Flagg Nursery School

Age group 3–4 Inspection date(s) 24–25 January 2012 Inspection number 378494 Flagg Nursery School Inspection report

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Unique reference number 112481 Local authority Derbyshire Inspection number 378494 Inspection dates 24–25 January 2012 Lead inspector Susan Walsh

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This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. The registered childcare provision, managed by the governing body, was inspected under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006.

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Type of school Nursery School category Maintained Age range of pupils 3–4 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 20 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Marian French Headteacher Sarah Brown (Acting Headteacher) Date of previous school inspection 15 June 2009 School address Main Road Flagg Buxton SK17 9QT Telephone number 01298 85208 Fax number 01298 85208 Email address info@flagg.derbyshire.sch.uk

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Registered childcare provision EY381752 Little Links Number of children on roll in the registered childcare provision Date of last inspection of registered childcare provision 6 July 2009 achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection. Further copies of this report are obtainable from the school. Under the Education Act 2005, the school must provide a copy of this report free of charge to certain categories of people. A charge not

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exceeding the full cost of reproduction may be made for any other copies supplied. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way. To receive regular email alerts about new publications, including survey reports and school inspection reports, please visit our website and go to ‘Subscribe’.

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T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when.

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You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk , or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Introduction

This inspection was carried out with two days notice. The inspector visited 12 sessions, including childcare sessions and saw seven members of the school’s staff teach. Meetings were held with staff and governors. The inspector took account of the responses to the on-line questionnaire (Parent View) in planning the inspection. She observed the work of the school and the childcare provision, and looked at the school's development plans, minutes of governing body meetings and the school's records of children's progress. Questionnaires completed by 26 parents and carers were analysed as well as questionnaires from staff.

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Information about the school

This is a very small nursery school serving several rural villages in North West Derbyshire. All children are of White British heritage. The proportion of disabled children and those who have special educational needs is below average. The governing body also manages extended provision for children in the Early Years Foundation Stage. This includes a breakfast club, lunchtime ‘Flagg Tractor Club’ and ‘Little Links’ childcare for children age two to four. The school also supports ‘Tiddleypeeps’, a parent and child group that meets in the adjacent village hall, by providing staff. These are all reported on in this report. The previous headteacher retired at the end of December 2011. The qualified teacher has very recently taken on the role of the acting head teacher. Arrangements for appointing a new headteacher were not finalised at the time of the inspection. The school has achieved Healthy School status.

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Information about the school

Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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Key findings

 This is an outstanding school. Parents and carers are right to be highly delighted with the nursery and are accurate when they frequently use the word ‘fantastic’ to describe the quality of provision. Children make outstanding progress in all areas of learning and as a result their skills are frequently above those expected for their age and their achievement is outstanding.

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Key findings

 Teaching is outstanding. Staff have an excellent understanding of how young children learn. Activities are always exciting and interesting and are carefully matched to children’s needs. The outstanding curriculum also makes a substantial contribution to children’s outstanding achievement and their outstanding spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

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Key findings

 Children’s behaviour is outstanding both in lessons and around school, showing their well-developed sense of security. They are very enthusiastic about learning and very much enjoy coming to nursery. The childcare facility is also excellent at promoting children’s personal development and ensuring that they are well prepared for school.

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Key findings

 Very clear routines combined with a skilled and conscientious staff team means that the nursery runs very smoothly and effectively. However, the acting headteacher teaches full time and has insufficient time to undertake some important monitoring and evaluation tasks that will help the school to sustain its outstanding provision. The school does not have a clear overview of children’s attainment on entry and the extensive data about the progress of individual children is not used effectively to gain an overview of progress over time. The skills needed to monitor and evaluate teaching and learning effectively are at an early stage of development. The provision in Tiddleypeeps does not fully reflect the very high quality work seen in the rest of the school.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Increase the rigour of monitoring and evaluation and therefore the capacity for Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

further improvement by:  making certain that the acting headteacher has sufficient time to carry out management tasks  making sure the school has a robust overview of children’s attainment on entry and progress over time  developing the skills needed to carry out robust lesson observations  reviewing provision in Tiddleypeeps to make sure it fully reflects the outstanding provision in the rest of the school.

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Achievement of pupils

Parents and carers are absolutely correct when they say that their children are making outstanding progress when they attend the nursery. By the time children leave the school to join primary school, their skills are consistently above those expected for their age in all areas of learning including reading. Although their skills in writing are often above those expected they are not quite as high as their skills in other areas of learning. In establishing high quality child care and combining this with outstanding nursery provision, the school has been able rapidly to improve children’s skills at a very early stage in their education.

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Achievement of pupils

The school provides an environment that is very rich in literature and provides numerous opportunities for children to write; consequently progress in reading and writing has further accelerated. Children are very interested in books and know that print conveys meaning and is read from left to right. The home-made books that contain pictures of themselves taking part in activities and examples of their writing and thoughts create particularly high levels of engagement including from those children who find learning hard. Parents and carers are also encouraged to support their children’s interest in reading by taking home story sacks. Additionally there are special sacks that are specifically designed to help children cope with difficult times in their lives. Many children are able to link letters to sounds, quickly identifying the first letter in their name and in the names of their class mates. Some are already

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Achievement of pupils

able to write their name on their work. There are plentiful opportunities to write in lessons, for example, when children pretend to make hairdressing appointments in the role play area.

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Achievement of pupils

Children's progress in mathematics has accelerated further because staff are now ensuring that the understanding of number is frequently reinforced. The improvement in skills can be seen in the way that children love to count. Many can now count to five and some can even count to ten and are starting to think about addition and subtraction. Disabled children and those who have special educational needs and those who find learning challenging make outstanding progress. This is because the activities provided are carefully matched to their needs. Staff are proficient at modelling language, reshaping explanations and ensuring that these children are always fully involved in learning. Parents and carers report that staff Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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Achievement of pupils

ensure that any specialist advice or programmes are reinforced in the Nursery.

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Quality of teaching

As a result of outstanding teaching, all children, including disabled children and those who have special educational needs, achieve exceptionally well over time. Parents and carers correctly say that teaching is excellent and many comment on the wide range of exciting activities that are available in school. Adults support learning extremely well within a very supportive and caring environment. Very close attention is paid to meeting children’s individual needs. For example, all children have carefully-considered targets for where they need to improve the most in their personal development, literacy and their understanding of number. Staff are very accomplished at questioning children. Their questions are carefully matched to each child’s individual requirements and successfully extend children’s learning. They are also very sensitive to when a child might be about to lose concentration and intervene at exactly the right moment. This means that children are able to develop

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Quality of teaching

independence but are never left unoccupied. In this way every minute spent at nursery is maximised and is used as a valuable time for learning.

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Quality of teaching

Many opportunities are taken to enhance children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and increase their appreciation of the world around them. Children are usually keen to try new experiences; when they are reluctant to try something new they are gently encouraged by staff to broaden their horizons. Teaching and the curriculum are carefully focused on developing early reading and writing skills as well as children’s understanding of number. Every opportunity is taken to develop these skills. For example, children were encouraged to try different types of topping for porridge during an activity linked to ‘farmhouse breakfast week’. Their likes and dislikes were then used to create a tally chart, as well as opportunities to count. There were also opportunities for discussion and for children to write their names on the chart. Many areas of learning were successfully developed in this single session including children’s awareness of healthy eating.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

The staff have successfully created an ethos which promotes positive attitudes to learning and an environment that allows children to feel safe. Most children attend nursery regularly and parents and carers say that their children are very enthusiastic about coming to school. Staff are warm and friendly and consistently provide role models for learning good behaviour and their expectations are always high; consequently children’s behaviour is outstanding. The children have excellent relationships with adults and play well together. Children show high levels of curiosity, and all sustain very high levels of concentration. This makes an important contribution to their swift progress. Children are confident to speak in a group and develop important social skills such as taking turns and working with others. They take an increasing pride in their achievements and their progress in their personal social and emotional development is outstanding.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

Staff take careful note of children’s views and make sure children know exactly who they should tell if they have a problem. Children say that they like coming to school and are particularly positive about playing outside. Parents and carers are unanimously positive about children’s behaviour and say that bullying is out of their range of experience. They also say that they are confident that if any issues did arise they would be dealt with swiftly and effectively by staff. Children have responded well to the many recent visitors who have taught them about how to keep safe. For example, the police have helped children to understand how to keep themselves out of danger and a crossing patrol man has helped children to learn how to cross the road safely.

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Leadership and management

Accelerated progress and rising levels of attainment reflect the high expectations of staff and the governing body, and illustrate the school’s good capacity to improve further. Currently, the acting headteacher is teaching full time and has little time to undertake management responsibilities. She has inherited well-focused school development plans that continue to be rigorously implemented and the school is successfully developing the use of the outdoors to promote an understanding of nature and provision for two-year-olds. Many staff have attended numerous courses. They have taken the advice that is most relevant to the needs of children in this school and have rigorously applied it. Consequently, they are highly skilled practitioners. However, the monitoring and evaluation of teaching and learning are less robust. This is because staff are relatively inexperienced regarding identifying the links between the quality of teaching and outcomes for children and producing

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Leadership and management

evaluative lesson observations. These skills are necessary in order to identify where this high quality provision could be further developed. The school has useful information about the individual starting points of children and the progress made by individuals. This information is used well to plan activities that move children’s learning on and to identify those children who may find learning difficult. It is used less efficiently to obtain a clear picture of attainment on entry to the school and to measure the progress of different cohorts of children over time. Therefore leaders, including school governors, do not have the all the necessary tools that would allow them rapidly to identify any changes to overall rates of progress.

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Leadership and management

The curriculum is outstanding and meets children’s needs very well; it is excellent at promoting children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. There is an excellent balance between activities that are led by staff and ones that children choose for themselves. Additionally, visits and visitors are used particularly well to ensure that children have plenty of exciting things to talk about. The school is a highly valued part of the local community. For example, it supports a local parent and child group, Tiddleypeeps, by providing staffing. However, the quality of this provision is not as well developed as that in the main school and activities are planned without a clear focus on learning. The school has been successful in developing its work with the wider community in the United Kingdom. Parents and carers were delighted with the way their children quickly made friends with children

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Leadership and management

from different backgrounds than themselves when they visited an inner-city nursery. Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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Leadership and management

All staff actively promote equality. There is a strong focus on ensuring that every child reaches his or her full potential, irrespective of their level of ability or background, so that there is no discrimination. Therefore, gaps between outcomes for different groups of children are minimal. Staff have a good awareness of safeguarding procedures and are vigilant in their efforts to keep children safe.

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childcare provision

The outstanding care provided totally reflects the high standard of provision in the nursery and involves many of the same staff. The very supportive relationships between children and staff result in happy, well settled and confident children. Children are actively engaged in a wide variety of interesting activities and staff vigorously promote language development, reading, writing and the use of number when children attend the extended care provision. For example, while children were eating their breakfast they were encouraged to recognise words and letters on cereal packets. They found this fun and not only did they recognise the letters in their own names, they were keen to identify the initial letter sounds in their family and friends’ names. Behaviour is outstanding and the children’s manners were marvellous when they were eating their breakfast and having their dinner with Tractor Club. Children

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childcare provision

talk confidently about their own lives and are interested in the lives of others. They learn to sustain concentration and to persevere. Children’s progress is regularly assessed and the information that is obtained is used well to plan specific activities that address their individual needs. The provision is well managed. The staff form a very cohesive team who are continuously developing their skills. The school now has many children attending for many parts of sessions and although it has records of attendance these are sometimes confusing. While there are well thought out routines for sensitive issues such as nappy changing these have not always been formalised.

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childcare provision

These are the grades for the Early Years Foundation Stage of the registered childcare provision, inspected under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006

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childcare provision

Overall effectiveness of the Early Years Foundation Stage Taking into account: Outcomes for children in the Early Years Foundation Stage The quality of provision in the Early Years Foundation Stage The effectiveness of leadership and management of the Early Years Foundation Stage for the registered provision

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding These features are highly effective. An outstanding school provides exceptionally well for all its pupils’ needs. Grade 2 Good These are very positive features of a school. A school that is good is serving its pupils well. Grade 3 Satisfactory These features are of reasonable quality. A satisfactory school is providing adequately for its pupils. Grade 4 Inadequate These features are not of an acceptable standard. An inadequate school needs to make significant improvement in order to meet the needs of its pupils. Ofsted inspectors will make further visits until it improves.

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

Nursery schools 46 46 8 0 Primary schools 8 47 40 5 Secondary schools 14 38 40 8 Special schools 28 48 20 4 Pupil referral units 15 50 29 5 All schools 11 46 38 6

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

New school inspection arrangements have been introduced from 1 January 2012. This means that inspectors make judgements that were not made previously. The data in the table above are for the period 1 September 2010 to 31 August 2011 and represent judgements that were made under the school inspection arrangements that were introduced o n 1 September 2009. These data are consistent with the latest published official statistics about maintained school inspection outcomes (see www.ofsted.gov.uk ). The sample of schools inspected during 2010/11 was not representative of all schools nationally, as weaker schools are inspected more frequently than good or outstanding schools. Primary schools include primary academy converters. Secondary schools include secondary academy converters, sponsor-led academies and city technology colleges. Special schools include special academy converters and non-maintained special schools.

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

Percentages are rounded and do not always add exactly to 100.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Achievement: the progress and success of a pupil in their learning and development taking account of their attainment.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Attainment: the standard of the pupils’ work shown by test and examination results and in lessons.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Attendance the regular attendance of pupils at school and in lessons, taking into account the school’s efforts to encourage good attendance.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Behaviour how well pupils behave in lessons, with emphasis on their attitude to learning. Pupils’ punctuality to lessons and their conduct around the school.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Capacity to improve: the proven ability of the school to continue improving based on its self-evaluation and what the school has accomplished so far and on the quality of its systems to maintain improvement.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Leadership and management: the contribution of all the staff with responsibilities, not just the governors and headteacher, to identifying priorities, directing and motivating staff and running the school.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Learning: how well pupils acquire knowledge, develop their understanding, learn and practise skills and are developing their competence as learners.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Overall effectiveness: inspectors form a judgement on a school’s overall effectiveness based on the findings from their inspection of the school.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Progress: the rate at which pupils are learning in lessons and over longer periods of time. It is often measured by comparing the pupils’ attainment at the end of a key stage with their attainment when they started.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Safety how safe pupils are in school, including in lessons; and their understanding of risks. Pupils’ freedom from bullying and harassment. How well the school promotes safety, for example e-learning.

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carers to share with their children. It describes Ofsted’s

main findings from the inspection of their school.

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Inspection of Flagg Nursery School, Buxton, SK17 9QT

I really enjoyed talking to you when we visited your nursery. You all have lots of fun at nursery and make outstanding progress; that is why your nursery is an outstanding school. It was wonderful to see so many smiling welcoming faces. You are always polite and your behaviour is excellent. You are working very hard, and many of you know your letters and numbers. No wonder you are interested in books and stories - there are so many all around you in nursery. I really liked seeing the home-made books that had so many wonderful pictures of you enjoying very exciting activities, and seeing your writing. The visits from the firemen and the crossing patrol man looked very interesting and it’s good to know that you are learning how to keep safe. You are very well looked after including when you are in the Little Links Childcare or eating your lunch with the Tractor Club.

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Inspection of Flagg Nursery School, Buxton, SK17 9QT

The staff in the Nursery, Little Links and the Tractor Club are doing an excellent job. They always know when you need extra help and ask you questions that help you to learn. Your teacher has just taken over as acting headteacher. She has lots to do but does not always have enough time for management tasks. In order that the school remains outstanding, I have asked staff to make sure they know exactly which skills you have when you join the school and to get a better overall picture of progress over time. I have asked staff to make better checks on teaching and learning and to make sure that the provision in Tiddleypeeps is as good as that seen in the rest of the school.

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Inspection of Flagg Nursery School, Buxton, SK17 9QT

You can also help your school by coming to nursery every day and trying your very best in every lesson.

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Inspection of Flagg Nursery School, Buxton, SK17 9QT

Susan Walsh Lead inspector procedures set out in the guidance 'Complaining about inspections', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234 , or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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