Borough Road Nursery School

Inspection of a school judged good for overall effectiveness before September 2024: Borough Road Nursery School Borough Road, Darlington, County Durham DL1 1SG

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Outcome

Borough Road Nursery School has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.

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What is it like to attend this school?

This is a caring and welcoming school. Leaders and staff greet children warmly each day. This helps children settle quickly into the school’s daily routines. Children feel safe and well cared for. They spend the day with smiles on their faces. Children are curious and respectful. They learn and play alongside their peers with care and kindness. The school focuses on building strong and positive relationships between staff and children. These secure relationships help children reach their potential.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school has high expectations for all children. These expectations are reflected in the school’s curriculum. Children rise to the ambitions of the school. This helps the school ensure that children have the key knowledge and skills ready for their next steps in education.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school makes carefully considered and effective links with local attractions and facilities. A well-established connection with a local children’s theatre company supports children to think, perform and play with creativity. Regular walks within the local town, visiting police and fire stations, help children understand the world in which they live. The school uses these experiences to help children learn about staying safe, including road safety.

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What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

A broad and ambitious curriculum helps all children to achieve well. Since the previous inspection, the school has thought more carefully about the skills, knowledge and language each child needs to be successful. The school has a detailed and secure understanding of children’s starting points. This helps staff focus on what children need to learn next to meet the aims and ambitions of the curriculum. 18 February 2025

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Skilled adults weave different aspects of learning into their interactions with children. This means they introduce new learning or language at the right time. They also help embed previous learning well. For example, when using dough to make gingerbread men, children have opportunities to talk about numbers. Through outdoor learning, adults make sure children understand aspects of recycling when pumping water over the water tunnel. However, some staff need further support to ensure that they use interactions to make the most of children’s learning opportunities.

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Children enjoy listening to stories and rhymes. The school has carefully chosen key texts and songs for children to know and remember. Children in the provision for two-year-olds delight in chanting about the big bad wolf in ‘The Three Little Pigs’. Children benefit from daily work linked to stories and rhymes. Parents and carers enjoy the story sacks that the school provides for them. This helps extend children’s love of stories beyond the school day.

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This is an inclusive school. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) benefit from skilled leaders and staff who understand their needs with precision. The school is highly ambitious for children with SEND. Staff shape learning for children with SEND effectively. This helps children with SEND make progress towards their own personal targets and achieve well. Strong relationships between the school and other professionals ensures that children with SEND receive timely support from experts when needed.

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The school promotes personal, social and emotional development across the curriculum. Children are encouraged to share and take turns. Children are confident and play together collaboratively. They ask questions and encourage visitors to join in with their learning. When children need help with their emotions the school supports them well. The school helps children understand how different festivals like Diwali and Chinese New Year are celebrated. Parents appreciate how the school reflects different cultures. Clear routines and expectations help children develop more independence when getting ready to go outside or go home.

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Leaders, with governors, have a secure understanding of the school and where it needs further development. Together they make the necessary changes to improve the school in the interest of the children who attend. Governors provide appropriate challenge and support to the school. Staff feel well supported by the school.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 The quality of staff interactions with children are not always precise enough. Some moments to strengthen learning are overlooked, meaning some children may not learn 18 February 2025

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the intended aims of the curriculum as effectively as they could. The school should ensure that staff develop the skills and expertise required for consistently high-quality interactions.

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Background

Until September 2024, on a graded (section 5) inspection we gave schools an overall effectiveness grade, in addition to the key and provision judgements. Overall effectiveness grades given before September 2024 will continue to be visible on school inspection reports and on Ofsted’s website. From September 2024, graded inspections will not include an overall effectiveness grade. This school was, before September 2024, judged to be good for its overall effectiveness.

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Background

We have now inspected the school to determine whether it has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at that previous inspection. This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school’s work has improved significantly or that it may not be as strong as it was at the last inspection, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection. A graded inspection is carried out under section 5 of the Act. Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

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Background

This is the first ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good for overall effectiveness in February 2020.

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How can I feed back my views?

find out what other parents and carers think. We use information from Ofsted Parent View when deciding which schools to inspect, when to inspect them and as part of their inspection.

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How can I feed back my views?

The Department for Education has further guidance on how to complain about a school.

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Further information

You can search for published performance information about the school.

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Further information

In the report, ‘disadvantaged pupils’ is used to mean pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND); pupils who meet the definition of children in need of help and protection ; pupils receiving statutory local authority support from a social worker; and pupils who otherwise meet the criteria used for deciding the school’s pupil premium funding (this includes pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years, looked after children (children in local authority care) and/or children who left care through adoption or another formal route). 18 February 2025

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Website www.darlingtonnurseryschools.org.uk

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School details

Dates of previous inspection 4 and 5 February 2020, under section 5 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 Borough Road Nursery School is part of the Federation of Darlington Nursery Schools. George Dent Nursery School is the other school in this federation.  There is an executive leadership team, consisting of the executive headteacher and deputy executive headteacher, who lead both schools in the federation.  The school offers a before- and after-school wraparound offer. It also offers a holiday club.  The school does not use any alternative provision.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspections are a point-in-time evaluation about the quality of a school’s education provision.  This was the first routine inspection the school received since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Inspectors discussed the impact of the pandemic with the school and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school. 18 February 2025

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 Prior to the inspection, the inspector reviewed documents on the school’s website, as well as published information about the school’s performance and previous Ofsted inspections.  The inspectors spoke with the executive headteacher, deputy executive headteacher and other staff in school.  The inspectors visited the setting, where they observed children at different times of the day and spoke with staff and children in the provision. The inspectors held discussions with leaders responsible for SEND, attendance and behaviour.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, the inspectors: reviewed the single central record; took account of the views of leaders, staff and children; and considered the extent to which the school has created an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts children’s interests first.  The inspectors gathered views of parents informally in person and formally through

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responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Ofsted Parent View, and free-text responses. The views of staff were considered through the staff survey and through meetings with them.  The inspectors spoke with representatives from the local governing body, school improvement representatives and a representative from the local authority.  The inspectors observed children’s behaviour across the school day, including during lunchtime.

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Inspection team

Emily Stevens, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Cathy Lee Ofsted Inspector 18 February 2025

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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 children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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