Great Coates Village Nursery School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Develop the curriculum so that children have more opportunities to explore and understand the wider world they are growing up in beyond school and the village.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

• The headteacher, effectively supported by staff, governors and parents, has established a very strong culture of high aspirations for all children in their academic and personal development. Her expectations of all are very high. She leads by example, ensuring that partnerships between home and school are wholly positive and children have every opportunity to succeed in their time in the nursery.
• The headteacher has made radical changes to the curriculum to ensure that the teaching of literacy and numeracy is of a high quality. She has instigated training to equip staff in their roles as leaders and managers. By delegating responsibilities among staff, she has increased the school’s capacity to improve further.
• Leaders at all levels know the school’s strengths and what else they need to do to make further improvements. The teaching of literacy was an area for improvement in the last inspection. It is now outstanding because the actions taken have been highly effective.
• The school’s main priorities are clearly set out in the school’s development plan and stringent procedures are in place to check that the actions the school takes are effective. Parents are kept fully informed as to what the school is doing to make improvements and how parents can help their children’s learning in school and at home.
• The headteacher holds staff to account for the progress the children whom they support make. The quality of teaching and learning is monitored closely. Performance management for all staff is highly effective. The school has set high targets for children’s outcomes and staff have the training and support they need to help them achieve these targets.
• Additional government funding is used very well to ensure that disadvantaged children are given an equal chance to thrive and take part in all that the school has to offer. Their needs are met very effectively and they make excellent progress as a result.
• The school’s curriculum is meticulously designed to engage, interest and challenge children in their learning and personal development. It promotes fundamental British values of respect, tolerance and understanding of other cultures successfully. With a high focus on learning outdoors, children develop a strong awareness of the natural world. They explore the secret garden, searching for plant and animal life and buried treasures. They delight in making pizzas on log fires and know how to stay safe. Trips within the local area, for example to the recycling centre and church, and visitors to the school, further enrich and extend their experiences of the community in which they live. Opportunities to explore the world further afield are less well developed.
• The school works exceptionally well with other schools to share good practice and prepare children for their primary schools. Children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities benefit from this close liaison to make their transfer smoother.
• The local authority supports the school’s continued improvement very effectively. Its recent rigorous review of the school’s performance found the school to be outstanding.
• Parents praise the school highly. They are very positive about how happy their children are at school and the excellent progress they make. Parents are kept fully informed about what their children are learning. They explained that the school’s Christmas ‘winter wonderland’, captivated their children’s imagination as staff made it ‘magical’.

Governance of the school

• Governors are very knowledgeable about the school and check that school improvement is effective. They are proud of the school’s performance and have every confidence in the headteacher and her ability to drive further improvement in the school. Together with the local authority, they set her very challenging but realistic targets and hold her to account critically.
• Governors carried out a skills audit of their own expertise last year and subsequently recruited governors to fill gaps in managing the school’s finances and taking responsibility for health and safety. Responsibilities such as safeguarding are taken very seriously and governors ensure that all relevant training to keep children safe is up to date and all policies are reviewed regularly.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. All the required checks are in place for staff and visitors. The school site is secure and daily equipment and environment checks ensure that children work and play in a safe setting. Staff are very clear about their duty of care for children’s welfare and understand what they should do if any concerns arise. They also know the risks around radicalisation, extremism and other forms of oppression that might put children at risk. The school’s partnerships with other agencies are highly effective in supporting vulnerable children and their families.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

• All staff have a secure understanding of the key principles that underpin effective early years education and the balanced approach they need to guide children’s learning through work and play. They are very reflective in their practice and tailor planning to best match the individual needs of each child to help them make rapid progress.
• Staff are deployed very effectively, often working to their strengths. Key workers oversee the learning for each child under their supervision, but all staff contribute to planning, teaching and assessments. They have had excellent training to support their roles; their assessments of children’s progress are entirely accurate and reliable.
• Activities are engaging, interesting and fun. Children happily try everything because resources entice them into, for example, designing Valentine cards, searching for gold coins in the sand, mixing paints to make new colours and writing rhyming words using the new sounds they have learned. Children eagerly count the number of ‘love hearts’ they have used and know what constitutes ‘one more than’ and ‘one less than’.
• Staff skilfully ask questions to extend children’s knowledge and skills, such as, ‘What colours do you mix to make brown?’ or, ‘Why do we keep a bucket of water close by when we light a log fire outside?’, or ‘If I have 13 sweets, will I have enough for one each for 14 children?’. One child was quick to reply, ‘No, but someone can have mine!’.
• The level of challenge is very high because staff believe that children are capable. Step by step, staff build children’s confidence and steer them to more complex tasks such as sounding out, reading and writing three-letter words or counting back from 20. Children show delight when their efforts are praised and so try to go further.
• Children listen to stories and rhymes avidly and are developing a real love of books and reading. The teaching of reading is outstanding. A number of children read simple sentences and build words using the letter sounds that they rehearse daily. Children are eager writers, keen to write their names or lists of food on menus or rhymes they have invented. Children know that capital letters and full stops are essential features of written texts.
• Children’s numeracy skills are developed equally effectively. Number rhymes permeate many activities that build children’s confidence with numbers. They know that circles have no corners and windows can be squares and rectangles. They investigate numbers to make 10 or 20 and know what constitutes a half and a quarter of a pizza.
• Children love being outdoors, knowing to dress appropriately if it is cold or wet. They seek bugs in damp vegetation, knowing that woodlice prefer drier conditions. The bug hotel is a source of immense delight and curiosity. The secret garden is seen as a magical place that Santa visited at Christmas, and there is a den in which they act out stories. They know to wrap foods in foil when cooking on log fires so that the food does not burn or get dirty. Such fun experiences fire their imaginations and support their excellent progress.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote children’s personal development and welfare is outstanding.

• Children love school and enjoy learning. They listen attentively to routine instructions and display high levels of confidence and concentration throughout.
• They are very kind to each other, sharing equipment sensibly and waiting their turn. They help themselves at snack time, making sure that everyone has a fair share and chat animatedly about things that matter to them, listening to each other with interest.
• Children feel very secure with all staff and form especially close relationships with their key workers, whom they seek out when not sure of themselves or if wanting attention. These close relationships are key to supporting their excellent personal development.
• Staff take every opportunity to teach children how to keep themselves safe. Children know what they must do if a fire breaks out and that they must never talk to strangers. They also know how to play safely on climbing equipment and to handle scissors carefully.
• The importance of personal safety is exceptionally well exemplified when children undertake forest-school activities. Children explained very knowledgeably that you must always wear fireproof gloves when you cook on an open fire and not to touch nettles or toadstools because, ‘they might sting you or be poisonous and then you might die!’.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of children is outstanding. Children typically are very polite, friendly and well mannered. They know what acceptable behaviour is and conduct themselves exceptionally well even when they are not directly supervised in their work and play.
• Classrooms are calm and well ordered. Behaviour is managed in a very low-key way, without any undue fuss. New starters model their behaviour on what they see older children doing. Altercations are rare because children relate well to others. Children’s behaviour in the dining hall was impeccable; for children of this age it was remarkable that everyone sat at a table and ate nicely, discussing what constitutes healthy eating.
• Staff treat children with kindness and respect and praise their efforts warmly. Children follow their excellent example, and are quick to help each other just as they see adults doing.
• Although school is not statutory for children of this age, children attend regularly. Parents say that their children hate missing school because they love being there. Any absences are followed up diligently to safeguard children’s welfare and well-being.

Outcomes for pupils Outstanding

• Children start in the nursery with knowledge and skills that are typical for their age. However, many are not always as confident in their communication, language and literacy skills or their understanding of number.
• From their different starting points, all children make rapid progress. A high number of children leave the nursery with knowledge and skills that far exceed those typical for their age, especially in their literacy and numeracy. This represents outstanding progress. Children are exceptionally well prepared for their primary schools.
• In literacy, staff model the correct use of language at all times, picking children up on their letters and sounds very carefully so that conversations flow fluently. The learning environment is language rich, with equipment labelled clearly so that children are exposed to text continually and a vast array of reading materials that children flock to explore. Children explained very confidently that a ‘Gruffalo’ is only a pretend animal and there are no bears in the secret garden because ‘bears don’t live in Grimsby, that’s so silly!’.
• Children’s numeracy skills are promoted equally well as children share out resources fairly and calculate the various numbers they can add to make 10 or 20, and what happens if you take 10 away from 13. Inside and outside, children search for hidden numbers and shapes and record their findings confidently. They form letters and numbers correctly and say that they like writing, ‘because it makes you grown up’.
• The school’s key worker system gives staff an accurate understanding of children’s individual needs. Staff observe children closely in all that they do and the information is used to plan the right level of challenge to secure rapid progress. Children are often grouped for literacy and numeracy sessions depending on the level of support they need. The most able are challenged well, with many reading, writing and solving number sentences that would be typical of children aged five.
• Children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities also make outstanding progress because the key workers modify planning to meet their needs and seek further professional support, for example, from speech therapists, where necessary.
• Children entitled to early years pupil premium funding perform as well as their classmates. The additional funding allows children to attend more sessions in the nursery and receive one-to-one support if required to accelerate their progress.
• Throughout the school, high-quality teaching and outstanding care and support arrangements ensure that all children make the best progress they can in all that they do.

School details

Unique reference number 117697 Local authority North East Lincolnshire Inspection number 10019294 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 3 to 4 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 68 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Stacey Schultz Helen Hussey 01472 231231

www.greatcoatesnursery.com office@gcv.nelcmail.co.uk

Date of previous inspection 10–11 December 2013

Information about this school

• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• Almost all of the children are of White British heritage.
• The proportion of disadvantaged children known to be eligible for the early years pupil premium is well below the national average.
• The proportion of children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is also well below the national average.
• A new headteacher was appointed to the school in January 2016.
• Children attend on a flexible part-time basis, mornings, afternoons or full days.

Information about this inspection

• The inspector observed teaching and learning at various times during the two days of the inspection. The headteacher joined the inspector for some of these observations.
• The inspector held meetings with the headteacher, staff, children, governors, parents and a representative from the local authority.
• The inspector also held a telephone conversation with the consultant who recently carried out a full review of the school’s work.
• The inspector looked at a range of school documents, including the school improvement plan and records relating to the school’s curriculum and the quality of teaching and learning. The inspector also examined the documentation relating to children’s attendance, safeguarding and the tracking of children’s progress. The school also provided summary reports of the school’s surveys of parents and children’s views of school and feedback reports from partner schools.
• The inspector took into account the views of the 23 parents who responded to the online Ofsted questionnaire, Parent View, and the 22 text messages parents submitted to Ofsted.
• The inspector also listened to some children read and joined them for lunch.

Inspection team

Rajinder Harrison, lead inspector

Ofsted Inspector