello OBE, Executive Principal Tamsyn Van Der Meulen, Principal Telephone number 01793 535023 Website Email address www.nyland-pri.swindon.sch.uk admin@nyland-pri.swindon.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 12–13 March 2013

Information about this school

• Nyland School is part of the Nyland Campus provision for supporting pupils with emotional, social and behavioural difficulties. Nyland Campus is part of The White Horse Federation multi-academy trust.
• The school does not meet requirements on the publication of information about safeguarding, the school’s curriculum, and the use of the sports and pupil premium funds on its website.
• The school does not fully comply with Department for Education (DfE) guidance on what academies should publish.
• There are 42 places in the main school organised into six classes of up to seven pupils. Classes are grouped according to age. There is also a pupil referral unit on the same site, in a separate building, providing a 12-week intervention service for up to eight pupils for three days a week. These pupils attend their mainstream school on the other days and they remain on their mainstream school’s roll. This unit also accommodates full-time placements for pupils who have been permanently excluded from other schools in the borough until a replacement school is found.
• Nyland is also responsible for managing and monitoring the specialist provision at Mountford Manor Primary School, where up to eight pupils attend three days a week for 18 weeks. On the other two days the specialist staff work with pupils in their mainstream schools. These pupils also remain on their mainstream school’s roll.
• Nyland has an outreach team which goes into mainstream schools. Primary schools access the service through a yearly purchase to access advice, training and support.
• All pupils who are on Nyland School’s roll have an education, health and care (EHC) plan or a statement of special educational needs. Their primary need is for social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs. Most have other needs, with almost half being on the autism spectrum. The vast majority of pupils are White British boys. A large proportion of pupils are disadvantaged.
• Pupils join the school at different times of the year and in different year groups. Almost all pupils have attended Nyland for less than three years. Around a third have attended for less than two years and a further third for less than half a year. There are very few pupils in key stage 1. The school does not use other alternative providers.

Information about this inspection

• Meetings and reviews of school documentation were conducted with the members of the governing body, the principal, senior leaders and the leaders for the additional specialist provisions.
• A range of documentation was scrutinised, including information about pupils’ performance and progress, procedures for safeguarding and for monitoring attendance.
• The inspectors observed pupils throughout the school day. Inspectors visited the onsite pupil referral unit and the specialist unit at Mountford Manor Primary School. They visited classes and carried out joint observations with senior leaders. Inspectors also looked at pupils’ written work. Discussions were held both formally, and informally, with pupils. An inspector listened to pupils read.
• The inspectors took account of the views from the 25 completed staff questionnaires, and the 14 responses to the Ofsted online questionnaire (Parent View). There were no responses to the pupil questionnaire. User and participation surveys for the school’s outreach provision and specialist units were also considered.

Inspection team

Steffi Penny, lead inspector Paul Winterton Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector