Hoyle Nursery School

Hoyle Nursery School Chesham Fold Road, Bury, Lancashire, BL9 6HR

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Overall effectiveness

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

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 This is a warm and friendly school where everyone is welcome and valued. The staff are passionate and committed to ensuring that the children and their families are at the heart of everything they do. They make sure that every child enjoys learning and makes the best possible progress.  The exceptional headteacher, very ably supported by the deputy headteacher, has galvanised the whole school community to never accept anything but the best. As a result, significant improvements have been made in the quality of teaching and the achievement of all children.  The Nursery promotes children’s spiritual, social, moral and cultural development exceptionally well through an exciting curriculum with many opportunities to help others.  Excellent partnerships exist with parents who are extremely well supported and feel actively involved in school life. They have every confidence in the school to keep their children

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

safe.  Very strong partnerships exist with outside agencies, such as speech and language therapy, which result in no time being wasted in children receiving the help they need.  Governors ensure that no stone is left unturned in making sure that the school is the best it can be.  Children are excited and enthusiastic learners. The heartfelt care of staff helps to nurture children’s love of learning. Their high expectations and well- established routines support children’s outstanding behaviour. Children feel safe and secure.  Teaching is outstanding because staff know the children in their groups extremely well and have an excellent understanding of how children learn. They use this information to plan activities for each individual child.  Children eagerly access an exciting range of play opportunities themselves. However, on a very few occasions, staff miss the opportunity that arises through children’s own play to help them learn

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

something new.  All children achieve exceptionally well in all areas of learning from their different starting points. They make rapid progress, particularly in their communication and personal development, and most leave Nursery having attained the levels that are typical for their age in all areas of learning. They are well prepared for their next stage of education.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed 12 sessions across the school, including a joint observation with the headteacher.  Inspectors looked at a number of documents including the school improvement plan, the school’s review of its own performance, data on children’s progress and planning records. They also checked records of the work of governors, reports on teaching and documentation relating to behaviour and safeguarding.  Inspectors looked at a sample of children’s learning journals and displays of children’s work.  Discussions were held with the headteacher and deputy headteacher, members of staff, governors, including the Chair of the Governing Body, and a representative from the local authority.  The inspectors took into account the views expressed by staff in the nine voluntary questionnaires they returned.  Inspectors spoke to parents and took account of the school’s own consultations with parents. There were

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Information about this inspection

insufficient responses to the online questionnaire (Parent View) for the inspectors to be able to access them.

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Inspection team

Chris Maloney, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 This is an average-sized nursery school. It has a resourced provision for six children with severe and complex communication difficulties. These children are fully integrated into the Nursery class.  The school is the only local authority maintained nursery school in Bury.  The school is a fully integrated provision for 0–4 year olds. The childcare is subject to a separate inspection.  Most children are from White British backgrounds. A small number are from minority ethnic backgrounds. A broadly average number speak English as an additional language.  The proportion of disadvantaged children who are eligible for free school meals is well above average.  The proportion of disabled children and those with special educational needs who are supported at early years is well above average. The proportion supported at early years action plus or with a statement is above average.  The school employs a Parent Support Adviser.

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Information about this school

 The school has joined a network of nursery schools in Blackburn with Darwen.  The headteacher offers peer support to other senior leaders as part of the Bury Primary Learning Collaborative.  There have been significant changes in staff and governors since the last inspection.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Ensure that the excellent practice that exists in helping children to make rapid progress in learning through their play is consistently demonstrated by all staff.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The exceptional passion and steely determination of the headteacher, well supported by a highly committed deputy headteacher and staff team, have ensured that significant improvements have been made in all areas of the school’s work.  The drive to improve the quality of teaching and to rigorously challenge underperformance has led to outstanding teaching, resulting in all groups of children making outstanding progress.  The headteacher and governors have very effectively managed the changes in staff and governors so that the team spirit and staff morale have not been compromised. All staff are highly supportive of the school and take a real pride in being a member of the staff team.  Leaders focus relentlessly on checking the quality of teaching so that advice and guidance can be given to improve the quality of the children’s learning. All staff have a wide range of opportunities to improve their

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The leadership and management are outstanding

practice such as through in-house coaching and access to local and national courses. In addition, the headteacher has entered the school in a network of nursery schools in Blackburn with Darwen to give staff more opportunities to share and extend their skills.  Successful improvements have been made to the checks carried out on how well children are learning and the progress they are making, including those supported through the resourced provision. These regular checks ensure that teachers can spot any barriers to learning early and provide skilled targeted support or extra challenge so children can make the maximum progress.  The curriculum has many strengths and prepares children exceptionally well for the next stage in their education. It is well designed to meet the differing needs of children and to strengthen their speaking and listening skills and personal development in particular. It supports children’s spiritual, social, moral and

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The leadership and management are outstanding

cultural development exceptionally well. It is rich with opportunities for children to explore their imagination, and to support and extend the understanding of their local environment and the world around them.  Senior leaders ensure that children learn about the lives of other children through celebrating festivals such as Divali or Chinese New Year. During Eid, parents come in to school to help children share their customs and to sample different foods. Children are given opportunities to help others, such as by making cakes for the charity supporting Macmillan nurses. One chid said, ‘We are helping people who are poorly.’  The school has excellent links with parents who feel very involved in all aspects of their children’s learning. A typical parent comment was, ‘You get lots of information about your child’s progress and you can access their books any time.’ During the inspection, a large group of parents came into school to find out about

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The leadership and management are outstanding

what their children will be doing and ways in which they could help their children’s learning at home.  The local authority knows the school well and provides good-quality support.  The school has excellent partnerships with outside agencies such as speech and language therapy to help children get the help they need and to provide guidance for staff and parents.  The governance of the school:  Governors have a good range of skills and experiences and benefit from excellent leadership from the Chair of the Governing Body. Governors have benefited from the use of an external consultant who has successfully helped them develop their roles and the rigour of their challenge to the school. They visit school regularly and know the school well. They share the headteacher’s ambitious drive for continuous improvement. Governors make sure they have the information they need to hold senior leaders to account. They fully understand the quality of teaching and the link between pay and performance,

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The leadership and management are outstanding

enabling them to hold all staff to account. They manage finances well and ensure equality of opportunity. Governors eagerly access training to keep themselves up to date and further improve their skills. They ensure that all safeguarding requirements are met in order to make sure staff and children are kept safe.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 The behaviour of children is outstanding. Staff are extremely caring and do all they can to get to know the children as individuals. This results in very trusting and respectful relationships. Children learn that they and their families are really important to the school. They thrive in the warm and welcoming environment, and settle quickly owing to well-established routines and consistently high expectations.  Staff are very sensitive to individual needs and provide just the right level of support to children when they may be upset, feel poorly or there are signs of disagreement or conflict. Children show an excellent understanding of the ten ‘Golden Rules’ that help them behave exceptionally well.  Attendance is good because children enjoy school and want to attend. A typical parent comment was, ‘My child is always excited to go to school.’ The arrangements for starting nursery and for moving on to

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

primary school are meticulously planned to ensure that the needs of individual children are carefully considered to aid a smooth transfer. This helps children to settle quickly and enjoy their learning.  There are excellent relationships between staff and children. This helps to boost children’s self-esteem and self-confidence, developing perseverance and risk taking in their learning. Each child is part of a small group that helps them to develop their skills in sharing equipment and cooperating, as well as to give them the opportunities to feel secure, learn from each other and take responsibility. Children love singing familiar songs to start and end their group sessions. They love to learn how to say hello in Spanish or Mandarin to help welcome children who speak other languages.  Children’s independence is developed exceptionally well. Children quickly learn to self-register and select and tidy away resources, and to persevere when choosing activities for themselves.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 Great importance is placed by all practitioners on sharing the joys of learning and the enthusiastic celebration of success. This was clear in the excitement expressed by a group of children when one of the girls accurately wrote her own name.  The Nursery’s work to keep children safe and secure is outstanding. Parents were eager to tell inspectors of their confidence that children are safe in Nursery. Children feel safe. As one child said, ‘No naughty people are allowed in our school.’ They also feel confident in telling any of the adults if they do not like the way another child is acting towards them. Children are encouraged to be adventurous in using the climbing frames or running up and down the steps safely.

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The quality of teaching is outstanding

 The quality of teaching over time is outstanding and never less than good. All adults have high expectations and are passionate about helping children make the best possible progress.  Teachers have an excellent knowledge of how children learn. They use this knowledge when they closely observe children to check on their interests, what they can do and how well they are learning. They then use this information very well to plan activities that really capture the interests of children and help them to learn even more.  When children work in focus groups, their learning is of a particularly high quality because it is crystal clear what children are expected to learn. Children get down to work quickly, and use high-quality resources that stimulate their learning. They are given lots of opportunities to develop their speaking and listening skills. Highly skilled questioning deepens their understanding and challenges them to develop

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The quality of teaching is outstanding

ideas for themselves. Adults ensure that, through their own speech, they show children how to express their ideas orally and this develops children’s vocabulary very well.  Teachers make excellent use of children’s ‘Learning Journeys’ to share and celebrate children’s learning and progress with parents. They also use them to remind children of the skills they have mastered, and to celebrate children achieving a particular target as learning is moved forward at a rapid rate.  When children are choosing from the many exciting things for them to play with and experience, many adults display real expertise in knowing just how to support the children in developing their curiosity, stimulate their interests and extend their learning. This was the case, for example, when a child was interested in snails: the adult captured the learning superbly and they together explored how snails feel in your hands, what their shell might be for and how they move across the ground. However, this is not

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The quality of teaching is outstanding

consistently the case with all adults, resulting in some missed opportunities to move children on in their learning.  Teachers and other adults ensure that they fully meet the learning needs of disabled children and those with special educational needs. This results in happy children who enjoy their learning and are fully integrated so that they learn and play together with other children. This highly skilled, sensitive and caring support helps all children achieve outstandingly well.

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The achievement of pupils is outstanding

 Children achieve outstandingly well. They generally start Nursery with skills that are significantly below those typical for their age group, particularly in their language, communication and personal, social and emotional development. All groups of children make outstanding progress because of high expectations, extremely positive relationships and skilful teaching precisely matched to the needs and interests of individual children. As a result, by the time children leave Nursery, most are working at a level typical for their age and some above this.  All staff make very careful checks on the small steps in progress children make. This helps them to build on these successes and provide additional support or challenge in order to further accelerate progress.  Children who are falling behind catch up quickly because their needs are identified early and no time is wasted in giving them the extra support they require through small-group support or during self-chosen

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The achievement of pupils is outstanding

play with friends. If this is not enough, specially designed individual programmes are put in place. As a result, disabled children and those with special educational needs make outstanding progress from their starting points. This demonstrates the school’s commitment to promoting equality of opportunity.  Senior leaders have made sure that the school places great emphasis on ensuring that well-established routines and highly caring relationships help children to settle quickly and build expectations of what is expected of them when responding to adults and other children.  Adults ensure that all children have a wide variety of opportunities to develop their speaking and listening skills through listening to adults and each other in small groups and being encouraged to express their thoughts.  The most able children are challenged through targeted support, additional resources and skilful questioning to extend their thinking and enhance their learning. As a result, they achieve outstandingly

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The achievement of pupils is outstanding

well, attaining levels above those typically expected when they leave Nursery. For example, children were engrossed in matching rhyming words for the contents of ‘silly soup’ and, on another occasion, excited about writing their names in recognisable letters.  Children benefit greatly from access to regular story sessions, use of traditional tales and a rich variety of books helping to promote a love of books and reading. The daily work on letters and sounds results in children becoming increasingly confident in recognising sounds and letters at the start and end of words.  There has been a focus on improving mathematical skills since the last inspection. Children count confidently and enjoy adding numbers together or taking them away as part of their play.  Children demonstrate increasing confidence in using numbers through, for example, regularly counting numbers of children in the group, members in their family or the numbers of skittles they have knocked

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The achievement of pupils is outstanding

down and how many are left.  There has been an excellent focus on using role play to develop children’s early writing skills. Children love acting as firefighters or members of the police force, making notes of ‘incidents’ attended.  The grounds outside support children’s physical development really well. They become increasingly confident in challenging their bodies while running, jumping, climbing and balancing.  Children at an early stage of learning English achieve exceptionally well because of accurate early language assessments, the use of children’s home language, where possible, and small-group sessions to develop English vocabulary.  The school closely tracks disadvantaged children, who progress as well as others in school.  Children who are supported through the specially resourced provision progress as well as others in school relative to their starting points. This is because they receive skilled and sensitive support and have access

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The achievement of pupils is outstanding

to the full range of activities on offer. This reflects the school’s high-quality commitment to promoting inclusion.

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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 failing

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Grade Judgement Description

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 105283 Local authority Bury Inspection number 447922

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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 3–4 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 96 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair James Daly Headteacher Val Kay Date of previous school inspection 17 January 2012 Telephone number 0161 761 6822 Fax number 0161 763 5427 Email address hoyle@bury.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 and 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

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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School details

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

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