Jakeman Nursery School

Jakeman Nursery School Jakeman Road, Balsall Heath, Birmingham, B12 9NX

p.1

Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Good 2 This inspection: Inadequate 4 Leadership and management Inadequate 4 Behaviour and safety of pupils Requires improvement 3 Quality of teaching Inadequate 4 Achievement of pupils Inadequate 4

p.1

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a school that requires special measures.

p.1

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 The quality of education provided in the nursery has declined since it was last inspected. School leadership has not taken the necessary actions to ensure children are taught well or achieve well.  Considerable weaknesses in teaching means that children do not have an adequate start to their education.  Teachers do not have sufficient expertise to help children learn effectively and increase their knowledge, skills and understanding sufficiently so that they are ready for Year 1.  Children do not develop the confidence to find things out for themselves or follow through lines of enquiry in their areas of interest.  Adults’ expectations of what children can do for themselves are too low. Children are not challenged to learn as much through investigating, exploring and learning through play as they could.  Adults do not pick up on children’s achievements to extend their learning sufficiently, particularly in

p.1

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

physical development, communication and language, or in mathematics.  Checking of children’s progress does not show if any particular groups of children are doing well or falling behind.  The planning of activities for children to learn through activities they choose for themselves is poor. There is a lack of planned, structured learning supporting these activities. Children are not helped to develop their knowledge and understanding from day to day.  Computers and other forms of technology are not used enough to support and add interest to children’s learning.  The nursery is not well enough equipped to make sure that children learn equally well inside or outdoors in each of the areas of learning.  There is no effective leadership team to make regular checks on the quality of teaching, how children are progressing and take action on any areas of concern. Some important responsibilities, such as deputy headteacher and inclusion manager,

p.1

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

remain unallocated.  The governing body is newly formed, with almost all governors being new to the school. Although they have a good set of relevant expertise, they have not had enough time to have a good enough impact on the school’s effectiveness.

p.1

The school has the following strengths

 Successive interim headteachers have quickly and accurately identified the areas that need urgent improvement. The current interim headteacher is fully aware of what needs to be done to improve the school.  The school is an important part of the local community. Parents value what staff do for them and their families.  Children are secure in school and mostly kept safe. They are happy to be in school and behaviour is generally calm.

p.1

Information about this inspection

 The inspector observed nine sessions or parts of sessions over four hours, taught by all adults present over the two inspection days. Two hours of observations were carried out jointly with the interim headteacher.  Discussions were held with the interim headteacher, a member of the governing body, parents, children, the school improvement partner and a representative of the local authority. The inspector held a meeting with all staff who work directly with children in the nursery.  The inspector reviewed a range of documents, including the school’s own judgements on its strengths and weaknesses, documents relating to safeguarding and any available records of children’s achievements, including their learning journeys.  There were no responses to the online questionnaire, Parent View. The inspector spoke to a number of parents at the beginning and end of the school day to gather their views.  The inspector took into account 13 responses to Ofsted’s inspection questionnaire for school staff.

p.2

Inspection team

David Speakman, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

p.2

Full report

In accordance with the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

p.3

Information about this school

 Jakeman Nursery provides full-time education for 84 children and is about the same size as many nursery schools. Four children attend part time. The school is open during term time.  Children are attached to ‘key worker’ who is the primary person for a child while in the nursery.  Children come from a wide range of minority ethnic groups. The largest groups are of a Pakistani background and Yemeni. Almost all children speak English as an additional language.  A larger than average proportion of the children is known to be eligible for free school meals. However, pupil premium funding is not available to children of this age.  The proportion of disabled children and those who have special educational needs is below average.  There is a Neighbourhood Nursery offering day care for 74 pre-nursery children. This is managed by the headteacher and governing body of the nursery school. The day care is subject to a separate inspection.

p.3

Information about this school

 There has been significant disruption to staffing this school year, particularly at leadership level:  the headteacher has been out of school since the beginning of the school year  the deputy headteacher has left and has not been replaced  there have been three interim headteachers one after the other  in September, the governing body disbanded and a new governing body was formed  there are no permanent teachers working in the nursery.

p.3

What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve teaching so that it is at least good by:  raising adults’ expectations of what children can learn  providing more challenge when children choose their own activities, for example by asking searching questions to move learning onto higher levels  planning in greater detail what it is that adults want children to learn from their exploration and investigation and making sure that they help children learn more  improving the accuracy of day-to-day assessments of children’s learning and use this to build on what children have already learned  using a wider range of resources, including technology, to support children’s learning through exploration and investigation.

p.3

What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Increase the pace at which children learn so that all groups of pupils attain the levels they are capable of reaching, in particular:  improving children’s skills in finding things out for themselves through improving their ability to stay focused and concentrate on activities for longer periods.

p.3

What does the school need to do to improve further?

 To improve leadership and management, the governing body should make sure there is a strong senior leadership team with the skills to:  improve the quality of education provided at the nursery  ensure that all key areas of leadership and management are covered, with leaders carrying out regular plans for improvement and monitoring their impact  make regular checks on teaching to ensure it is improving rapidly  develop and implement rigorous systems to check that different groups of children are making equally good progress  ensure that both the indoor and outside learning areas meet all requirements for early years learning.

p.3

What does the school need to do to improve further?

An external review of governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.

p.4

The leadership and management are inadequate

 Since the previous inspection, leadership has not been successful in maintaining the good quality of education reported at that time. Teaching is now inadequate and does not enable children to make the progress they should, so their achievement is poor. There is no documented evidence that school leaders have kept robust checks on teaching. There are no records available to show that a careful check has been kept on the progress that different groups of pupils make over the time they are in the nursery.

p.5

The leadership and management are inadequate

 Regular changes in leadership have left staff feeling that the school has lost its direction. Staff inspection questionnaires provide a mixed picture, with some staff feeling the school is getting back on track while others feel there have been too many changes. Staff maintain that they have not allowed the circumstances to affect the children, but some parents spoken to feel differently. They say children have not adapted to changes in staffing very well, including those arising from the very high levels of staff absence. Since September, about one in eight teaching days has been lost through staff absence, not including long-term absences.

p.5

The leadership and management are inadequate

 Systems for staff to develop their professional expertise are poor. Added to this there, at the time of the inspection there were no qualified, highly skilled teachers working in the nursery to set an example of good practice. There has been too little in the way of setting targets for improvement. Some staff were unable to produce their performance targets. Weaknesses in teaching have not been identified clearly enough because leaders have not focused closely on the impact of teaching on children’s learning.

p.5

The leadership and management are inadequate

 Staff focus on making sure that all children are welcomed and fully included in nursery activities, regardless of their background. Discrimination of any kind is not tolerated. However, equality of opportunity is poor because adults do not meet the needs of children at different ability levels. Sometimes a whole group will follow the targets set for children with special educational needs, whatever their ability. Most-able children are not sufficiently challenged.

p.5

The leadership and management are inadequate

 The curriculum is not planned well to ensure all groups of children, or individuals receive a good balance of learning experiences throughout each day. Much of the time children are left to their own devices, with adults only providing a range of focused activities such as writing, counting, water and sand play or physical activities. There is too little questioning of children to help them investigate and explore and too little monitoring of children’s learning. During these times, some children waste valuable learning time by being unoccupied.

p.5

The leadership and management are inadequate

 There is very little opportunity for children to experience working with technology, including computers. Planning lacks targeted support when children choose their own activities, particularly for the most able.

p.5

The leadership and management are inadequate

 The curriculum does not promote an effective level of spiritual, moral, social and cultural development because it does not enable children to develop an enthusiasm for learning. The indoor and outside areas lack stimulus to build on children’s natural curiosity.

p.5

The leadership and management are inadequate

 Staff and governors have had recent training on aspects of safeguarding and the cultural barriers to effective safeguarding practice. The interim headteacher recognises that being vigilant in the light of this knowledge, and introducing British values at a level appropriate for these children, are the next steps, so they begin to be prepared for life in modern British society.

p.5

The leadership and management are inadequate

 The local authority has done its best to help the nursery provide for its children on a daily basis during the current year. In the absence of school’s headteacher, deputy headteacher and permanent members of staff with qualified teaching status, it has brokered the support of interim headteachers. However, the high turnover of staff, particularly teachers who have only stayed for a short time, has meant that improvements have been severely limited.

p.5

The leadership and management are inadequate

 The local authority has provided further support in the office to assist the day-to-day administration during the absence of a key office worker. It provides a school improvement partner to work with the current interim headteacher. The local authority is helping to provide staff and governor training where it is urgently needed.

p.5

The leadership and management are inadequate

 The school should not appoint newly qualified teachers.

p.6

The leadership and management are inadequate

 Safeguarding has been a focus area for the attention of current leaders. They have put in place systems to improve arrangements to keep children safe. Arrangements meet requirements. Children are secure during the school day and are kept safe. There were two incidents relating to children’s well-being that, at the time of the inspection, were being resolved.

p.6

The leadership and management are inadequate

 The set of attitudes and values promoted through the daily life and routines in the nursery do not effectively teach children to be independent, to find things out for themselves and that it is all right to make mistakes. On the other hand, children are expected to be calm, respectful and kind to other children. Adults have good relationships with children and parents comment on how pleased they are with how staff are helping their children develop good behaviour patterns.

p.6

The leadership and management are inadequate

 The governance of the school:  Governance is inadequate. Governors are involved in the process of checking the nursery’s effectiveness and they are developing a realistic view of this. As the governing body is newly formed, governors are still setting priorities for the improvements needed. They lack information about the quality of teaching and children’s learning so they have not yet reached the stage where they can confidently challenge leaders over the school’s performance.  Governors are not yet sufficiently involved in making decisions about staff pay rises, because the system for managing staff performance is flawed. The governors are not yet in a strong position to challenge staff who are not doing as good a job as they should.  The governing body has worked to ensure that the most critical weaknesses have been addressed. They have made sure that safeguarding arrangements meet current national requirements. They can now

p.6

The leadership and management are inadequate

confirm that appropriate checks have been made on adults to safeguard children. Some essential safeguarding training has been completed but there is further training for all staff needed to bring them up to current expectations.

p.6

Behaviour

 The behaviour of children requires improvement. This is because children do not show enough initiative to be able to learn effectively and find things out for themselves. During the times when children select their own activities, too many do not stay focused for long enough, move from one activity to another or do not engage in any activities at all. Behaviour does not make a good contribution to their learning.

p.6

Behaviour

 Children respond to adults well. During adult-led activities children listen carefully and show interest in storytelling, early writing and counting for example. They enjoy music-making sessions with the visiting specialist teacher and show high levels of enthusiasm and concentration. They help to tidy up at the end of the morning or afternoon sessions.

p.6

Behaviour

 Children know the rules for behaviour when outside, most keep to them and play alongside other children without incident. They make friends with others from all backgrounds, showing respect for diversity.

p.6

Safety

 The school’s work to keep children safe and secure requires improvement. The interim headteachers, local authority and the governing body have worked hard to ensure that safeguarding arrangements meet requirements. They have made sure that all adults have received training to ensure that they have a basic knowledge of how to keep children safe. Not all training is completed and further training is planned to broaden adults’ understanding of what to watch for to keep children safe.

p.6

Safety

 Adults are vigilant and alert to health and safety matters. Children have a satisfactory understanding of how to reduce risk when working and playing. For example, they are usually mindful of others when playing with tricycles or on the slide and quickly respond to interventions if adults notice a hazard.

p.6

The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teaching is inadequate because it does not help children achieve as well as they should. It does not help children develop the skills and knowledge they will need in the next stages of their education quickly enough. Typically, adults do not interact with individuals or groups in a way that reinforces and develops children’s skills, knowledge and understanding effectively.

p.7

The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The way adults work with children, particularly when children choose their own activities, does not move children onto the levels of which they are capable. For example, adults do not have sufficient expertise to ask searching questions to help develop and deepen children’s learning through moving children on to more challenging lines of enquiry.

p.7

The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The most-able children are not encouraged to follow through their ideas well enough. There is either not enough equipment or adults do not support them effectively. One child, building some complicated mathematical solids, found there were not enough tiles to finish off his model. There was insufficient encouragement for him to extend this work, so he become frustrated and wandered off.

p.7

The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Key workers are aware of the targets for children identified with special educational needs. At times they meet these needs in key worker group sessions, but with the full group. This means that expectations of the other children in the group are too low.

p.7

The quality of teaching is inadequate

 During times that children choose their own activities, adults do not effectively extend their learning. There is a lack of structured learning to build knowledge and understanding from day to day, because there is too little guidance on how adults can move young children on to the next levels of learning. For much of the day, children are allowed to choose their own activities, with adults working with small groups on developing early reading, writing and number for example.

p.7

The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Adults’ expectations of what children can do and learn for themselves are too low. On occasions, adults provide too great a lead. For example, when learning how to catch a ball, children lined up in a queue and waited for their turn. They spent much of their time standing around, many did not manage to catch the small ball and they did not develop any throwing skills. Learning was very limited.

p.7

The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The inside and outdoor areas lack stimulation to encourage children’s curiosity. These are naturally curious children, but the learning spaces do not develop their interests. Resources, such as computers and other technology are underused in supporting children’s learning through exploration and investigation.

p.7

The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The quality of the assessment of children’s progress varies. ‘Learning journeys’, which keep a record of children’s achievements, are attractive and tell the story of children’s experiences, with children’s achievements noted and recorded. However, these do vary in expectations of progress and the level of evidence to support adults’ assessments.

p.7

The quality of teaching is inadequate

 When children are learning in groups led by adults their learning is occasionally better. They are encouraged to communicate and talk to each other or an adult about books or the objects they count. They are shown how to start writing through learning how to control a pencil or copying letters and simple words. They are given opportunities build relationships with other children and learn to share. However, they are not given enough opportunity to do things from themselves and to develop the confidence to learn from their own mistakes.

p.7

The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 When children start in the nursery, their skills, knowledge and understanding are typically well below those for their age. There are particular weaknesses in their personal, social and emotional development and in communication and language.

p.7

The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Children due to move on to Reception classes at the end of this school year are not making the progress they should. As a result, they are not adequately prepared for the next stage in their education.  Learning journeys show poor progress. For example, a very small number of children could write their name independently on the first day in nursery. The same activity was then recorded in November and again later on, with no evidence that during this time, children had developed their early writing skills further. This is one example of how adults fail to ensure that children at different levels of attainment make adequate progress.

p.7

The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 When children take part in activities they choose for themselves, learning is inadequate due to a lack of guidance from adults. Children are not encouraged to build on their ideas and lines of enquiry and they repeat the activity at the same level because there is too little adult support or they get bored and move onto something else. Some children were observed to be doing nothing for much of the time, without adults intervening.

p.8

The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 When children are taught in small groups, their achievement is occasionally better, although still requiring improvement. They talk to adults confidently, although many have not developed clear diction or still speak in single words. They enjoy looking at story books and are able to tell a basic story using pictures. Some are learning to count and match a quantity of blocks to the number. They try to catch a ball without much success. Very few children move beyond these basic levels, and the most able do not reach the levels of attainment they are capable of.

p.8

The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Almost all children speak English as an additional language and when they choose activities for themselves, some children continue to speak in their own language, even though adults encourage the use of English. The nursery supports the early acquisition of English while simultaneously further developing their home language. Bilingual adults translate stories for them. One adult read ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’ in English while another retold the story in the children’s first language, giving those children with very little English a secure introduction to the language.

p.8

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

p.9

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.

p.9

School details

Unique reference number 103136 Local authority Birmingham Inspection number 447912

p.10

School details

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

p.10

School details

Type of school Nursery School category Community Age range of pupils 3–4 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 84 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Lesley Wiltshire

p.10

Headteacher

Baljit Chaudhri David Aldworth (interim headteacher) Date of previous school inspection 26 January 2012 Telephone number 0121 440 3066 Email address enquiry@jakeman.bham.sch.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 .

p.10

Headteacher

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.

p.11

Headteacher

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

p.11

Headteacher

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

p.11

Headteacher

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’.

p.11

Headteacher

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

p.11