Golborne Children’s Centre

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

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Ms Veronica Hilliard Executive Headteacher Golborne Children’s Centre 2a Bevington Road North Kensington London W10 5TN

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Short inspection of Golborne Children’s Centre

Following my visit to the school on 20 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 outstanding in March 2015.

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Short inspection of Golborne Children’s Centre

This school continues to be outstanding.

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Short inspection of Golborne Children’s Centre

The leadership team has maintained the outstanding quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Golborne Children’s Centre is a joyful place to be. You have nurtured your staff, the children and the community to create a unique place where children thrive. As one parent put it, ‘This is an incredible place and the headteacher is amazing.’

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Short inspection of Golborne Children’s Centre

You and your staff have successfully supported the school community in the wake of the Grenfell disaster. You have been instrumental in bringing the community together and strengthening it. You have achieved this while enhancing further the outstanding quality of education seen at the previous inspection. You and your inspirational staff have had a remarkable impact on children’s well-being and on their achievement.

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Short inspection of Golborne Children’s Centre

This is a school that is underpinned by care and kindness, but this does not detract from the exceptionally high expectations that you, your staff and governors share. You have created a ‘no excuse’ culture, and the absolute belief among families and staff that every child should have a happy and successful life. Parents and carers could not speak more highly of you, your staff and the school. One parent commented, expressing the views of many, ‘It’s heart-warming to leave my son here. This is the best school ever. Every day there’s something new and interesting going on.’

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Short inspection of Golborne Children’s Centre

The children are confident learners. They are friendly, articulate and have a strong sense of their achievements and their successes. They thoroughly enjoy learning and are keen to share their knowledge and their skills. Children’s enquiring attitude to learning and knowledge is a golden thread that runs throughout Golborne and helps to make it a unique and highly successful learning environment. Children are exceptionally well equipped for the next stage of education when they leave the school.

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Short inspection of Golborne Children’s Centre

Since the previous inspection, you have managed a period of significant change extremely well. You have welcomed the staff and children of Maxilla Nursery School to the Golborne site, and ensured cohesion and consistency across the two schools. You have developed excellent extended provision including before- and after-school care, as well as what is provided for children during selected holidays. You developed your provision for two-year-olds.

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Short inspection of Golborne Children’s Centre

You told me that you have been very well supported by the local authority through the great challenges that the school community has faced. The local authority continues to provide bespoke support while you move to secure a new senior leadership team structure.

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Short inspection of Golborne Children’s Centre

Leaders and governors ensure that all statutory requirements with regard to safeguarding are met. Keeping children safe lies at the heart of the school’s work. Staff are vigilant and rigorous in reporting any concerns that they have about a child’s well-being. Leaders use appropriate support from outside agencies to ensure that children and families receive the help that they need. Your own incisive knowledge of all the individual children and their families ensures that you offer help at the precise point at which it is needed to pre-empt or resolve any potential issues.

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Short inspection of Golborne Children’s Centre

Parents are confident that their children’s safety is a priority for all staff at the school. One parent typically said, ‘Staff all greet the children with a big smile every day. My child is happy, safe and enjoying learning.’

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Short inspection of Golborne Children’s Centre

Staff receive appropriate training to ensure that they are knowledgeable about the potential signs of radicalisation, extremism and female genital mutilation. Staff train children well to use the wide range of resources and materials that are on offer in the Nursery safely.

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Inspection findings

 During the inspection, we agreed that it would be helpful to focus on how well leaders, including governors, have maintained and built on the outstanding quality of education seen at the time of the previous inspection. Since the previous inspection, you have become the executive headteacher of both Golborne Children’s Centre and Maxilla Nursery School. You have managed the transition highly effectively and have developed a unified staff team that shares and fulfils your vision for the school. Together, you have created an inclusive school community where all children have an equal opportunity to be successful, irrespective of their backgrounds or their abilities. You nurture children who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities extremely well. As a result, they access all that the school has to offer and make outstanding progress similar to all children.  Children’s work and information about progress from their varying starting points

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Inspection findings

show that all children make strong and sustained progress during their time at Golborne. The majority of children leave the school with knowledge and skills which are above or well above those seen typically for their age range.  Governors are rightly proud of the school and its achievements. They offer appropriate challenge to ensure that the school moves from strength to strength under your dynamic leadership. You lead the school and staff exceptionally well. Following recent changes to the senior leadership team, you lead and manage a great many aspects of the school’s work, including premises. You and the governing body are currently seeking to strengthen the leadership team so that leadership responsibilities may be shared more widely than is currently the case. Governors agree that it is essential for them to enhance their level of support until leadership responsibilities are shared effectively.

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Inspection findings

 We also agreed to look at how well you and your staff have ensured that the children are challenged to deepen their reading and writing skills. This was a priority for improvement at the time of the last inspection. Staff ensure that children make extremely strong progress in early reading and writing skills. Phonics is taught very well. Children develop a love of reading and books. They focus on letters and words in books extremely well for their age. They confidently answer comprehension questions which practitioners skilfully ask. They are able to begin to apply their emerging phonics skills.  The school has been very successful in enhancing this aspect of its work since the previous inspection. Children are given very many opportunities to practise mark-making (pre-writing) and writing skills. Children’s work shows that some children successfully make plausible attempts at writing using the sounds and

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Inspection findings

letters they have been taught in phonics sessions. The most able writers’ work is well above what is typical for their age range.  Another focus for the inspection was to consider how well the after-school provision meets the needs of the community. Changeovers from breakfast club to school and from school to after-school provision are smooth. Children understand routines well. The exceptional quality of teaching, learning and assessment during the school day continues into the after-school sessions. Relationships between children and adults are warm, caring and professional. Activities capture and hold children’s interest. Leaders and staff ensure that tasks excite children and that children’s individual needs are exceptionally well catered for. Breakfast and ‘tea’ times are social events. Children behave well, take turns and are polite to each other and to staff.  The final focus for the inspection was to look at the progress children make

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Inspection findings

across the range of experiences and opportunities that children have to broaden their knowledge and skills in the school. Throughout the Nursery, children thrive and achieve. One of the key features across the school is the high quality of language and communication that underpin learning. This is modelled by staff and exemplified by the children, many of whom speak English as an additional language. Children demonstrate a love of the spoken word. I saw how much they enjoy using new words and phrases, saying them out loud while they complete tasks. They rehearse sentence starters whether working alone, in groups or with adults. For example, children enjoyed making ‘chocolate’ in the mud kitchen. Throughout a sustained period while gathering different varieties of mud, they repeated key phrases such ‘I need this’ or ‘Now I need this’. This initially was to explain to me what they were doing but continued long after I

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Inspection findings

had walked away.  You check children’s attainment and progress rigorously. Your analysis of assessment information is sharp and incisive. Information shows that all children make at least good progress from their starting points, some of which are low in comparison to children nationally. The majority of children make exceptional progress and achieve well above what is typical for their age in all areas of learning. You and your staff have an up-to-date picture of children’s achievements. Staff review individual children’s learning each day and address any children’s misconceptions or unmet targets during subsequent sessions. Staff know the children very well. They are passionate about, and committed to, helping the children to do the very best that they can. As a result, the children at Golborne continue to receive an outstanding quality of education.

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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 governing body sharpens and enhances the support it provides to the headteacher, particularly until a new leadership structure is firmly established.

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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 Kensington and Chelsea. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

I held meetings with you and members of the governing body to discuss the school’s self-evaluation as well as the actions leaders have taken to maintain the outstanding quality of education. I visited all classrooms and the outside spaces with you to observe and talk to children as they were learning. This included the school’s breakfast club, the provision for two-year-old children and the after-school provision. I reviewed samples of children’s work and assessment information to evaluate children’s outcomes over time. A range of safeguarding documentation was reviewed, including records of child protection concerns and the single central record of vetting checks on staff. I considered the views of parents and carers through informal discussions and the 16 responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View. I held a meeting with staff and spoke to them informally to gather their views on the school.

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