Redcliffe Childrens Centre and Maintained Nursery School

Age group 0-4 Inspection date(s) 8–9 June 2011 Inspection number 356447 Redcliffe Early Years Centre Inspection report

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Unique Reference Number 108904 Local Authority City of Bristol Inspection number 356447 Inspection dates 8–9 June 2011 Reporting inspector Bogusia Matusiak-Varley

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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 section 49 of the Childcare Act 2006.

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Type of school Nursery School category Maintained Age range of pupils 0–4 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 86 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Bonnie Curran Headteacher Elizabeth Carruthers Date of previous school inspection 30 January 2008 School address Spencer House Ship Lane Redcliffe Bristol BS1 6RR Telephone number 0117 903 0334 Fax number 0117 377 3323 Email address redcliffe.n@bristol.gov.uk

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Registered childcare provision Redcliffe Early Years Centre Number of children on roll in the registered childcare provision Date of last inspection of registered childcare provision 12 December 2007 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’. Royal Exchange Buildings St Ann's Square Manchester M2 7LA

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T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Introduction

This pilot inspection was carried out by two additional inspectors. Fourteen parts of learning sessions were observed including indoor and outdoor play and Forest Experience at Leigh Woods. Four teachers and three early years’ practitioners were seen leading learning sessions. Meetings were conducted with the headteacher, senior leadership team, teachers, parents and carers and governors. Inspectors observed the centre’s work, and looked at the centre’s development plan, the governors’ development plan, teachers’ planning, safeguarding documentation, children’s learning journeys, assessment data, and Forest Experience documentation. Thirty-five parental and 10 staff questionnaires were also analysed.

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Information about the school

The centre provides 58 full-time equivalent nursery places for three- to four-year- olds. It is registered to provide 12 places for two-year-olds and three places for children under two years. Nearly two-thirds of the children are of ethnic minority backgrounds; this is well above average. The largest ethnic group is Black Somalian. Twelve different languages are spoken at the centre and nearly all of the children are at the early stages of learning to speak English. Just over a tenth of children in the centre have special educational needs and/or disabilities. This is broadly average. Their needs include autism, speech and language disorders, complex emotional needs and physical difficulties. A quarter of the youngest children have special educational needs and/or disabilities; this is above average. The range and nature of their needs includes Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy and autism. No child has a

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Information about the school

statement of special educational needs. The proportion of children known to be eligible for free school meals is above average. The centre has obtained Healthy Schools status and is in the process of re-applying for the Bristol Quality Standard. The centre has access to a large area of woodland, and children regularly visit this for their Forest Experience. 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 1

Does the school adequately promote the pupils’ well-being? Yes Does the school adequately promote community cohesion? Yes Does the school provide value for money? Yes

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Key findings

The centre provides an outstanding quality of education because all staff, expertly led by the headteacher, know exactly how young children learn, apply this knowledge exceptionally well in the classroom and are pioneers of best practice. An outstanding curriculum, both indoors and outdoors, including Forest Experience, inspires awe and wonder in learning. Children’s personal development, including their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, is outstanding. Excellent welfare arrangements result in the children’s exemplary behaviour and attitudes to learning.

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Key findings

The centre has robust safeguarding procedures. ‘We know our children are safe. They learn exceptionally well and the staff treat them all as individuals’, said one very happy parent. No child is left behind and every step is taken to ensure success in learning. Teaching is of an exceptionally high quality. Staff aim high and a ‘we can do’ culture prevails in all the centre’s undertakings. From very low starting points, children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, exceed the expectations for their age in all areas of learning. In speaking and listening, early reading, writing and problem solving, reasoning and numeracy, achievement is excellent because children are creators of their own learning. All activities are centred around their interests.

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Key findings

Teachers are very enthusiastic about their work, so much so that, when planning creative outdoor activities, they sometimes forget to highlight the skills that they want children to acquire. This occasionally hampers new staff in adding detail to their observations on children’s learning.

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Key findings

Leadership and management are outstanding. The headteacher has developed a highly competent team of practitioners who learn from the expertise of multi- agencies at the centre and develop excellent links with the community. Governance 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

is excellent. All governors are fully involved in evaluating the work of the school and offer both support and challenge to the headteacher. The centre provides excellent value for money due to children’s outstanding achievement.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

There are no major key issues for improvement as the centre has maintained its outstanding outcomes and provision since the last inspection. However, a minor issue for improvement is to:

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 sustain the high quality outcomes by ensuring that planning for outdoor activities is consistently underpinned by a clear identification of the skills that children will acquire.

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Main report

Outstanding team work, high levels of professionalism and opportunities for educational dialogue, based upon recent and relevant academic research, underpin the excellent teaching and learning. The individual child is at the heart of all learning experiences and children’s interests become the focus for the curriculum. Basic skills are expertly taught through play. For example, the teaching of letters and sounds arises out of stories. When reading the ‘Three Little Pigs’, children’s attention was drawn to the initial sounds of ‘huff and puff’. The teacher drew children’s attention to the letters in the text which they practised orally and then wrote them in shaving foam outdoors. Staff sensitively intervene to extend children’s verbal responses, to comment on their actions while they play and to encourage the children to develop their mathematical mark-making skills. This has an excellent impact on the language

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Main report

development of all groups of children and on their learning.

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Main report

In an outstanding session based around the ‘Creative Cookery’ project, children’s senses were stimulated by the smell of a range of different herbs grown in the centre’s garden, including mint and basil. Three and four-year olds cut peppers, tomatoes and carrots very thinly under the expert guidance of the teacher,and then cooked their own recipes. By the end of the session, children had learnt about the names and tastes of a wide variety of vegetables and how they altered shape when cooked. The children also followed a sequence of tasks which became a recipe for stir-fry vegetables. In the Forest Experience, children demonstrate a very keen sense of adventure, tempered by a sensible approach to risk taking. This enables them to understand the concept of safety and to develop highly complex problem-solving skills. For example, wanting to climb a tree, two boys figured out that by leaning sturdy branches onto the trunk they could climb up into the tree and be ‘owls’. The

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Main report

child-centred approach to planning the curriculum is very successful in engaging children and promoting learning. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities also benefit from this approach, as learning tasks are closely adapted to their needs. For example, children with autism are supported with carefully structured tasks which help them to feel secure. Toddlers are given every 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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Main report

opportunity to develop their communication, mathematical and physical skills in an environment that stimulates all of their senses.

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Main report

The Forest Experience has become an excellent outdoor classroom where children develop their love of nature and sense of responsibility for the environment. This makes a very positive contribution to their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Children know about different faiths and festivals and value one another’s cultures through playing with excellent multicultural resources such as African drums in the forest. Behaviour at all times is excellent and parents and carers are delighted with the guidance they receive on ensuring their children behave well outside the centre.

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Main report

Staff’s excellent recording on charts of children’s responses to the heaviness of different sized parcels, heights of trees and splashes achieved in puddles, contributes to the children’s excellent knowledge of mathematical language and concept of number. Children were fascinated by the number of zeros in 3,000,000 and learn the language of thousands, millions and trillions.

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Main report

The promotion of community cohesion is outstanding. Children are regularly taken on trips to the locality and know their immediate surroundings exceptionally well. Every opportunity is taken to involve parents and carers as partners in the learning process and many of them develop children’s knowledge of global communities by demonstrating traditional dances, describing artefacts and ways of life in their country of origin. Many parents and carers comment positively on the inclusive nature of the centre and great care is taken by staff and children alike to ensure all cultures are respected. Many local artists work in the centre and the children adore strumming guitars in the classroom and in the Forest Experience. As part of the recent project on technological sounds, children were spellbound as they listened to recorded echoes of their own voices.

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Main report

Parents and carers are very pleased with all that the centre provides and know that their children’s welfare is very well provided for. A very small minority of parents and carers expressed concerns over aspects of bullying; the centre acknowledges that there were some minor issues that needed to be addressed and these were dealt with very sensitively by all parties concerned.

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Main report

The welfare of children, including babies and toddlers, is of prime importance. Key features of the excellent governance are the regular health and safety checks and the careful questioning about the impact of financial spending on educational outcomes. Risk assessments undertaken by staff are very thorough. Adults are particularly vigilant in supervising children both indoors and outdoors and all have been trained in safeguarding. The high levels of safety contribute to the excellent achievement of all groups of children who are highly successful learners.

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Main report

School self-evaluation is accurate and excellent in every respect. Governors have contributed in producing their own action plan which has all the correct priorities and is very well documented. The headteacher and the three assistant headteachers 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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Main report

never ‘stand still’; they are always improving on best performance and have successfully developed a true learning community. Findings from research papers written by staff are shared with colleagues and have also been presented at a European conference on best practice in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Regular appraisal, performance management and high quality mentoring contribute to exceptionally high standards of teaching and learning. The centre has an excellent national reputation. Many visitors come to learn about best practice.

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Main report

Leadership and management are excellent as the headteacher has empowered all staff to be reflective learners. Staff room conversation is centred around scholarly articles that staff are guided to and their comments are sought on how principles of best practice can be developed to further enhance the already excellent equality of opportunity that prevails in the centre. The centre has sustained and built upon its excellent practice that was observed at its previous inspection and subsequent reviews of mathematics teaching. The centre has excellent capacity for improvement Many external and internal reports point to the centre’s outstanding provision over time and to the positive impact of action taken to resolve issues. For example, the headteacher and staff identified that children living in the high-rise flats had low levels of physical development as they did not have access to the outdoors. They

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Main report

also noticed that some children did not choose reading books as a favourite pastime. Immediately plans were introduced to close the gap and now all children make excellent progress in physical development and early reading. Data are thoroughly analysed and show that last year boys did not achieve as highly as girls. This gap has been acted upon and there are no longer any differences in achievement between boys and girls.

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Ofsted invited all the registered parents and carers of pupils registered at Redcliffe Early Years Centre to complete a questionnaire about their views of the school. In the questionnaire, parents and carers were asked to record how strongly they agreed with 12 statements about the school. The inspection team received 35 completed questionnaires by the end of the on-site inspection. In total, there are 86 pupils registered at the school.

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Statements Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree Total % Total % Total % Total % Q1 My child is happy at school 30 86 5 14 0 0 0 0

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Q2 My child feels safe at school 31 89 4 11 0 0 0 0

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Q3 The school helps my child to achieve as well as they can 27 77 7 20 0 0 0 0

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Q4 The school meets my child’s particular needs 23 66 11 31 0 0 0 0

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Q5 The school ensures my child is well looked after 27 77 8 23 0 0 0 0

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Q6 Teaching at this school is good 30 86 5 14 0 0 0 0

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Q7 There is a good standard of behaviour at this school 20 57 13 37 0 0 0 0

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Q8 Lessons are not disrupted by bad behaviour 20 57 13 37 0 0 0 0

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Q9 The school deals with any cases of bullying well 15 43 14 40 2 6 0 0

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Q10 The school helps me to support my child’s learning 25 71 10 29 0 0 0 0

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Q11 The school responds to my concerns and keeps me well informed 28 80 5 14 1 3 0 0

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

Q12 The school is well led and managed 31 89 4 11 0 0 0 0

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Responses from parents and carers to Ofsted’s questionnaire

The table above summarises the responses that parents and carers made to each statement. The percentages indicate the proportion of parents and carers giving that response out of the total number of completed questionnaires. Where one or more parents and carers chose not to answer a particular question, the percentages will not add up to 100%.

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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 48 6 0 Primary schools 6 47 40 7 Secondary schools 12 39 38 11

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

Sixth forms 13 42 41 3 Special schools 28 49 19 4 Pupil referral units 14 45 31 10

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

New school inspection arrangements were introduced on 1 September 2009. This means that inspectors now make some additional judgements that were not made previously. The data in the table above are for the period 1 September 2010 to 31 December 2010 and 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. Percentages are rounded and do not always add exactly to 100. Sixth form figures reflect the judgements made for the overall effectiveness of the sixth form in secondary schools, special schools and pupil referral units.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Achievement: the progress and success of a pupil in their learning, development or training.

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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

Capacity to improve: the proven ability of the school to continue improving. Inspectors base this judgement on 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 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. The following judgements, in particular, influence what the overall effectiveness judgement will be:  The achievement of all pupils.  Behaviour and safety.  The quality of teaching.  The effectiveness of leadership and management. and taking into consideration  how well the school promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

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

main findings from the inspection of their school.

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Inspection of Redcliffe Early Years Centre, Bristol, BS1 6RR

Thank you for making us feel so welcome in your centre. Please thank your parents and carers for filling in their questionnaires. We are delighted to tell you that you attend an outstanding centre.  You make outstanding progress in all areas of learning and you leave the centre very well prepared for your next steps in learning.  You love reading, know how to handle books carefully and many of you can even read simple words. Well done.  You have excellent knowledge of initial sounds, can recognise your numbers and make marks to explain your thinking.  Your governors do their duties very well and know all the good things about your centre and also what needs to be done to improve.  Your teachers are very knowledgeable and they really help you to learn quickly and take excellent care of you.  You know how to keep safe, especially when you go out on Forest Experience and you persevere at dragging large branches to throw into mud ponds. What

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Inspection of Redcliffe Early Years Centre, Bristol, BS1 6RR

fun!  You behave very well, are very polite and can take turns at sharing your toys.  You have excellent knowledge of healthy choices. You cut your vegetables very carefully and thoroughly enjoy tasting food from other countries. Your cooking skills are amazing.

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Inspection of Redcliffe Early Years Centre, Bristol, BS1 6RR

I have asked your teachers to continue helping you to make excellent progress in outdoor learning by adding a few more things to your planning.

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Inspection of Redcliffe Early Years Centre, Bristol, BS1 6RR

It was a pleasure to visit your centre and I will take away lots of memories, especially eating raw carrots with you and watching you learn in the Forest Experience.

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Inspection of Redcliffe Early Years Centre, Bristol, BS1 6RR

Yours sincerely Bogusia Matusiak-Varley 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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