Bradley Nursery School

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Mrs Jackie Mitchell Headteacher Bradley Nursery School Bradley Road East Nelson Lancashire BB9 7QH

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Short inspection of Bradley Nursery School

Following my visit to the school on 6 April 2016, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. The visit was the first short inspection carried out since the school was judged to be outstanding in November 2012.

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Short inspection of Bradley Nursery School

This school continues to be outstanding.

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Short inspection of Bradley Nursery School

Since 2007, Bradley Nursery School has been judged on three consecutive inspections by Ofsted as providing an outstanding quality of education. I am delighted to report that this accolade has been sustained for a fourth time.

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Short inspection of Bradley Nursery School

Through your ambition and commitment you have made sure that the outstanding provision and highest outcomes have been maintained. Your school is a happy and inclusive place. Everyone is welcome and each child is recognised as a unique individual. Every effort is made to ensure that each child achieves their full potential during their time at Bradley Nursery School. You and your staff have very high expectations of the children and working together you make sure that most are very well prepared for their transition into Reception.

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Short inspection of Bradley Nursery School

At the last inspection, the inspector identified the need to extend the range of opportunities for parents to get involved in their child’s education, both in school and at home. You and your staff embraced this challenge. Parents told me that they are now kept exceptionally well informed about their child’s progress and are provided with ideas on how to develop their child’s learning at home. They greatly appreciate the weekly written reports that they receive. These give them a clear insight as to what their children have been doing at school and what they have achieved. They talked to me avidly about the range of courses that you provide to develop their understanding of the early years curriculum, in addition to those which support and develop their parenting skills. Parents are quite rightly proud of their children’s achievements. Parents who have children with special educational needs told me

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Short inspection of Bradley Nursery School

about the ‘amazing’ progress that their children make as a result of your staff’s ‘support and dedication’. They hold you in the highest esteem and strongly value the close and effective working relationship they have with their child’s key person.

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Short inspection of Bradley Nursery School

Your school has a real family atmosphere and I was struck by how welcome I was made to feel by the children at your school. They were keen to know why I was there and talked to me quite openly about what they liked about the school. From my observations it is quite clear that children really care about each other. Children are delightful and staff are very sensitive to their needs. Any minor altercations are handled by staff in a calm and sensitive manner.

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Short inspection of Bradley Nursery School

You and your staff place high priority on keeping children safe. You have achieved the right balance of ensuring that all children are safe and well cared for in school, while also helping them to become resilient, confident and not afraid to take risks. All of your staff have a secure understanding of the indicators of abuse and neglect and procedures to follow. Having completed ‘Prevent’ duty training, staff talk with some confidence about the issues of extremism, radicalisation and female genital mutilation. Staff and governors responsible for safeguarding and recruitment have completed appropriate training. The school site is very secure and the identification of visitors to the school is checked rigorously.

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Inspection findings

 You set high standards and are a positive role model to both staff and children. Consequently, staff morale is high and children show a very keen desire to learn. From very low starting points, all groups of children make rapid progress and achieve very well.  You know your school’s strengths and priorities for improvement exceptionally well. Nothing is left to chance as systems to monitor the progress of different groups of children are rigorous. In addition, staff told me that you monitor the quality of their teaching ‘with a fine tooth comb’. Staff find the feedback from your observations of their teaching helpful. They appreciate the wide range of training available to keep their skills up to date and the opportunities afforded to them to learn from each other.  There is no room for complacency and you are well aware of any short comings. Any underperformance is very quickly identified and swift

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Inspection findings

interventions are put in place to bring about change. For example, to improve boys’ reading and writing skills, new and innovative initiatives were put in place to engage their interest. These include opportunities for boys to write in mud using sticks, form letters with water bottles and write about their favourite superheroes. Books have also been purchased which appeal to their interests, making story time a much more pleasurable experience.  You and your staff also ensure that the needs of the most-able children are met. Children are grouped according to ability and activities are adapted to challenge the most-able children. For example, I observed a lively teaching session aimed at developing children’s listening skills. Children had to listen to a sound and identify which musical instrument it related to. Skilled staff noted that some children found this task easy. To challenge those children staff

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Inspection findings

played four sounds and asked these children to listen very carefully and identify which two sounds were the same.  Your staff strive to make learning purposeful and fun and this contributes significantly to the excellent progress all children make. The quality of the learning environment both indoors and outside is superb, inspiring children to learn. For example, when taking part in ‘Forest School’ type activities children develop their creative skills as they make pictures with leaves and berries. They become more aware of the environment as they gently pick up worms and watch in amazement as they wriggle across their hands. Children delight in using pebbles to make triangles, tying knots with ropes and putting up tents. Such wonderful opportunities help to develop children’s awareness of shape and problem solving.  You use the additional government funding well to help disadvantaged children thrive. The money is used to support children’s academic needs,

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Inspection findings

particularly in developing their social, language and mathematical skills. The positive impact of this work is clearly evident with these children achieving as well as their peers.  You monitor attendance with an eagle-eye. Parents are made aware of the importance of attending school on a regular basis. Stringent and well thought out procedures are in place to support families where regular attendance is an issue.  You have the full support of the governing body who offer you challenge and support in equal measure. They have a good understanding of the school’s many strengths and priorities for development. You prepare regular reports which give them an overview of the progress and attainment of individual and groups of children. However, the governors do not analyse this data independently. As a result, both you, I and the local authority adviser agree that the level of challenge provided by the governing body could be even more

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Inspection findings

rigorous if they analysed the raw data independently.  The school website is bright, informative and available in a variety of languages. Parents find it a valuable source of information. However, you acknowledge that in some areas it is not compliant. For example, there is no information on the allocation and impact of the additional government funding for disadvantaged children. Furthermore, the information available relating to the governing body does not meet current requirements.

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Next steps for the school

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that:

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Next steps for the school

 the level of challenge offered to the school by the governing body is even more rigorous by providing opportunities for them to analyse raw data independently of the head teacher  the school website is fully compliant. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body and the director of children’s services for Lancashire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection I held meetings with the headteacher, deputy headteacher, the chair of the governing body and a representative from the local authority. I also had informal discussions with a group of parents and staff to seek their views of the school. I went on a tour of the school accompanied by the headteacher and observed teaching and learning both indoors and outside. I looked at examples of children’s work and reviewed a range of documentation including the single central record, the school’s self-evaluation, the school’s development plan and records relating the monitoring of teaching and learning. I also took account of the 15 responses to Parent View, the online Ofsted questionnaire.

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