Kingmoor Nursery and Infant School

Kingmoor Infant School Hether Drive, Lowry Hill, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA3 0ES

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Outstanding 1 This inspection: Requires improvement 3 Leadership and management Requires improvement 3 Behaviour and safety of pupils Requires improvement 3 Quality of teaching Good 2 Achievement of pupils Good 2 Early years provision Good 2

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This is a school that requires improvement. It is not good because

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure requires improvement. Although pupils are safe in school, governors’ roles in checking safety procedures are not fully established and effective. Too few governors have training and experience in safeguarding and child protection.  Bullying is rare, but records of incidents and actions taken are not well organised. As a result, a few parents are concerned because they do not know how well bullying is tackled in school.  Leadership and management, particularly governance, require improvement. The school’s overall effectiveness has declined since the previous inspection.  The majority of governors are new to the role and have little understanding of the school’s data or how to challenge senior leaders about the school’s performance, including the quality of teaching and pupils’ achievement.  Although the achievement of all groups of pupils is good, the outstanding achievement at the time of

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This is a school that requires improvement. It is not good because

the previous inspection has not been maintained. Pupils do not always have enough opportunities to practise and extend their skills in English and mathematics through the work they do in other subjects.

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The school has the following strengths

 Subject leadership is strong because the headteacher has worked with teachers to develop their skills as leaders of learning in a variety of subjects.  Provision for children in the early years is good. As a result, they make good progress and most are ready to start Year 1.  Teaching is good, particularly in reading, and so pupils develop increasingly fluent reading skills.  Teachers have good questioning skills and use these well to deepen pupils’ understanding and extend their learning.  The school offers a broad and balanced curriculum. Pupils have rich opportunities to develop their understanding of the wider world, learn to value cultural differences and develop their awareness of fundamental British values.  Pupils’ behaviour is good. Pupils are keen to learn, courteous and polite to visitors, and are usually very sensible as they move around the buildings.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed teaching and learning in a range of lessons or parts of lessons, one of which was a joint observation with the headteacher.  Inspectors spoke to a range of pupils about their work and play in school.  Inspectors held meetings with six members of the governing body as well as school leaders and a representative from the local authority.  Inspectors took account of the 92 responses to the online questionnaire (Parent View), a recent survey of parents carried out by the school and 23 responses from staff to the Ofsted inspection survey.  Inspectors talked to parents on the school playground and by telephone.  Inspectors observed the work of the school and checked various documents and procedures including the school’s plans for improvement and arrangements for checking pupils’ attainment and progress. They also examined documents relating to safeguarding, behaviour and attendance.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors considered a wide range of evidence, including the school’s records of the quality of teaching over time and pupils’ current work in books.

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Inspection team

Janette Corlett, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 This school is average-sized compared with primary schools nationally.  Most pupils are of White British heritage.  The proportion of disadvantaged pupils supported by the pupil premium is below the national average. The pupil premium is additional funding for those pupils who are known to be eligible for free school meals and children who are looked after by the local authority.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs is below the national average.  Children in the early years receive part-time provision in the Nursery and full-time provision in the Reception class.  The school provides extended childcare for children in the Nursery and operates a breakfast- and after- school club to support families. This is run by the governing body and was part of the inspection.  The majority of governors are new to the governing body or have only just taken up posts of

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Information about this school

responsibility, including the Chair and vice-chair.  The school’s previous Ofsted inspection took place in 2006.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve pupils’ safety by creating a well-organised, centralised incident log, to include all reports of bullying, so leaders and governors can check readily how these are followed up.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Strengthen the impact of leadership and management, especially governance, by:  ensuring governors’ roles in checking safety procedures are clearly and firmly established  ensuring governors receive further training in safeguarding and child protection so they can check the school’s safety procedures regularly and robustly  making sure governors receive and understand information on pupils’ achievement, enabling them to challenge senior leaders effectively about the school’s performance  ensuring more efficient communication between home and school.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Further improve pupils’ achievement, particularly in writing and mathematics, so that it is outstanding by giving pupils more opportunities to write at length and to apply their skills in mathematical calculation through the work they do in other subjects.

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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.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Leadership and management require improvement because governors lack the experience, skills and training to provide sufficient support for senior leaders in overseeing the school’s safeguarding and child protection arrangements. Similarly, governors do not have the required knowledge and expertise to challenge senior leaders about the school’s performance on aspects such as why, for example, pupils’ achievement has dipped since the previous inspection.  Leadership of teaching is effective. Teachers are keen to improve their practice and particularly appreciate new opportunities to learn new skills, supporting one another in school or through sharing successful ideas with other local schools. Pupils’ better achievement in writing this year shows that the teaching of writing has improved. Equally, a recently introduced programme to encourage pupils to enjoy learning about mathematics has already helped pupils to improve their mental mathematics skills.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Arrangements to check the performance of staff and to make decisions on any salary awards are closely linked to how well pupils are learning. Teachers have set targets and are held rigorously to account for their performance.  Senior leaders use the pupil premium funding effectively to ensure disadvantaged pupils achieve well. In 2014, gaps in the attainment of disadvantaged pupils narrowed in comparison to other pupils in school and nationally and these gaps have continued to close rapidly during this academic year. Effective individual and small-group programmes of support are helping disadvantaged pupils to achieve well in literacy and numeracy.  Senior leaders have worked hard to develop the skills of middle leaders, including those who are responsible for individual subject areas. Middle leaders now make a highly positive contribution to developing the school’s broad and balanced curriculum. Indeed, the school has received national acclaim

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The leadership and management requires improvement

as a Centre for Excellence for its exceptionally rich approach to helping pupils develop their knowledge and understanding of the world in geography.  Leaders place a strong emphasis on making sure that this is an inclusive school where pupils have equal opportunity to succeed. Their success reflects in the good relations that exist within the school. Disabled pupils, those who have special educational needs and those who are in the early stages of learning to speak English as an additional language play and learn happily together and with other pupils. Discrimination of any kind is not tolerated and there are no recorded incidents of racism or discrimination.  The primary school sport and physical education funding is used effectively to give pupils access to a wider range of sports, including golf and throwing javelins, and to increase their participation in sport. The use of an external coach has successfully helped teachers to develop their skills and expertise in teaching

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The leadership and management requires improvement

physical education.  The curriculum effectively promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. This is reflected in pupils’ good behaviour and good relationships. Collective worship and opportunities within the wider curriculum ensure that pupils develop a good understanding, tolerance and respect for different cultures and religions. For example, children in the Nursery enjoy learning about life in modern India, taste samples of Indian food and make their own Rangoli patterns as they learn about the festival of Diwali.  The curriculum ensures that pupils are prepared well with the personal skills they need to be well prepared for life in modern Britain. They learn about democracy, such as through voting for their school councillors. They understand why school rules are important.  Arrangements for safeguarding pupils meet statutory requirements. Policies and procedures have been

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The leadership and management requires improvement

reviewed to increase their effectiveness, especially with regard to providing a clear overview for, and input from, governors as their knowledge develops.  The local authority is providing targeted support at the request of the school’s leadership to improve further the effectiveness of governance. A recent training and development session was successful in helping new governors to gain a clearer understanding of their roles and responsibilities. However, governors’ roles in checking on safeguarding procedures are not firmly and clearly enough established.  Leaders have routines in place to gather parents’ views and, over time, these are largely positive. A proportion of responses to Parent View do, however, express dissatisfaction with aspects of the school’s work. In following this up, inspectors found mixed views about the school. Some parents expressed supportive and complimentary views while others felt they did not always get the information they

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The leadership and management requires improvement

needed. Inspection evidence shows that school leaders provide parents with appropriate information but procedures for maintaining productive communication with some parents could be more efficient.  The governance of the school:  Governance requires improvement. Governors fulfil their statutory safeguarding duties. However, governors, many of whom are new to their roles, have not had enough relevant training or development of their skills to ensure their knowledge is robust in this important aspect of the school’s work.  Governance, although improving, has not been effective over time in holding leaders to account for pupils’ achievement and the quality of teaching. Governors are working to ensure that their skills in understanding the school’s performance, including through reviewing data and how this school’s performance compares with other schools, are developed and strengthened. Currently, they have little

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The leadership and management requires improvement

understanding of the data or how to challenge senior leaders.  Governors are aware of the school’s arrangements for the performance management of staff, including pay and progression, including that of the headteacher. Even so, they are only just beginning to ensure that these are used effectively to tackle any identified weaknesses in teaching.  Governors know that one of their roles is to check more carefully that the school’s funds, including the pupil premium, are used to good effect. They are now starting to do so.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is good. Most pupils are keen to learn and work hard in lessons. They respond well to teachers’ instructions and take turns listening to one another in class discussions. They cooperate well when they work together in small groups and pairs. Indeed, children in the Reception class can explain clearly what ‘collaboration’ means, and know that they need to support one another. Disruptions to learning through poor behaviour are rare. Occasionally, when the pace of a lesson slows or where work lacks challenge, a few pupils become a little restless.  Pupils are proud of their school and know that staff care for them. They say that teachers are friendly and are always willing to help. They also say that teachers treat everyone fairly and all staff have equally high expectations of their behaviour.  Pupils’ behaviour at lunchtime, break time and as they move around the school is usually sensible. They

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Behaviour

are polite and well-mannered, treat one another and adults with respect and are courteous to visitors.  Attendance is broadly average. Punctuality has improved because the school recently introduced a late signing-in system. This encourages parents to make sure that their children arrive on time unless there are exceptional circumstances.

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Safety

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure requires improvement.  A very small minority of parents are unhappy with the way that leaders have dealt with their concerns with regard to bullying.  Pupils say that there is very little bullying of any kind and they are confident that teachers will always put a stop to it. Inspectors found that the very few incidents of bullying that occur are documented well by teachers. However, records of any follow-up action taken by school leaders are not well organised. This means that leaders and governors cannot always readily account to parents for the actions they are taking to keep pupils safe even when appropriate action has been swift and effective.  Recent staff training on e-safety and reinforcement of procedures means that staff, and through them the pupils, are equipped to keep themselves safe on the internet, especially in relation to using social media.

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Safety

There is very clear guidance for staff on e-safety and the use of mobile technology in school. Staff understand this and know that senior leaders monitor more robustly this aspect of the school’s work. Similarly, pupils know that they must not access the internet without adult supervision and must never give out any personal details when online.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers know their pupils well and plan activities in lessons that help pupils across a wide range of abilities to make good progress. Teachers’ skilled use of questioning helps pupils to deepen their thinking and work out problems in reading, writing and mathematics.  Teachers are particularly good at teaching reading. Phonics (teaching reading through learning the sounds that groups of letters make) is taught very effectively from the earliest days in school and this helps pupils learn to read swiftly and with increasing fluency. Pupils say that they are expected to read at home and also enjoy sharing stories with their teachers and friends in school.  Teachers encourage pupils to write for a range of different purposes, sometimes using the information from their reading to write their own stories and explanations as well as practising their skills in punctuation, grammar and spelling. For example, pupils in Year 2 used their research on seaside holidays

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The quality of teaching is good

in the past to write a postcard.  Teachers have very good relationships with pupils and manage pupils’ behaviour really well so that lessons run smoothly. Classrooms and displays are arranged attractively to stimulate and promote purposeful learning. The majority of pupils respond to this by producing work that is organised carefully and presented neatly in their best handwriting. Occasionally, less able boys do not set out their work in their mathematics books quite as well as other pupils because they need a little more guidance on how to do this.  Leaders recognised through their careful checking of pupils’ work in books that, at times, the impact of teachers’ marking could be even more effective. Therefore, they are already working with teachers to make sure that pupils are regularly given time in lessons to respond to these comments in marking.  Pupils do not have enough opportunities to help them practise and extend their skills in English and

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The quality of teaching is good

mathematics through the work they do in other subjects.  Teachers set homework that is appropriate to the age range in each class to support and extend pupils’ learning in school. The school is currently working with parents to produce a mathematics toolkit. This is a pack of materials and suggested activities to help parents to support their children’s learning at home.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 From their individual starting points on entry to Year 1, over time, between Years 1 and 2, pupils make good progress in reading, writing and mathematics and reach significantly above average standards. In 2014, the proportion of pupils reaching the standards expected for their age in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of Year 2 dipped slightly on the previous year. This was partly due to disruptions to learning caused through overcrowding that was beyond the school’s control and has since been addressed. As a result, standards this year have improved and are again well above average.  Gaps in the performance of disadvantaged pupils in relation to other pupils in the school and other pupils nationally are reducing rapidly and as a result, these pupils are achieving well. In 2014, disadvantaged pupils were about a term behind other pupils nationally and other pupils in the school in reading, writing

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The achievement of pupils is good

and mathematics. School leaders have introduced focused support for disadvantaged pupils currently in the school and the gaps have closed further this year.  The achievement of the most able pupils is good. Currently in Year 2, a greater proportion of pupils than nationally are working at the higher Level 3 in reading, writing and mathematics. This mirrors similarly strong performance in 2014. Very occasionally in mathematics lessons, most able pupils do not move on quickly enough to solve more difficult problems when they have demonstrated their understanding and miss out on opportunities to make even more progress.  From their starting points, the majority of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs make good progress in reading, writing and mathematics, along with others pupils, as a result of effective targeted support.

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The early years provision is good

 Most children enter the early years with levels of skill, knowledge and understanding typical for their age. Children make good progress and an increasing majority reach a good level of development by the end of the Reception Year. The proportion of children who reached a good level of development by the end of the Reception Year in 2014 was above average. The proportion is even greater this year and this has been confirmed by the local authority moderators. At the end of the Reception Year, most children are ready to start Year 1.  Provision for children in the early years is a strength of the school. There is good direction from the early years leader who ensures children experience a rich curriculum that offers a range of stimulating and exciting materials.  Children receive lots of praise and encouragement as they learn and play together in a safe and nurturing environment. This ensures a good start in school and contributes well to their physical and emotional

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The early years provision is good

health, safety and well-being. Revisions to the routines and security arrangements in the early years mean that children are safe and secure in school.  Good teaching, based on careful planning and assessment, helps all groups of children, including disabled children and those who have special educational needs and the most able children, to make good progress. Teaching is enthusiastic and children respond by being keen learners after only a very short time in school.  Sometimes teaching assistants are not quite so skilled and miss opportunities to help children to extend their language and learning when they are joining in with play activities the children have chosen for themselves.  Staff understand how young children learn. They work hard to provide activities and experiences to promote active learning, independence and creative thinking. Occasionally, children are over-directed by adults and this limits their opportunities to choose how they will play and learn.

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The early years provision is good

 Children behave very well with one another and treat the adults with respect. They listen well to instructions. Hygiene routines, such as washing hands, are well established. This contributes well to their personal and social development. Children say they enjoy coming to school and the sound of their laughter is a real feature of the early years. During the inspection, for example, children ran around outdoors chasing a bubble they had just blown, squealing with excitement as they tried to catch it.  Teachers work hard to continually develop links with parents. Most parents say that they feel welcome in school. Parents of children in Nursery receive good information on what their children are doing through a weekly newsletter and are encouraged to respond to this with their own comments. Reception Year parents have ongoing, but less detailed, communication with teachers that again encourages them to be

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The early years provision is good

part of their children’s learning.  Teachers carefully check and record what children already know and can do and use this to identify clearly and plan what children need to learn next. As a result, planned activities closely meet children’s varying needs and abilities.  Indoor learning areas are well organised and easily accessible. The outdoor area has a good range of equipment and resources to encourage explorative play. Sometimes, this is not as well used as it might be. Opportunities to develop children’s reading, writing and numeracy skills and their creative development as they play outdoors are occasionally overlooked and this sometimes limits achievement.  Behaviour is good. Children listen to adults and respond well to instructions. Classroom routines, such as tidying up after activities, are well established and promote effectively children’s personal and social development. Children say that they enjoy coming to school.

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The early years provision is good

 The quality of the ‘wraparound’ childcare for children in the Nursery who attend extended provision beyond the statutory 15 hours is just as good as the rest of the early years provision for children in the school.

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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 112230 Local authority Cumbria Inspection number 461577

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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 Infant School category Community Age range of pupils 3–7 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 281 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Craig McLellan Headteacher Zoe Turner Date of previous school inspection 3 October 2006 Telephone number 01228 558892 Fax number 01228 558892 Email address admin@kingmoor-inf.cumbria.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 .

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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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