Aughton Early Years Centre Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve outcomes for all children, including the most able, by:
  • ensuring that all staff have the knowledge and skills to secure children’s rapid progress across all areas of learning, but particularly in early reading, writing and number
  • carrying out accurate assessments which clearly identify what children can do and what the next steps are in their learning
  • ensuring that all activities, both indoors and outdoors, are precisely planned with a clear focus on learning across the whole curriculum.
• Improve leadership and management by:
  • refining and embedding the assessment and tracking system so that leaders have an accurate view of children’s progress across all areas of learning
  • developing staff confidence in using assessment information more effectively
  • adapting provision as a result of the findings of regular assessments
  • ensuring that accurate and regular monitoring of teaching helps to continually improve provision
  • providing the governing body with detailed and accurate information which they can use to hold school leaders to account.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

• Leaders are unhappy with the assessment systems they are using and express little confidence in the results produced. As a result, they were unable to show an accurate picture of children’s progress across the centre or to identify trends in the progress of different groups of children.
• Leaders’ checks on the quality of teaching have not been sufficiently rigorous, so the regular challenge and support needed to ensure that children make rapid progress have been lacking. This has led to some weaknesses in staff’s planning, so they are not fully using the learning environment to effectively promote children’s love of books, to encourage mark-making or to experience mathematics all around them.
• The acting headteacher, who took on the mantle of leadership at an uncertain time, is determined to run the centre in the best interests of the children. Almost all staff who responded to Ofsted’s survey are proud to work at the centre and expressed confidence in the work of leaders. Staff valued opportunities to develop their skills further through staff training or visits to other settings to observe good practice.
• Leaders ensure that the early years pupil premium funding is used effectively to provide additional support for children. Leaders have also used the funding to deploy a speech and language therapist to assist in the assessment of children and to develop staff skills. Consequently, disadvantaged children are making secure progress.
• The funding for children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is used well. Leaders work closely with external agencies to ensure that children and their families get the provision they need. Targets set for children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities are matched closely to targets recommended by experts. Staff are clear about the work they need to do so that these children are well supported and make good progress.
• Leaders’ work to inform parents about issues relating to parenting is successful. The centre has run workshops on the use of dummies and on toilet training, for example. Consequently, parents have very positive views about the centre. The vast majority responding to Parent View, and all those who spoke with inspectors during the visit, expressed approval about the care that the centre provides.

Governance of the school

• Governors are dedicated to the centre and many have a long-standing association. They were instrumental in providing considerate support to leaders and staff to enable the centre to function normally following the sudden loss of the headteacher. Because of this care, staff were able to provide ‘education as normal’ during this difficult time.
• Governors have been proactive in their roles and successfully secured additional funding to enable leaders to provide extra support to disadvantaged families. This in turn is helping disadvantaged children to achieve well.
• All governors visit the centre on a regular basis to walk around the setting and to observe first-hand how happy children are. However, they have not been provided with accurate information about the progress of children and thus have been unable to ask the searching questions required to hold leaders to account.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective and the statutory welfare requirements are met. Leaders liaise effectively with the family support team and external agencies when concerns arise.
• Staff basic training is up to date, and leaders have received additional training to enable them to support children who may be subject to domestic violence or at risk of extremism.
• Leaders have carefully identified risks to children, thus ensuring that the centre is secure and safe. Risk assessments are in place for all activities, and individual risk assessments for children vulnerable due to medical reasons, for example, are thorough and prudently followed.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• Staff do not assess what children know and can do carefully enough, and observations are not linked precisely enough to the early years curriculum. While some staff hold knowledge of the development of individual children in their heads, they are unable to show convincing evidence of children achieving milestones in learning. Staff do not use the information they have sufficiently well to adjust tasks given to children. Overall, this is leading to children making typical, but not rapid, progress.
• Staff have not taken sufficient care to plan appropriately for children’s learning across all areas of the curriculum. Planning is concerned with what items will be put into areas of provision, rather than focusing on the learning that will take place while children access the activities. This in turn has led to a lack of focus on promoting early literacy and numeracy skills. For example, during the inspection, no evidence was seen of staff promoting learning in phonics, either in conversation with children or in the provision.
• The learning environment is clean, bright and tidy. On the days of the inspection, children were showing sustained concentration as they played with construction apparatus and small world toys, for example. However, not all areas of learning were represented over the course of the week; there was little opportunity for children to develop creative skills through painting or engagement in imaginative role play or messy play, for example.
• The outdoor area has been constructed well to encourage children to develop an understanding of the natural world. Children have opportunities to explore how materials behave, for example through handling sand and leaves. Staff were encouraging a sense of excitement in learning as children worked together to brush fallen leaves and move them around using wheelbarrows.
• Children have many opportunities to safely develop gross motor skills in the outdoor area. They were observed learning to take and manage risks while clambering over large play apparatus, for example. Children were seen persisting with the difficult task of filling a toy cement mixer with sand, while a member of staff helped them to understand mathematical concepts such as ‘full’, ‘big’ and ‘bigger’.
• Staff are skilled in following children’s interests. Staff ensure that they have a good understanding of this through ‘settling in’ meetings with parents. Staff working with two-year-olds continue to keep checking with parents in order to use children’s interests to help them develop relationships with children. In turn, high levels of trust can be seen between children and staff.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

Behaviour

• The behaviour of children is good.
• Children get on well together. The whole-centre focus on promoting children’s social and emotional development is successful. Children are generally comfortable in the company of other children and play alongside or with others peacefully.
• Children listen to the instructions of staff and try hard to follow them. Children rarely fall out and when they do, staff help them to quickly make friends again.
• Despite the work of leaders and staff to encourage children to come to the centre regularly, the attendance of some children is not consistent.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Information provided by the centre and evidence in children’s records of achievement show that most children begin the provision at two years of age with levels of development typically found in children of the same age.
• Children make typical progress from their starting points across the different areas of learning. This includes disadvantaged children. By the time they leave the centre, a large majority of children, including those who are most able, have skills that are broadly in line with, but not exceeding, those expected for their age.
• Children’s skills in communication and language are underdeveloped when compared to other skills when they start at the centre. Starting with the two-year-olds, staff develop warm relationships and effectively model language in order to help develop children’s speech. As a result, many children show sureness and a willingness to talk to adults that is a pleasure to observe.
• Leaders from schools receiving Aughton children confirm that the children are well prepared and ready for the next stage of their education. This is because children leave the centre with good attitudes to learning and high levels of confidence.
• Children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities make good progress. This is because staff identify their needs quickly and make referrals to external agencies to obtain support. Leaders ensure that these children are given the support they need to thrive in the centre. Effective transition arrangements are in place to help them move easily to their next setting.

School details

Unique reference number 106828 Local authority Rotherham Inspection number 10019350 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 Maintained nursery school Age range of pupils 2 to 5 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 149 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Lyndsay Pitchley Acting Headteacher Andrea Smith Telephone number 0114 287 2530 Website www.aughtoneyc.rotherham.sch.uk Email address aughtoneyc@rotherham.gov.uk Date of previous inspection November 2013

Information about this school

• Aughton Early Years Centre has a larger than average-sized nursery. Full day care for children from nought to two years old operates within the centre. This was subject to a separate inspection carried out at the same time as the inspection for two- to five-year-olds.
• The acting headteacher and acting deputy headteacher took over leadership of the school in January 2017, following the sudden loss of the previous headteacher.
• A very large majority of children are of White British heritage. A very small minority speak English as an additional language.
• The number of disadvantaged children is below national average.
• The number of children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is below average.
• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.

Information about this inspection

• Together with the acting headteacher and acting deputy headteacher, inspectors looked at children’s progress information, information about the performance of teachers, documents relating to behaviour and safety, and documents relating to safeguarding.
• Inspectors observed children learning across the provision throughout the two days, sometimes alongside senior leaders. They observed children learning in small groups and in the wider setting, both inside the provision and outdoors. Inspectors looked at children’s records of achievement and reports to parents.
• Meetings were held with the acting headteacher, senior leaders and five members of the governing body. A telephone conversation was also held with the school improvement partner.
• Inspectors met with three representatives from schools that receive children from Aughton Early Years Centre.
• Inspectors spoke to parents at the start of the school day. They considered the opinions of 50 parents through Parent View (Ofsted’s online questionnaire for parents).
• Inspectors took account of 28 online responses returned by members of staff and a meeting was held with staff.

Inspection team

Lesley Butcher, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Linda Clay Ofsted Inspector Paul Plumridge Ofsted Inspector