Perry Beeches Nursery School

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

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Mrs J K Lewis Headteacher Perry Beeches Nursery School 256 Beeches Road Great Barr Birmingham West Midlands B42 2PX

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Short inspection of Perry Beeches Nursery School

Following my visit to the school on 7 February 2018, 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 September 2012.

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Short inspection of Perry Beeches Nursery School

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

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Short inspection of Perry Beeches Nursery School

Perry Beeches Nursery School is a happy and nurturing school. You and your staff effectively support children to settle in quickly. The welfare and happiness of children and their families are at the heart of your work. There is a calm and positive environment in which all children learn and develop successfully from their individual starting points.

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Short inspection of Perry Beeches Nursery School

Partnership with parents and carers is strong. The flexible start to the school day allows parents to comfortably communicate any concerns or catch up with their children’s progress as a routine part of the school day. One parent typically remarked: ‘It’s been amazing since she has been here. The school has been flexible in arranging appointments to fit into our schedules as working parents. Every day she comes home with stories of the fun things she has been doing. The school has made a real impact on her.’

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Short inspection of Perry Beeches Nursery School

The curriculum is engaging. Outdoors, the school is exceptionally well resourced. Photographs proudly displayed on the school corridors show children’s excitement inspired by their stimulating outdoor environment. Children get on extremely well with one another, forming strong friendships. There are very few disagreements and learning time is calm and purposeful. You have successfully increased the level of challenge for the most able children, as identified as an area for improvement in the last inspection. Adults carefully target the most able pupils. Recent professional development in the effective use of high- level questioning is having a positive impact on children’s progress, which is strong. Children’s learning needs are identified through the prime areas of learning: personal, social and emotional development; communication and language; and physical development. The next steps in learning are carefully selected and

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Short inspection of Perry Beeches Nursery School

unpicked to address children’s individual needs.

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Short inspection of Perry Beeches Nursery School

You evaluate the effectiveness of the school’s provision and the learning environment regularly, using tried and tested evaluation procedures. Your evaluation is effective in identifying the most important next steps for development. However, this information does not translate clearly enough into the self-evaluation you share with governors. Your self-evaluation does not identify precisely the criteria by which you measure the effectiveness of improvement initiatives and developments you wish to see. This means that, while your plans are detailed, leaders and governors are not able to fully and accurately evaluate the impact of all actions.

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Short inspection of Perry Beeches Nursery School

You have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and that records contain all the required detail. Staff are well trained. Effective systems and procedures are in place for staff to communicate and record concerns about children who may be at risk. Records for individual children show a detailed timeline of actions and events leading to clear actions and outcomes.

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Short inspection of Perry Beeches Nursery School

Children forge trusting relationships with adults in school. Adults take good care of children so that they are happy and secure. Staff ensure that children who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities are well supported and helped very effectively, for example to maintain concentration when necessary.

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Short inspection of Perry Beeches Nursery School

Governors visit the school regularly to check for themselves the effectiveness of the school’s safeguarding procedures. You and the governors have acted swiftly to address any health and safety issues raised and are committed to the continued improvement of the indoor and outdoor learning environments.

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Inspection findings

 The majority of children make good progress during their year at Perry Beeches. They enter the school with skills slightly below those typical for their age. By the time they leave, the majority are working at least at typical levels and some above typical levels. Information on the children’s progress is collected and analysed regularly. Any underachievement is quickly identified and swiftly addressed. This enables staff to meet to discuss each child’s progress and develop bespoke next steps and individualised learning.  Disadvantaged pupils make good progress. You use the early years pupil premium well. Although low in number, you give careful thought and consideration as to how the early years pupil premium funding is spent to support disadvantaged children. As a result, disadvantaged children typically achieve or exceed age-related expectations in all areas of their learning. You are well aware of the barriers that this group of children face and you ensure that

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Inspection findings

their progress is in line with other children in school.  Children who have SEN and/or disabilities make good progress from their starting points. You ensure that staff receive suitable training and guidance so that they understand how best to support these children.  Since the last inspection, governors have become more closely involved in all aspects of school life. They are passionate about their role and keen to develop further so that they can offer the very best support to you. However, governors are not checking rigorously whether leaders’ actions are leading to better outcomes for children. As a result, governors do not hold leaders to account effectively enough for the quality of education the school provides. Further work is necessary to embed recent improvements in link governance, so that governors routinely check and evaluate leaders’ efforts to tackle aspects of the school that need to be better.

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Inspection findings

 Leaders and governors have not ensured that the school’s website meets requirements in reporting how the school spends government funding, and it is not updated regularly enough to ensure that parents are fully informed of changes and current school policies.

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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

 school self-evaluation focuses more sharply on the developments you wish to see and the criteria by which you judge improvement, so that progress towards achieving these goals is monitored more effectively  governors’ knowledge and skills in challenging the leaders and holding them to account for the effectiveness of the school are developed  the school’s website meets requirements in reporting how the school spends government funding and parents are fully informed of changes and policies within the school.

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

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, I met with you, your deputy headteacher and three members of the governing body. I discussed the work of the school with you, including the processes and procedures in place for safeguarding, including the single central record. I visited the two Nursery classrooms and the outside learning areas. In both classrooms, I observed and spoke with children and looked at their learning journals. I looked at a range of school documents, including information about children’s achievement and records relating to the monitoring of teaching and learning.

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Information about the inspection

I also reviewed the leaders’ evaluation of the school’s work, together with the school development plan. Your own survey of parents’ views was also considered, together with additional information collected from parents as they dropped off their children during the school day.

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