Clyde Nursery School.

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

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Miss Cathryn Kinsey Headteacher Clyde Nursery School Alverton Street Deptford London SE8 5NH

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Short inspection of Clyde Nursery School

Following my visit to the school on 16 May 2017, 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 September 2013.

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Short inspection of Clyde Nursery School

This school continues to be outstanding.

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Short inspection of Clyde Nursery School

The leadership team has maintained the outstanding quality of education in the school since the last inspection.

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Short inspection of Clyde Nursery School

You provide strong and determined leadership because you are highly ambitious for all children, staff and parents of the school. Your passion for early years education has made sure that the outstanding provision and excellent outcomes recognised at the last inspection have been sustained. Indeed, you continually raise expectations for everyone. This secures rapid gains in key areas of the school’s work. You have quickly and decisively addressed the one area for improvement identified at the time of the last inspection. Children investigate and experiment enthusiastically with the new equipment in the designated science and technology area.

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Short inspection of Clyde Nursery School

Yours is an outward-looking school working in partnership with five other local nurseries. Your early years experience has been recognised widely, and as a result you now work with all the local authority children’s centres. You and your deputy also deliver training and professional development to all types of early years settings. Professional development, support and training are at the heart of your work, for colleagues in school and beyond.

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Short inspection of Clyde Nursery School

You have strengthened further the school’s leadership capacity, as a consequence of your extensive outreach work. Your deputy routinely steps up to the challenge of leading and managing the school in your absence. The additional appointment of an assistant headteacher has also sharpened up assessment procedures. You know incisively how well the school is performing because you and other leaders systematically check how well children are achieving. You make use of regular assessments and have in place a clear cycle of observations on the quality of teaching and learning. You target the school’s development plan sharply on key priorities. In fact, we used your evaluations to inform and agree some of the key lines of enquiry for this inspection. We were able to use the inspection process to test out the quality and breadth of the school’s provision.

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Short inspection of Clyde Nursery School

The school provides a warm and inclusive ethos. You and your team are dedicated to making sure that every child and their parents are fully involved in everything the school provides. You have gained a well-deserved reputation for meeting the needs successfully of children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. Parents who spoke to me were very appreciative of the education and support they and their children receive. However, some parents expressed an interest in further advice on how to support their children, including in mathematics.

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Short inspection of Clyde Nursery School

You and your deputy have made sure that the safeguarding of children is the highest priority for all staff and governors. You are supported exceptionally well by four deputy designated safeguarding leads. Each week, safeguarding is included in the leadership meetings, which means any concerns or issues are discussed. Key workers provide the cornerstone of care for each child, overseeing their welfare and developmental needs. They know their children extremely well and have excellent partnerships with parents. Any changes in children’s behaviour are swiftly picked up and acted upon. You provide parents and their children with the right level and type of early intervention and support. This is achieved through your effective work to liaise effectively with social care, healthcare and educational professionals.

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Short inspection of Clyde Nursery School

Policies and procedures are reviewed regularly and reflect the latest statutory government guidance. There are clear guidelines which are understood by all. Training is up to date, so that adults are alert to potential warning signs, and how to keep children safe, including when children use the internet. All recruitment and vetting checks are undertaken thoroughly to secure the safety of children. Governors ensure that they meet their statutory duties in relation to safeguarding.

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Inspection findings

 The first focus of this inspection looked at the accuracy of assessments and how well they are used to secure substantial progress for children in all areas of learning. You explained that home visits and pre-nursery open-play sessions provide vital information about each child before they enter Nursery.

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Inspection findings

 Any concerns are flagged up quickly and reported to specific professionals, including the speech and language therapist. Key workers, including those who are specially trained to work with children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, support children who have additional learning difficulties.  Staff assess children throughout their time in Nursery, with designated daily time to discuss how well children learn and progress. Staff record meticulously their detailed observations. These observations inform children’s next steps exceptionally well. This secures rapid progress in all areas of learning. Children are prepared very well for the Reception Year.  You explained that assessments provide an accurate picture of how well children achieve based on their starting points. You use this information to make sure that children achieve their potential. Any child at risk of underachieving is identified,

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Inspection findings

with appropriate strategies put in place.  Each half term, your senior leaders and class teams check the attainment of children by reviewing work in children’s portfolios. The school’s assessments are checked and agreed by other nurseries across the local authority. This thorough moderation holds staff fully to account for their work and creates increasing ownership, as well as an excellent insight into children’s achievements.  You outlined how the early years pupil premium funding is used. This includes further challenge for children of all abilities, including disadvantaged children and the most able. My observations confirm that the school’s strategies promote children’s speaking and listening skills effectively, as well as encouraging children to begin to think about their own learning. Children are confident and cooperative. They are able to concentrate for sustained periods of time, finding

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Inspection findings

out for themselves through well-planned activities based on their interests, needs and fascinations.  The second aspect of this inspection focused on how well children’s early literacy skills are developed. You explained that there has been a recent focus on developing staff’s understanding and ability to assess children’s speech and language skills. As a result, staff are adept at analysing children’s language acquisition. Inspection observations confirm that staff intervene at critical moments and provide the right balance of support and challenge to extend children’s vocabulary, for example, through animated ‘telephone discussions’. Staff often paraphrase children’s language to clarify their speech.  Monitoring evidence provided you with clear feedback that story-telling at the end of the Nursery session was not conducive to enabling children to focus and listen well. As a consequence, children now choose the book that adults will read

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Inspection findings

to them at various times during the day. The most able children are given extra challenge in these sessions to identify what sounds letters represent. Every opportunity is used to promote a love of reading and its importance. Children take home books to read with their parents daily, and parents stay in the nursery and read with their children.

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Inspection findings

 You outlined the work that staff have undertaken to develop children’s early writing skills, with a particular focus on boys’ interests. This is because your own achievement information identified that boys were not achieving as well as girls. Role play is used well to provide real-life contexts for writing, where boys are very motivated to write about their favourite super heroes.  My final line of enquiry focused on mathematics provision. You explained that the indoor and outdoor classrooms have been reviewed in order to raise the profile of this subject. Leaders have also placed an emphasis on promoting mathematical language, through real-life activities including cooking in the mud kitchen. Inspection observations established that there are numerous activities for children to explore mathematical concepts such as volume and capacity, counting while jumping along a number line and experimenting with a range of

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Inspection findings

mathematical equipment.  However, in my discussions with most-able children, it was clear that they are not always challenged sufficiently in mathematics. I examined your achievement information, which verified that the most able children do not make as much progress as other groups. We also agreed that although staff have excellent professional development opportunities, they are yet to have specific training on how best to challenge the most able children in their mathematical understanding.

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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 most able children are consistently challenged in mathematics  staff have training, so that they challenge the most able children in their mathematical development  parents have help to promote their children’s mathematical understanding.

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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 Lewisham. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, I carried out the following activities:  visited classrooms to observe learning jointly with the headteacher. While in lessons, I scrutinised children’s work and discussed children’s learning with them  met with leaders and a governor in order to explore the key lines of enquiry and the progress made by the school since the last inspection  held a telephone discussion with an early years representative from Lewisham local authority  met with a group of parents  reviewed documentation, including: leaders’ evaluation of the school’s performance and plans for development; attendance information; and procedures and policies, including those for attendance and safeguarding  scrutinised the school’s own surveys of parents’ views. There were insufficient responses to the online survey of parents’ views, and no responses to the staff and pupil questionnaires.

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