Rosegrove Nursery School

Rosegrove Nursery School Inspection report

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Age group 3–5 Inspection date(s) 18–19 April 2012 Inspection number 379723 Unique Reference Number 119070 Local authority Lancashire Inspection number 379723 Inspection dates 18–19 April 2012 Lead inspector Sue Sharkey

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This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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Type of school Nursery School category Maintained Age range of pupils 3–5 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 69 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Neil Welsh Headteacher Sarah Jones Date of previous school inspection 18 March 2009 School address Havelock Street Burnley BB12 6AJ Telephone number 01282 436928 Fax number 01282 436928 Email address head@rosegrove-nur.lancs.sch.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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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.

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Introduction

The inspection was carried out with two days’ notice. The inspector observed three teachers and four teaching assistants while visiting five sessions. Discussions were held with the headteacher, school staff, children and members of the governing body. The inspector observed children’s work and looked at a wide range of documentation provided by the school including the school’s system for tracking children’s progress, documents regarding the safeguarding of children and key policies. Inspection questionnaires from 23 parents and carers were scrutinised and those from school staff were also taken into account. The lead inspector took account of the responses to the online questionnaire (Parent View) in planning the inspection.

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Information about the school

This is an average-sized nursery school serving a wide area in an urban community. Almost all children are from White British backgrounds and the proportion of disabled children and those who have special education needs is below the national average. Most children are part-time and are admitted to the nursery following their third birthday. The school is federated with an infant school; neither this, nor the privately-run nursery on the same site, for children from two to five years, formed part of this inspection. A report about the quality of their provision can be found on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the school

The school has had part-time associated or acting headteachers since the previous inspection in 2009. The most recent acting headteacher was appointed headteacher from 1 April 2012. The school has the Investors in People Bronze award. 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 a good school. A calm atmosphere pervades the whole building, creating a rich and purposeful environment where children blossom. Good and sometimes outstanding teaching ensures that children achieve well from starting points that are below what is expected for their age. Although children learn quickly it is not an outstanding school because teaching is not outstanding and although boys are catching up with girls there is still a gap in their attainment in some areas of literacy and numeracy.

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Key Findings

 Parents and carers are delighted by the good quality of education their children receive a typical comment being, ‘This is a brilliant nursery where children love attending. They are encouraged to learn with confidence, build relationships and are happy.’

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Key Findings

 The school is an energetic, cohesive community. It is evident that staff and children value and respect each other. Teachers choose resources carefully, promoting enthusiasm and independent learning which excites children. Activities planned usually reflect children’s interests and needs although more- able children are not always challenged sufficiently. Teachers use questioning well, but not consistently enough to extend learning to the highest level for each child.

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Key Findings

 Behaviour and safety are outstanding. Children show kindness to each other and respect the well-established routines that help to keep them protected. Children are enthusiastic, curious learners often with sustained concentration, particularly when looking at books or enjoying exploring in the excellent outdoor area.

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Key Findings

 The headteacher has an accurate view of provision and provides strong leadership for the management of performance and teaching and learning. Links with parents and carers are strong. Links within the immediate community are less so, resulting in children having a narrower understanding of the wider world. The effective teamwork of all staff and governors makes a strong contribution to children’s overall development.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Raise the quality of teaching to outstanding, by: - ensuring that activities always challenge the more-able children so that they can achieve even better - ensuring that all groups of children are consistently questioned in order to extend their learning further - ensuring that activities for boys are always linked to their interests so that achievement in linking letters and sounds, calculation and writing continues to improve.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Develop links locally in order to extend children’s understanding of the wider community.

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Achievement of children

When children join the school they have a wide range of skills that are usually below the levels expected for this age group. Boys’ knowledge, skills and understanding is usually below that of girls. Children make good progress so that by the end of the Nursery year children have reached aged-related expectations and some have exceeded, particularly in their personal, social and emotional development, physical development and reading. Disabled children and those who have special educational needs make outstanding progress because they receive support tailored to their individual needs by well-trained key workers. The gap between girls’ and boys’ attainment is closing because the staff are conscious of the importance of linking activities and resources to children’s interests. Occasionally, boys do not find activities interesting and their attainment is still slightly lower than that of girls in linking letters and sounds, writing and calculating.

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Achievement of children

Parents and carers are right to be pleased with the progress their children are making. Children’s positive attitudes to learning are exemplified through their interest and excitement when approaching activities. Children are inquisitive learners because of the lively and stimulating environment they enjoy each day. The outdoor area echoes that of indoors extremely well, and children move easily throughout the whole space discovering things for themselves. Children make the most of learning actively in the fresh air. The provision of outdoor clothing and brightly-coloured decorated umbrellas means that they can enjoy the outdoors no matter what the weather is like.

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Achievement of children

Adults help through carefully-chosen questions although these are not always consistent enough to extend children’s learning to the maximum. Children enjoy the practical activities, for example, two boys worked collaboratively to build a wall with concrete blocks and sand. They examined the height by counting the blocks; one boy laughed when he realised that his was shorter, by one block, than that of his friend. Children’s curiosity, interest and motivation to succeed help them to learn effectively.

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Achievement of children

Children say that they enjoy books, particularly those about animals, and this is obvious. The school places a focus on engaging children in developing early reading skills to prepare them well for learning in school. They respond well to the many opportunities for learning letters and the sounds that they make, looking at books, sharing with a friend or adult as well as retelling stories, particularly in the role-play area. Children progress well in their reading and can be heard talking about their favourite stories, recognising words that rhyme and using expression and sound for different characters.

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Quality of teaching

Parents and carers agree with the inspection that teaching is good. Interaction between adults and children is of a good quality so that children’s development of their personal and social skills and reading is good and often outstanding. There is a good balance between times when children can choose what they do and when they sit together with an adult to learn as a group. Children have opportunities to use information and communication technology (ICT), explore different materials often designing their own investigations using recycled containers. Children’s observations of sound outdoors is enhanced by them wearing ‘large ears’ so that they can listen extra carefully. As a result, children discover that learning is an exciting activity that comes from a range of stimulating experiences and encourages independence. The curriculum underpins enjoyment of learning, and teaching promotes spiritual, moral,

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Quality of teaching

social and cultural development well. Children thoroughly enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year, for example, by making masks, performing a dragon dance together and having fun using chopsticks while eating Chinese food. Each week children look forward to a visit from a dancer enabling them to take part in ballet as well as street dance.

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Quality of teaching

Staff are thorough in daily observation of children’s progress in each area of learning. Planning and record-keeping are good. Staff work well as a team and during regular planning meetings adults identify children’s next steps for learning including the needs of disabled children and those who have special educational needs, or any gaps in particular skills or areas of learning. However, staff do not always identify and target the learning of more-able children in order to accelerate progress. Children have good opportunities to concentrate. For example, when they have found a creepy-crawly in the garden, they are encouraged to use picture identifications to find out what it is. They eagerly learn about creatures such as worms and enjoy continuing this theme by using play-dough to make models and comparing the lengths of different worms using appropriate mathematical vocabulary.

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Behaviour and safety of children

Parents and carers acknowledge overwhelmingly the very high standard of behaviour as well as the excellent arrangements for keeping children safe. Teachers encourage appropriate behaviour by guiding children to develop a sense of what is right and wrong and children are very adept at managing their own behaviour in class and socially. For example, they know that name-calling is wrong. Children who have a concern turn to any adult knowing that their concern will be resolved quickly. There have been no incidents of bullying or inappropriate behaviour recorded for several years.

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Behaviour and safety of children

Children are eager to learn, show curiosity, develop independence and sustain concentration. They adjust quickly to the routines, and take a delight in the wide range of activities provided each day, both in the classroom and outdoors. It is obvious that children enjoy the nursery, meeting their friends and finding out new things. This is reflected in their high levels of involvement in all activities and improving attendance, which is monitored regularly. Strong links with families support children’s trusting relationships with staff.

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Leadership and management

Although the headteacher had been in post at the time of the inspection for only a few days, she knows the school well through her prior role as part-time acting headteacher. This has enabled her to be fully aware of the school’s strengths and weaknesses. An extremely effective practitioner, the headteacher communicates high expectations for all children. Good leadership and management ensure that there is a clear sense of purpose. A well-crafted school development plan supports the nursery’s on-going drive to raise achievement and is linked closely to the professional development of staff, thus ensuring that the school will continue to improve. Training in phonics (the sounds that letters make) for staff has enabled the school to offer sessions for parents so that they understand better how to help their children read. This has been received very positively by parents and carers who say they look forward to future workshops.

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Leadership and management

Staff know children and their families extremely well and use their knowledge to create a supportive atmosphere in which children feel secure. The school keeps parents up to date about how their children are doing, involving them in their children’s learning. Links with outside agencies and partners are also strong, ensuring a quick response to families’ needs. This has a very positive impact on children’s personal and emotional development.

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Leadership and management

The governing body supports and challenges the school with enthusiasm and commitment, helping to shape its future direction. The promotion of equality of opportunity and tackling discrimination is at the heart of the school and there is determination for every child to succeed. This is seen in the good support staff give to ensure that all children participate fully in activities. Procedures to safeguard children meet government requirements in ensuring that the school is a safe place in which to learn.

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Leadership and management

The school has recently reviewed the curriculum in order to ensure that activities meet children’s different needs, including those of boys. There are many opportunities to stimulate and engage their interests through the classrooms and outdoors. The school recognises, rightly, that this is work in progress. Planning does not allow for sufficient opportunities for children to learn about the world beyond their school community. Through exploration and investigation children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is promoted effectively. Children show respectful attitudes to learning and other children as well as the importance of kindness and sharing.

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding These features are highly effective. An outstanding school provides exceptionally well for all its children’s' needs. Grade 2 Good These are very positive features of a school. A school that is good is serving its children well. Grade 3 Satisfactory These features are of reasonable quality. A satisfactory school is providing adequately for its children. 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 children. Ofsted inspectors will make further visits until it improves.

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

Nursery schools 54 42 2 2 Primary schools 14 49 32 6 Secondary schools 20 39 34 7 Special schools 33 45 20 3 Pupil referral units 9 55 28 8 All schools 16 47 31 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.

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

The data in the table above are for the period 1 September 2010 to 31 December 2011 and represent judgements that were made under the school inspection arrangements that were introduced on 1 September 2009. These data are consistent with the latest published official statistics about maintained school inspection outcomes (see www.ofsted.gov.uk ).

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

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.

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

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 up 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 childs' 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

Floor standards 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

the national minimum expectation of attainment and progression measures.

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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 children 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 children are learning in lessons and over longer periods of time. It is often measured by comparing the children' 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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to share with their children. It describes Ofsted's main

findings from the inspection of their school.

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Inspection of Rosegrove Nursery School, Burnley, BB12 6AJ

I enjoyed my visit to your school very much. When I walked in and saw how colourful it was and what exciting work was on the wall, I knew that I would enjoy my time with you. Thank you for talking to me and telling me all about the exciting things you do. I was impressed with how well some of you made lovely vases for your flowers or were able to make ‘chocolate buns’. Your parents and carers think that your school is a good nursery and is very safe and I agree with them.

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Inspection of Rosegrove Nursery School, Burnley, BB12 6AJ

I watched you inside school as well as outside and it was lovely to see you being so friendly to each other and friendly to all the adults teaching and working with you. You were extremely well-behaved and sometimes I didn’t hear you and wondered if you were creeping around!! I enjoyed seeing you working well with each other, the way you shared and played together at the garden centre. I could tell that you were learning well, because of all the different activities that the grown-ups organise for you. You can do just about everything as well as other children of your age. Teachers plan exciting activities for you and I have asked them to include more difficult activities and always to ask you lots of questions to help you learn even more. I have also asked them to give boys some tasks that will help them learn their letters and sounds as well as help them even more with numbers and writing. All the

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Inspection of Rosegrove Nursery School, Burnley, BB12 6AJ

adults that work with you care for and look after you very well. I know that you enjoy going out of school sometimes, so I have also asked adults that you go into Burnley much more so that you can visit all kinds of exciting places to help you find out different things that people do.

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Inspection of Rosegrove Nursery School, Burnley, BB12 6AJ

Thank you for helping me find out about your school and for being such friendly children.

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Inspection of Rosegrove Nursery School, Burnley, BB12 6AJ

Sue Sharkey 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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