Bushbury Nursery School

Bushbury Nursery School Bushbury Lane, Bushbury, Wolverhampton, WV10 8JP

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Inspection dates 28 February–1 March 2013

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Good 2 This inspection: Good 2 Achievement of pupils Good 2 Quality of teaching Good 2 Behaviour and safety of pupils Outstanding 1 Leadership and management Good 2

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school.  Children make outstanding progress in their personal, social and emotional development, communication, language and early reading and writing skills. Good progress is made in all other areas of learning.  Teaching is good overall. Some is outstanding.  The school promotes children’s equality of opportunity very well. It ensures all children are welcome and free from discrimination.  Children’s behaviour is exemplary. They are safe, secure, and happy.  The headteacher provides clear leadership and has ensured staff work well as a team. This has led to good improvements in teaching and children’s progress.  Parents are extremely happy with the Nursery. They are particularly pleased with how quickly their children settle and with how much they enjoy coming to school.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 Children do not spend enough time on developing their early mathematics skills, particularly their calculation and problem- solving skills.  There are too few opportunities outdoors for children to explore, investigate and think critically.  The monitoring of teaching, by senior staff and the general oversight of the school’s work by governors are not always rigorous enough to identify the most appropriate areas for further improvement.  The targets in the school development plan are too imprecise to allow the school to monitor the impact it is having effectively.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspector observed eight sessions, or parts of sessions. Four of these were joint observations with the headteacher. The inspector also observed children having their snack and lunch. A Family Circle time was also observed.  Discussions were held with the headteacher, deputy, other staff, children, the Chair of the Governing Body and a representative of the local authority.  The inspector observed children’s work first-hand and also saw photographs of other activities.  A range of the school’s documentation was examined, including data, the school’s analysis of how well it is doing, the school improvement plan, governors’ documentation, safeguarding documents and key policies.  There were insufficient responses to the parents’ on-line questionnaire (Parent View). The inspector noted responses to the Nursery’s last parental survey and spoke to parents and carers during the inspection.  The inspector also took account of 11 staff questionnaires that were completed.

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Inspection team

Mary Hughes, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 This is an average-size nursery. Children attend part-time either for the morning or the afternoon. Children join the nursery after their third birthday, and some, consequently spend five terms with the school.  The majority of children are White British, with others being from a range of minority ethnic heritages. None speaks English as an additional language.  None of the children are known to be eligible for pupil premium funding or free school meals. The school does not provide lunches. The small group of children who stay for lunch bring their own packed lunch.  The proportions of disabled children and those who have special educational needs who are supported at Early Years Action and Early Years Action Plus are both below average. There are two children who are currently supported by a statement of educational needs.  The school is part of an Inclusion project to support vulnerable children. An outreach worker from

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Information about this school

Broadmeadow Special School is attached to the Nursery. She works full-time to support those children who are disabled or who have special educational needs, for whom parents have requested mainstream nursery education. This project has been running for approximately eight years.  The deputy headteacher was the acting headteacher for 18 months until the present headteacher took up her post in January 2011. During the inspection two staff members were on long-term absence.  There have recently been changes to the governing body, with the appointment of a new chair and some changes of membership.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve teaching from good to outstanding and ensure that it has an even greater impact on children’s learning by:  providing more opportunities for children to develop a wide range of early mathematical skills, particularly in calculating and problem solving  increasing the opportunities for children to investigate, explore and develop critical thinking skills outdoors.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Strengthen the effectiveness of leadership and management by:  extending the programme of monitoring by governors to ensure that they have accurate first- hand knowledge of what is provided for the children  ensuring that senior leaders rigorously check the effectiveness of teaching and identify clear areas for further improvement.  ensuring that targets included in the school development plan are precise enough to allow leaders and governors to get a clear picture of the impact it is having.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Most of the children start the Nursery with skills and abilities that are lower than those expected for their age. They are particularly low in communication and language, mathematics and in personal, social and emotional development. By the time they leave children’s skills are in line with expectations for their age.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Children make outstanding progress in their speaking, listening and early reading and writing skills. This is because the Nursery has a particularly strong focus on developing these skills. Staff seize on every opportunity to develop language and widen children’s vocabulary. This is particularly well-developed during ‘Welcome Time ‘sessions when children talk about how they feel and what they would like to do during the session. Small group sessions are used to develop children’s knowledge of nursery rhymes so that they are able to sing them confidently to their parents at the weekly Family Circle time.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Children develop an interest in reading because there is a strong focus on promoting a love of books and stories. Parents say they value sharing the story sacks at home. Many children are able to identify their own name and the names of their friends; they can name several letters and the sounds that they make. Children greatly enjoy re-telling a familiar story. This was seen as a staff member skilfully encouraged the children to use puppets to re-tell the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Children are interested in mark-making and writing activities. They enjoy the range of opportunities provided. Children showed a good awareness of early writing skills as they used a range of resources such as chalks, sand, brushes and rollers to make marks outdoors. Some children are now able to write their own name.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Children have a well-developed awareness of number as they are given good opportunities throughout the day to develop these skills. A counting rhyme using a puppet provided children with a good opportunity to count and match numbers to five accurately. However their progress in the development of the full range of mathematical skills is not as well-developed, particularly for the more-able. This is because they are not provided with enough opportunities to begin to combine numbers together nor to solve real life problems.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The few children who are disabled or who have special educational needs make outstanding progress. This is because of the outstanding support given to them. Their support worker skilfully adapts learning to meet all their specific needs.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 All children make excellent progress in their personal development. Children quickly settle into Nursery life. Children who had only started at the Nursery during the week of the inspection had already gained confidence. Children learn the importance of being independent very early as they access their own snacks, fasten their own coats and choose their own activities.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Staff have a wide range of experience and expertise. They know the children and their families well. Parents think very highly of them and appreciate both the quality of teaching and the caring approach they bring to their roles.  Staff have excellent relationships with children and this is a key reason why children settle so quickly, readily and happily to life in the Nursery.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teaching is typically good with some examples of high quality practice. Staff plan well together to make sure that there are exciting, practical activities for the children. This helps to keep children motivated so that they want to learn new things. The Nursery is currently developing its planning in order to cater specifically for the differing needs of the morning and afternoon groups.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Assessment has improved significantly since the previous inspection. Individual learning plans for every child give clear improvement targets for all areas of learning. The needs of individual children are discussed regularly by teachers and other adults.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Most staff are highly skilled in taking children’s learning forward through skilful questioning and intervention. Adults are skilled at giving constant verbal feedback. This was seen when children worked in a group to successfully solve the clues given in a bag. Good feedback was given as children matched the clues to a nursery rhyme.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Indoor learning is a significant strength. Classrooms are bright, cheerful and celebrate children’s work. Resources and activities are stimulating and are particularly well used to develop all aspects of language and literacy, understanding the world and expressive arts and design. Children were highly engaged when they used a projector to make shadows and letter shapes on a screen and when they used large photographs of other children to make observational drawings.

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The quality of teaching is good

 The school has drawn up plans to re-develop its outdoor environment. Although it currently offers some stimulating activities, such as the discovery tent where children experimented with torches and the football coaching session, the school is aware of its limitations. Current equipment does not offer enough physical challenge and there are insufficient opportunities for children to investigate, explore and develop critical thinking.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Good partnerships are established between the staff, families and external agencies who give professional advice. This contributes to the excellent progress of the children who are disabled or have special educational needs.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 Children’s behaviour is outstanding because they are fully occupied and engaged in learning and playing from the moment their session starts. The consistent approach to managing behaviour used by staff contributes to the exemplary behaviour seen during the inspection.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 Children show excellent levels of concentration, for example a group of boys who spent a long time playing with the wooden blocks, concentrated hard as they constructed different shapes. Equally, a group of girls spent time in the home corner enjoying role play and developing an understanding of how to match the cups and plates to the dolls.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 Children are very happy, learn to play well together and are confident to ‘have a go’ knowing that there is always someone there to support them. This was seen when children built with crates and adapted the activity to climb and walk on them.  Children help to tidy up, readily take turns and show respect to one another. Children get on exceptionally well with their key workers.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 All parents spoken to agreed that the school keeps their children safe.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 For their age, children show a well- developed understanding of how to keep themselves safe. This was evident during the football coaching session when the children shouted ‘Is it Safe?’ before running to the next part of the yard.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 Most children attend regularly; this reflects a strong partnership between home and school.

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The leadership and management are good

 The determined leadership of the headteacher has improved the strengths of the school and successfully addressed the issues raised in the previous inspection. The assessment of children’s progress and their safeguarding, for example, are now robust.

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The leadership and management are good

 The headteacher has created a strong staff team. Staff questionnaires indicate that they all feel that the school is well led and managed and that morale is high.

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The leadership and management are good

 The headteacher and deputy check teaching quality regularly through lesson observations, reviews of the curriculum and checks on planning. However checks are not always robust enough. For example checks on teaching do not identify exactly how effective teaching is or give clear development points so that staff know how to improve.

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The leadership and management are good

 The development plan identifies well-chosen activities to help children learn successfully. However, there is a lack of precision in the targets set in relation to progress and this limits leaders’ ability to measure what impact the actions taken are having.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school works closely with the local authority, which gives effective support. The Nursery is the only one remaining in the authority’s Inclusion project. Support for this project contributes greatly to the excellent progress made by pupils whose circumstances make them vulnerable.

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The leadership and management are good

 There is an excellent partnership with parents. One parent summed up the views of others when she said ‘I love the relaxed atmosphere, the strong emphasis on caring and sharing, and the helpful and friendly staff’. The weekly Family Circle session enables parents to be fully involved in what their child has been learning about during the week.

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The leadership and management are good

 Teaching programmes are rich and imaginative. A wide range of visits, visitors and themes are used well to widen children’s experiences, for example a ‘Happiness’ project, with children photographing one another and using the photographs as a basis for lots of activities. During the inspection children celebrated their ‘Storytelling Week’ by dressing up as their favourite story character. The school promotes children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural awareness very successfully.

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The leadership and management are good

 Strong partnerships with external agencies and the community contribute well to children’s learning. The school’s excellent link with the special school enables all staff to understand how to best support the vulnerable children. Links with a local secondary school enable older children to provide ‘Mini Olympics’ sessions for the children.  The governance of the school:  The governing body is currently going through a period of transition due to recent membership changes. Governors are committed to continuous improvement. They carry out their statutory duties fully. They regularly review the work of the headteacher and staff and link pay to performance. They hold the school to account by considering aspects of the school and data through meetings and sub-committees. However they do not compare the school’s performance with other schools to determine how well it is doing. Although some governors

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The leadership and management are good

visit the Nursery regularly, these visits are not always purposefully used .Governors do not carry out enough checks of their own on teaching quality or the effectiveness of new initiatives or feedback information gained from these checks to other governors. Governors safeguard children’s welfare effectively. They ensure all pupils are welcome in the school and treated equally and that there is no discrimination. Governors have a good grasp of the school budget, making sure that money is spent wisely to support children in order that they might achieve well.

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding An outstanding school is highly effective in delivering outcomes that provide exceptionally well for all its pupils’ needs. This ensures that pupils are very well equipped for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Grade 2 Good A good school is effective in delivering outcomes that provide well for all its pupils’ needs. Pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Grade 3 Requires improvement A school that requires improvement is not yet a good school, but it is not inadequate. This school will receive a full inspection within 24 months from the date of this inspection. Grade 4 Inadequate A school that has serious weaknesses is inadequate overall and requires significant improvement but leadership and management are judged to be Grade 3 or better. This school will receive regular monitoring by Ofsted inspectors. A school that requires special measures is one where the school is

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Grade Judgement Description

failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the school’s leaders, managers or governors have not demonstrated that they have the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school. This school will receive regular monitoring by Ofsted inspectors.

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School details

Unique reference number 104285 Local authority Wolverhampton Inspection number 400701

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School details

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

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School details

Type of school Nursery School category Maintained Age range of pupils 3–5 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 82 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Jo Short Headteacher Ceri Howell Date of previous school inspection 15 December 2009 Telephone number 01902 558118 Fax number 01902 558118 Email address bushburynursery@wolverhampton.gov.uk guidance ‘raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted', 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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School details

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 and as part of the inspection.

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School details

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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School details

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 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

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School details

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School details

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

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