Canterbury Nursery School and Centre for Children and Families

Canterbury Nursery School and Children’s Centre Basil Street, Bradford, West Yorkshire BD5 9HL

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Overall effectiveness Outstanding

Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

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Overall effectiveness Outstanding

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

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Overall effectiveness Outstanding

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding

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Overall effectiveness Outstanding

Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Requires improvement

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This is an outstanding school

 This school has improved greatly since the previous inspection. The highly knowledgeable executive headteacher and skilled head of school have successfully driven change at a rapid rate.  The governing body robustly holds senior management to account, with a clear focus on improving outcomes for children.  Together, the senior leadership team and the governing body have changed the culture in the school to one of continuous improvement and high aspirations for teaching and for children’s achievement. ‘There is no glass ceiling here!’  Teachers know the children in their care extremely well, and how they learn best. High-quality observations are used effectively in planning to ensure that all children make better than expected progress.  Teachers plan carefully to ensure that there is a clear and effective focus on writing and number skills.  Focused activities to support small groups or individuals mean that no child falls behind and

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This is an outstanding school

that the most able make exceptional progress.  Provision for two-year-olds is exemplary. Children have a secure and stimulating learning environment and swiftly develop trusting relationships with the staff.  Teachers’ targets to improve their performance are precise, meaning that teaching has improved and staff have developed their skills and focus closely on promoting children’s achievement.  Children’s behaviour is outstanding. They are confident and polite. They know the high standards expected of them and live up to these.  Children love learning and are eager to succeed because activities are planned to attract their interest and engage them in their learning.  Children are very safe and secure. They play and learn exceptionally well together, and are taught how to keep themselves safe.  The school promotes children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development extremely well. This is having a positive impact on children’s

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This is an outstanding school

personal development.  Parents are highly involved in their children’s learning. They are kept well informed and are supported to develop their understanding of how children learn through a range of workshops.  Parents are effectively involved in the life of the school through the Parent Factor group, where suggestions for improvements are discussed and the best ideas are implemented by the school.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve on the already high levels of progress and attainment for children by continuing the rapid improvement in attendance.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is outstanding

 The executive headteacher has brought a wide knowledge and skill base with him to the school. Along with the head of school, they know what an outstanding school looks like and have worked quickly to establish outstanding practice in the school. As a result of their ambition, the school has improved rapidly. These key leaders have created an atmosphere where children and staff thrive and flourish.  The outward-looking approach held by the senior leadership team means they welcome outside scrutiny and make very effective use of any feedback from such scrutiny to secure further improvement. School leaders have established and embedded an ethos of continuous improvement in the school and staff.  There are regular checks on children’s learning at all levels of the school to ensure that all are making the very best progress they can. These ensure that all groups of children, such as those with additional needs

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is outstanding

or at the early stages of learning to speak English who may need any additional support, are identified early. Any required support is instantly put into place and is very effective, which means that rapid progress and the highest levels of achievement for all children are maintained.  Leaders and governors use the additional funding for disadvantaged children wisely. As a result, these children achieve at least as well as other children.  The quality of teaching is tightly monitored, and robust mechanisms have been developed to support individuals where that is needed. Consequently, the majority of teaching over time is now outstanding, and rarely less than good. Staff state that they feel extremely well supported in developing and maintaining their practice and are proud to work in the school.  The middle managers are well qualified and have an excellent understanding of their roles. They have

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is outstanding

excellent access to further guidance and training to develop their skills, and take regular advantage of this.  Targets set for individual members of staff are stretching and clearly linked to the school improvement plan. Their professional development areas are identified through accurate, regular observations and supervisions and any underperformance is swiftly identified and acted upon.  Activities planned and provided are of high quality and have a clear focus on teaching social, language and number skills. Children therefore develop excellent habits of learning and are exceptionally well prepared for the next stage in their education.  The school promotes children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and British values extremely well. Children are regularly given opportunities to develop skills, such as turn-taking and sharing when working in groups, and are taught to listen to one another in discussions. They

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is outstanding

demonstrate their caring attitudes, for instance when recovering a ball that another child cannot reach.  Parents strongly support the school. Through Parent Factor, a group established to capture parents’ views, they suggest recommendations to the governing body, such as the wearing of visitors’ badges in plastic wallets to further secure the safety of the children. Members of the Parent Factor are also active in fundraising for extra-curricular activities, such as a farm visit to the school, and successfully promoting attendance with the wider parent body. In addition, parents attend a wide range of high-quality workshops and activities to develop their understanding of their child’s learning.  Parent’s views are gathered through the termly questionnaire, which has an extremely high return rate, meaning the school is secure in knowing what parents feel about, and want from, their school.  Attendance is closely looked at and any concerns are rapidly followed up. As a result of this and the

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is outstanding

continuing focus on this area, attendance is rapidly improving.  The governance of the school – Governors now know the strengths and weaknesses of the school. They robustly monitor its effectiveness through looking carefully at the information they receive about how well the children are doing, and challenging the senior leadership to ensure that they continue to improve these outcomes. – Governors regularly receive presentations from senior managers and area managers to keep themselves well informed about specific areas of the life of the school, such as how well children who have special educational needs or disability are doing, and whether there are any adaptations needed to the building to ensure access. – Governors receive reports on the performance management outcomes for staff and, along with the other schools managed by the executive headteacher, work with an outside consultant to set stretching targets.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is outstanding

– Governors have identified attendance as an area for further improvement, and have this as a standing item on their meeting agenda to assure themselves that the actions agreed are implemented and are continuing to have a positive impact.  The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. The site is secure. The backgrounds of those who work with the children and other regular visitors to the site are checked and recorded. Any visitors, including parents, must sign in at the reception area. Staff store mobile phones in their secure lockers and know the procedures to follow should they have any concerns about the safety of the children in their care, or if they have concerns regarding radicalisation of children. Safeguarding is of the highest priority in the school. Staff regularly receive training updates and the head of school drives meetings forward to ensure children who are on the child protection register receive their entitlement.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is outstanding

 Teachers are highly skilled and have an excellent understanding of how children learn best. They have high aspirations for the children in their care.  Teachers’ planning is exceptionally well linked to observations and accurate assessments. They plan effectively to ensure the learning environment meets the needs of the children and enables access to the whole curriculum, but with a clear focus on the prime areas of learning. Through the observations they make, the weekly children’s meetings, the pupil progress meetings and individual records, they know the children exceptionally well. Teachers identify next steps or areas of learning to focus on and action these. This means that all children make better than expected progress.  For those children who are at the early stages of learning to speak English, teachers provide activities and use practice that is known to be effective and successful, to ensure that the development of these

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is outstanding

children’s English language skills is swift and secure. For example, in the water play area, staff make sure they are physically at the children’s level and use the children’s interests, modelling interesting sound combinations: ‘Tap! Tap! Tap!’, ‘Drip! Drip! Drip!’ The children happily join in, so developing their understanding and acquiring new English vocabulary.  The most able children are stretched to ensure they progress rapidly and their interest in learning is sustained. For example, while observing beans growing, staff questioned the children to encourage them to think about, and identify, what a plant needs to grow. Additional challenge was then introduced by asking the children to reason out why some of the beans had not grown.  Children who have special educational needs or disability are supported well to access the activities. Teaching assistants are used effectively to enable this. Activities are focused at the interests of the

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is outstanding

individual children and their needs enabling them to progress at similar accelerated rates as other children in the nursery.  Phonics, the teaching of the sounds letters make, is a strength. Staff make learning fun, for example getting children to puff out a candle when producing the ‘p’ sound, reinforcing this learning later by adding a ‘p’ to the beginning of the children’s names to make nonsense words, and creating a ‘p’ hunt in the room. This means children engage in their learning with enthusiasm and excitement and make rapid progress.  Activities provide many opportunities for developing thinking and mathematical skills. For instance, in the rain, children role played being firefighters. They discussed where a good place would be to get water from and noticed it was pouring off the awning. Deciding upside down traffic cones will be good containers, they caught the rainwater. There followed a discussion as to who had more than the other,

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is outstanding

and decided they need to have the same. After adjusting the amounts in each cone to ensure this, the children continued with their firefighter game.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote children’s personal development and welfare is outstanding. Children’s care and welfare are of the highest priority in the school. Staff, children and their parents and carers rapidly develop trusting relationships. This means children are secure and confident.  Adults truly know the children in their care. They ensure that the most vulnerable receive all the support and help they should to ensure a good start in life and that they are protected from harm.  The school helps children to learn how to keep themselves safe. For instance, when climbing on the felled trunk of a tree, children know how to keep their balance and are very pleased with themselves when they reach the other end. This promotes their confidence as well as their physical skills. Carefully watched by adults, children learn how to use pairs of scissors correctly and safely when cutting out shapes.

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Personal development and welfare

 Snack times are social occasions. Supervised by adults, children share equipment with each other, pour milk and eat using cutlery correctly. They know to wipe their hands and faces before and after eating to ‘kill germs and make sure they don’t get a sickly tummy’.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is outstanding. This is because all staff have the highest aspirations for behaviour.  Children are well mannered and a delight. They love learning and are eager to succeed. They know the routines of the nursery and follow these without prompting, for example hanging up aprons after messy play or moving from one area to another without causing any disturbance.  The children enjoy taking on responsibilities, and all contribute willingly to tidying up at the end of sessions.  They willingly share equipment, play alongside and with each other and patiently wait to take their turn with equipment, such as the interactive board, while observing what others are doing.  The children listen to what each other has to say, and build on this within conversations. Staff model this behaviour well, and follow the children’s conversations, intervening only to further develop their discussions.

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Behaviour

 Children from all backgrounds play and learn together, showing great acceptance of and respect for similarities and differences.  Bullying is not an issue and staff use the agreed positive behaviour procedures effectively. For example, when children playing in the water tray get a little over-excited with the bubbles, the member of staff swiftly intervenes and diverts this, praising the acceptable behaviour. This means children understand what is and what is not acceptable.  Children run into school at the beginning of each session because they love being there. Parents comment on this. Attendance is sharply rising because of the effective rewards that have been introduced and the improved communication of the importance of attending regularly to parents. This means children are learning the right habits for when they start school. However, attendance could be better still and the school is continuing its efforts to improve it.

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Outcomes for pupils are outstanding

 Children make exceptionally rapid progress from often low starting points so that, by the time they leave, approximately two thirds exceed the expected standards in communication, language and personal and social development. Interventions and remedial action are effective so that all groups make rapid progress, with some making exceptional progress.  There is a successful focus on mathematics, with children able to recognise and count numbers to 10 or more. Many children understand ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’. Mathematics permeates the environment and teaching, with staff taking every opportunity to use numbers and mathematics in the environment, for example by counting out snacks and playing a game of reducing by one as they get eaten.  Two-year-olds make very rapid progress in their learning because they are secure in their relationships with staff, and staff plan effectively for the individual children. This means the children are confident

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Outcomes for pupils are outstanding

learners as they move into the nursery when they are ready.  Children who have special educational needs or disability make equally rapid progress as their peers, and many have caught up as they leave the nursery. This is because of the high-quality support they receive from staff. For example, in a music session, staff modelled the responses needed and the children understood what was expected and joined in, moving in a variety of ways and stopping when required.  The most able are stretched by staff to extend their learning. As they leave the nursery, many are reading simple words fluently and writing simple sentences.  Children who are in the early stages of learning to speak English make very rapid progress because adults understand and respond to their needs. As children become more fluent, adults encourage them to join in chanting sounds and rhymes to increase their English language skills. Staff consistently describe out loud

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Outcomes for pupils are outstanding

children’s actions and activities to further enhance their understanding and ability to use English.  Disadvantaged children are known to staff, and are successfully given additional support, enabling them to make stronger progress and catch up with others.  Children are prepared extremely well for the Reception Year, with strong skills in all areas of learning. The nursery tracks their children into school, and last year three quarters of the children achieved a good level of development, much higher than the proportion of children nationally. This shows that the foundations laid by the nursery are solid.

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School details

Unique reference number 132815 Local authority Bradford Inspection number 10012011 This inspection was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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School details

Type of school Nursery School category Maintained Age range of pupils 2–4 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 189 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Naveed Mushtaque Headteacher Duncan Jacques (Executive Headteacher), Jackie Bracewell (Head of School) Telephone number 01274 574539 Website www.canterburycc.co.uk Email address office@canterbury.ngfl.ac.uk Date of previous inspection 1–2 April 2014

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Information about this school

 This is a larger than average-sized nursery school and includes provision for two-year-old children.  There is a children’s centre within the same building which was not inspected. Reports for this setting may be viewed at www.ofsted.gov.uk .  A majority of the children are of Pakistani heritage. There is a significant proportion of children of White British background and increasing numbers of children from Eastern European and African backgrounds. Just over half the children who attend the nursery speak English as an additional language.  About 40% of children are known to be eligible for the early years pupil premium, which is well above average. This is additional government funding to support children who are looked after by the local authority and those known to be eligible for free school meals.  The proportion of children who have special educational needs or disability who require support is above

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Information about this school

average at 30%. The proportion of these children who have an education, health and care plan is 3%.  Since the last inspection: – an executive headteacher, who is a national leader of education, has been appointed – the head of school, who is a specialist leader in education, has also taken up post – the building has been remodelled to provide open-plan learning areas for the three- and four-year-old children and for the two-year-old children – the additional resourced unit for children who have a range of specific educational needs or disabilities has not been operational for the past year – the school has received a school-to-school support grant and has been effectively supported by the Exceed Teaching Schools Alliance.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspectors watched teaching and children learning in 15 sessions. These varied from observing the whole class, to groups and individuals. The head of school jointly observed one session.  The inspectors held meetings with the governing body, the executive headteacher and head of school, middle managers and a representative of the local authority.  The inspectors looked at a wide range of information and documents about the nursery, including the achievement of all groups of children and some individuals, the children’s work in their learning journeys, planning for children’s learning and the improvement planning for the school.  The inspectors took into account the views of parents, through talking with eight parents, reviewing the nine responses to the online questionnaire (Parent View), and considering the results of the survey recently undertaken by the nursery, which had been completed by 100 parents.

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Inspection team

Geoffrey Dorrity, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector Zoe Westley Ofsted Inspector guidance 'Raising concerns and making a complaint about Ofsted', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.gov.uk/government/publications/complaints-about-ofsted . 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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Inspection team

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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Inspection team

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.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted .

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Inspection team

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, further education and skills, 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. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team,

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Inspection team

The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

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

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