Norwood Green Infant and Nursery School

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 4234 www.gov.uk/ofsted

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Mr Daniel Willetts Headteacher Norwood Green Infant and Nursery School Thorncliffe Road Southall UB2 5RN

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Short inspection of Norwood Green Infant and Nursery School

Following my visit to the school on 13 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 good in May 2011.

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Short inspection of Norwood Green Infant and Nursery School

You and your leadership team have maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Your skilful management during the recent expansion programme of the school building, and the many changes in the school population since 2011, has ensured that standards have improved significantly. Outcomes are well above the national average in all subjects, overall, particularly in mathematics. You and your senior team, including the governing body, have a very good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the school. You know the starting points of pupils and what needs to be done to support them to make at least good progress. You and other senior leaders skilfully identify weaknesses and deal with them quickly and effectively. For example, this is evident in your response to the arrival and changing demands of diverse groups of pupils. Importantly, you have high expectations of what new arrivals might achieve. The governors rightly

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Short inspection of Norwood Green Infant and Nursery School

assess your capacity to deal with identified areas of weakness efficiently and effectively as a key strength of the school’s work.

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Short inspection of Norwood Green Infant and Nursery School

The areas for improvement identified at the time of the previous inspection have been tackled very well. For example, previously low attendance is currently broadly average and improving. Partnership work with community groups is now a strong feature of the school’s work. This has had a direct impact on pupils’ achievement. These developments can be seen in the increasing parental engagement in adult learning, which has led to a few gaining employment and entering higher education. You have won the trust of many parents to the extent that they have readily welcomed changes in the curriculum, such as Forest Schools, coverage of safeguarding and emphasis on respect and tolerance. Since the previous inspection, you have strengthened the approaches used to hold staff to account for pupils’ achievement. All staff take responsibility for each pupil’s progress. You are analysing and using assessment information extremely well and,

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Short inspection of Norwood Green Infant and Nursery School

as a result, have a sharper focus on pupils’ progress. Teachers are responsive to evaluating and using assessment information to make changes that will support better learning. You are also ensuring that teachers are meeting the needs of different groups of pupils. Consequently, there is good regard to the Equality Act 2010.

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Short inspection of Norwood Green Infant and Nursery School

You are sharply focused on closing the attainment gap between different groups of pupils. As a result, disadvantaged pupils are making rapid gains. Your attention to making sure that all groups of pupils can achieve very well is also relentless. Predicted results for the current academic year are expected to improve even further, particularly in early years. External moderation and work seen by inspectors support the prediction.

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Short inspection of Norwood Green Infant and Nursery School

The attention given to developing teachers’ skills has ensured that teaching is now consistently good or better. Similarly, middle leaders are seizing the training opportunities available to develop their skills. All of this has contributed to you developing a strong senior team and governing body. The vision for improvement, the school’s ethos, and the positive learning environment mean that most parents are supportive of the school and see it as ‘friendly, warm and supportive’.

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Short inspection of Norwood Green Infant and Nursery School

You keep all safeguarding matters under scrutiny and respond appropriately if there is a concern, however minor. Staff are kept up-to-date with national requirements and you are also very much aware of potential local and cultural issues linked to, for example, children missing education and female genital mutilation. Your school has dealt skilfully and forcefully with these matters when working with external agencies. Your approach ensures that pupils at risk of harm are given help immediately.

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Short inspection of Norwood Green Infant and Nursery School

Governors are very well informed about safeguarding concerns; they have kept abreast of changes and training, locally and nationally. Importantly, your school has not shied away from tackling domestic violence, which is a pressing and local safeguarding matter. The school’s work to support parents and families, develop the Learning to Respect programme and oppose violence against women was appropriately awarded the White Ribbon Award in 2015.

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Short inspection of Norwood Green Infant and Nursery School

Parents are confident that children are safe in the school and concerns are dealt with quickly. Pupils are taught safe practices, clearly illustrated in their input into making the video on e-safety. Pupils say that if there is a bullying incident, ‘We try to resolve it ourselves, and if we cannot, we tell a teacher.’ Unacceptable behaviour is uncommon, and since the last inspection, there have not been any permanent exclusions.

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Inspection findings

 The re-structuring of the senior management team has increased the capacity of senior leaders to develop the school further. The new middle leaders are increasingly holding staff to account for pupils’ achievement. They use innovative practices well to sharpen teaching and learning. For example, ‘the lesson study’, an innovative programme to analyse how well pupils learn, is used to organise, plan, teach and refine practice over four observations.  Middle leaders are very confident about their responsibilities and use their training for the wider benefit of the school. However, the attention given to developing their subject expertise has not been extended to developing their wider leadership and management skills.  The leadership of early years is a strength of the school’s work. Rigorous systems are used to assess children’s skills on entry and record their progress. The nursery is a rich and well-organised learning environment,

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Inspection findings

indoors and outdoors. It provides children with a breadth of academic, physical and personal activities to stretch their minds and develop their social skills. Well-planned and interlinked activities encourage children to become confident learners.  Pupils with hearing impairment are very well integrated in mainstream classes. Good attention to supporting them reinforces the school’s work to develop pupils’ understanding of tolerance, respect and responsibility.  The relentless drive to develop teaching has made good use of internal and external training, intensive coaching and opportunities for staff to observe good practice. The impact of better teaching is evident in the much-improved outcomes for pupils in all subjects.  Pupils enjoy using the ‘Forest School’ resource and see it as a meaningful and exploratory learning environment. My observations of children in the Nursery and pupils in lessons showed that they are confident,

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Inspection findings

communicative and show tenacity when trying to master a skill.  Behaviour in and around the school is very good, as are the working relationships pupils have with each other.  The direct approach to tackling historical low attendance has led to improvement. Key officers are unflinching in their approach when working with parents. The community knows that convincing evidence is needed before absence is granted.  Senior leaders have maintained a clear focus on developing the curriculum to help pupils learn at a faster pace. They use assessment extremely well to identify gaps in pupils’ learning in reading and writing. Senior leaders have also acted on the challenges from governors to improve the teaching of reading and writing. There is an increasing focus on developing pupils’ speaking, reading and writing skills as more pupils on entry to the school are at the early stage of learning English as an additional language.

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Inspection findings

Teaching assistants use dual languages very well to explain ideas and support pupils’ learning.  Reading is strongly promoted through greater attention to vocabulary, technical terms and pupils giving personal interpretation of texts. Wider reading resources reflect the interests of boys and include pupils writing their own books. Teachers make sure that pupils use talk to explore their reading as a prelude to beginning writing tasks. The school acknowledges that the process of writing is an area of work in progress.  Parents are kept well informed about the school’s work. Extensive work with the family support worker has increased parental involvement in their child’s learning. This has led to many more parents supporting the school’s work to teach and develop pupils’ understanding of different belief systems. Information guides on the new national curriculum, and workshops for parents on different subjects have strengthened the links

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Inspection findings

between home and the school. Parents from different community groups very much appreciate the school’s approach to working with and assisting them. As a parent explained, ‘the school has boosted our confidence’.

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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

 middle leaders have opportunities to attend relevant courses to develop wider leadership and management skills  the attainment gaps between different groups of pupils in reading and writing close at an even faster rate so that their achievement is high, as it is in mathematics.

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Next steps for the school

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Hounslow. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, I held discussions with you and other senior and middle leaders. I met with the chair and vice-chair of the governing body, and two other members who chair different committees. I also met with the local authority adviser for primary schools, a group of parents from the Horn of Africa Youth Association and the family support worker, the attendance officer and a large number of parents when dropping off their children at school on the day of the inspection. I spoke to the school council and to pupils when I carried out short visits to lessons with the deputy and assistant headteachers. I considered the views of parents in the 19 responses to the online questionnaire, Parent View. I also took into consideration an earlier Parent View survey that you conducted in the school with 66 parents in 2015. I considered a range of documentation. This included the school’s self-evaluation and development plans, records of children’s and pupils’

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Information about the inspection

attainment and progress and evidence of systems for protecting and safeguarding them.

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