Setting

Anna Spencer Headteacher Central Infant and Nursery School Garden Avenue Foxhill Road Nottingham NG4 1QS

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School

Following my visit to your school on 16 March 2016, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to confirm the inspection findings. Thank you for the help you gave me and for the time you made available to discuss the actions you are taking to improve safeguarding arrangements at the school.

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School

This monitoring inspection was conducted under section 8 of the Education Act 2005 and in accordance with Ofsted’s published procedures for inspecting schools with no formal designation. The inspection was carried out because Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector was concerned about the effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements and aspects of the quality of leadership and management at the school.

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Evidence

I scrutinised the single central record and other documents relating to safeguarding and child protection arrangements and met with you, the special educational needs coordinator, a group of staff and a representative of the governing body. I had a discussion with a representative of the local authority by telephone. I held discussions with parents at the start of the school day, looked at parents’ views as recorded on Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View, and looked at the results of the school’s recent survey of parents. I held discussions with pupils during the course of the school day. I visited all classrooms during lessons. I looked at policies and records relating to the management of pupils’ behaviour, records of meetings of the governing body, records of staff training and staff meetings, and records relating to provision for pupils who have special educational needs or disability. Ofsted

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Evidence

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Having considered all of the evidence, I am of the opinion that at this time:

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Evidence

The school’s safeguarding arrangements meet requirements.

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Context

The school is smaller than the average primary school. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is above average. The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic groups is around one third of the national average. The proportion of pupils whose first language is (or is believed to be) other than English is around half of the national average. The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs support is above average; currently, there are none with a statement, or an education, health and care plan. The level of change within the pupil population during the course of a year is low.

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Main findings

You have made good progress in ensuring that the staff are alert to the importance of safeguarding and are kept abreast of the current requirements. You, the governing body and the staff give a high priority to safeguarding the pupils. The staff, including supervisory staff, receive regular training and updates about safeguarding matters. As a result, they are conversant with the latest guidance from the government and familiar with the range of potential concerns included in the guidance, such as radicalisation and child sexual exploitation. Safeguarding records are kept conscientiously and are of good quality. The governing body checks regularly on how well the school implements its safeguarding policy.

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Main findings

The staff understand fully the school’s procedures for reporting and recording any concerns that they may have about a pupil. Your records show that the staff adhere to the procedures and that they are alert to a broad range of possible indicators and are unafraid to raise any concern, no matter how minor it may appear to be.

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Main findings

The effective operation of the school’s procedures is underpinned by very frequent and detailed communications among the staff, both formally and informally. The various discussions that take place mean that the staff are very aware of individual pupils and their needs. You work closely with external agencies, as necessary, to ensure that those pupils who need additional assistance receive it.

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Main findings

Access to the site and the school buildings is managed and controlled. The pupils understand the importance of closing doors and locking gates within the school site. The pupils demonstrate a good understanding of the school’s rules in relation to keeping them safe. They know where they are allowed to go and where they are not. They told me, for example, that they are not allowed to cross the playing field between the school and the neighbouring junior school, which is, in any case, shortly to have a fence erected across it, and that they do not do so. Other improvements were being made to security fences at the time of my visit. Consequently, pupils say that they feel safe at the school. Those parents with whom I spoke, who responded to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, and who responded to the school’s survey, predominantly confirm that the pupils are kept safe. Even so, pupils’ attendance is still below the national average.

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Main findings

You have developed a clear, simple and straightforward approach to managing pupils’ behaviour. Your success in improving pupils’ behaviour over the last few years is apparent in the now exceptionally and routinely low incidence of bullying and of racist incidents. The pupils raised no concerns with me about either bullying, or, for example, racist name-calling, including pupils from the different backgrounds represented at the school.

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Main findings

You have been successful in encouraging the pupils to manage their own and each other’s behaviour through a specially designed programme. The pupils explained to me how they had developed their ‘distraction muscles’ and how they use them to take the tension out of moments that could lead to misbehaviour.

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Main findings

The pupils understand the school’s mechanisms for dealing with misbehaviour very well. Parents are also well aware of the system, which indicates a good level of communication between them and the school. Most things are sorted out quickly and with only gentle reminders, because the pupils do not like receiving an ‘amber warning’, and ‘red warnings’ are highly undesirable to them (though a few are required from time to time). Your records show that the number of times any of these warnings are given each week is low. You do not, however, analyse the information about the use of these warnings very rigorously, or report the analyses to the governing body, in order to evaluate with precision the impact of the policy on the different groups of pupils represented at the school and over time.

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Main findings

I saw good levels of supervision both during lessons and at break- and lunchtime, which contributes to the pupils feeling safe at the school. It was apparent that the pupils and the children in the early years provision felt well supported and able to approach both teaching and supervisory staff with any concerns they might have.

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Main findings

Exclusions are few in number and, proportionally, you have reduced them markedly in recent years. The school has a clear policy for using physical intervention, which takes full account of your legal responsibilities and powers. Members of staff have received appropriate training in de-escalating situations, in order to avoid using physical intervention, and in appropriate techniques for doing so, when necessary. Although your records include notes about the small number of occasions when it has been necessary to apply the school’s policy on physical intervention, the information is not accessible easily and, as with your other information about behaviour, has not been analysed or reported to the governing body sufficiently rigorously. You have put in place well-conceived processes and mechanisms for identifying and providing for a range of special educational needs or disabilities. Good leadership of

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Main findings

and effective teamwork among the staff have resulted in a flexible and adaptable approach, such that the group of pupils that is the focus of this support changes as they make progress, or new needs are identified. In this area also, the staff feel well supported in taking responsibility and being accountable for the progress of these pupils; as one expressed it to me, ‘We never feel alone, never feel stuck’.

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Main findings

A number of parents of pupils with different types of special educational needs or disability, with whom I spoke, were particularly pleased with the progress their children have made. They talked in detail about improvements both academically, with things such as reading and writing, and socially, with things such as self- confidence and their children’s happiness at school. The nurture group is a good indicator of the progress you have made, because it is used clearly now for the educational development of pupils who have more complex levels of special educational needs, rather than as a mechanism for behaviour management. You have achieved a good reduction in persistent absence among pupils who have special educational needs or disability, but it remains notably higher than that of other pupils at the school.

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External support

The school benefits well from good working relationships with a range of external agencies providing specialist support for safeguarding, behaviour management and special educational needs or disability. You and other leaders at the school show initiative and tenacity in seeking out and responding to such support. The local authority, appropriately, keeps an eye on the progress of the school.

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Priorities for further improvement

 Analyse the information you hold about the behaviour of the pupils in greater detail in relation to the different groups of pupils represented at the school and over time and report the analyses regularly to the governing body.

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Priorities for further improvement

 Record instances of the application of the school’s physical intervention policy more clearly and report regularly on the matter to the governing body, even if there is a nil return.

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Priorities for further improvement

I am copying this letter to the Secretary of State for Education, the Chair of the Governing Body and the Director of Children’s Services for Nottinghamshire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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