Rebecca Cheetham Nursery and Children's Centre

Inspection of a school judged outstanding for overall effectiveness before September 2024: Rebecca Cheetham Nursery and Children’s Centre Marcus Street, Stratford, London E15 3JT

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Outcome

Rebecca Cheetham Nursery and Children’s Centre 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?

Rebecca Cheetham Nursery School is an oasis of calm and an exciting learning community. The school provides an exceptional level of care for the children and their families. Children thrive in this nurturing nursery school. They are happy and safe. Children know that adults will help and care for them should they become worried or upset. There are warm relationships between staff and children. Parents and carers are overwhelmingly positive about the education that their children receive.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school has high expectations of children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The school helps children, including two-year-olds, to settle very well in their new classrooms. Children’s behaviour is exemplary. They quickly learn the routines of the school and how to take turns and share resources while they play. Over time, children become independent and resilient learners and achieve highly. They move on to primary school ready for the next stage of their learning.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school provides educational visits to local places of worship and to the seaside. Children are given a wide range of responsibilities, such as recycling, encouraging sustainable travel, rights champions, collecting fresh eggs from the chickens and helping to feed the popular school tortoises Bubble and Squeak.

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

The school has designed an ambitious and well-sequenced curriculum to build secure knowledge and skills from the beginning of the provision for two-year-old children. Staff have identified nine core aspirations and have threaded the seven areas of early learning 11 and 12 March 2025

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and development through them. These include the important knowledge, skills and vocabulary it wants children to know and by when. They have also carefully chosen milestones to track children’s progress and learning in each of these areas. As a result, children grow as confident learners and prosper here.

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The development of children’s literacy, communication and language is a key priority. Staff model sounds and words with precision. Early reading is a strength. Every morning during self-registration, children get to vote on the book they would like to hear read. Stories, rhymes and songs have been carefully selected so children experience high-quality texts and language every day. Phonics learning begins with children identifying initial letters and sounds, including environmental sounds. This prepares children for future formal phonics learning.

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Children practise their understanding of numbers and counting every morning. This helps children to become confident in early mathematics. They understand and can explain what ‘one less’ and ‘one more’ looks like. Physical development is equally well provided for with an extensive range of outdoor climbing and balance equipment. Children learn to focus when in the woodwork area as they carefully follow the safety instructions when using the hammers, drills and nails.

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Children with SEND achieve the best possible outcomes because all staff know the children well and carefully adapt and plan their next steps. The school works closely with families, who greatly value its help. Staff quickly identify children’s needs, and a range of highly effective support is put in place to meet them.

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Staff sensitively teach children the expectations of their behaviour. Two-year-olds learn how to be kind towards each other and eagerly help to tidy up their classrooms every day. The school supports children’s personal development effectively. Staff provide a variety of rich experiences, including regular visits to local places of worship such as mosques, churches and temples. Children enjoy making Eid cards, learning about Palm Sunday and painting Easter eggs. These initiatives contribute to building children’s cultural awareness and understanding of the wider world.

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Parental engagement is a key part of leaders’ work at the school. The school supports and encourages parents about the importance of children’s attendance. Attendance is high and rising. Parents feel well informed and fully involved in their children’s time at the school. They are effusive in their praise for the school’s leaders.

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The school’s leadership, including governors, knows its school and community in depth. The governors bring valuable skills and expertise to their oversight of the school’s work. They ensure staff are given the support they need to do their roles well. Staff are proud to work at this school. They feel valued and appreciated by leaders. Leaders ensure that all staff have the training they need to continue to be effective.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. 11 and 12 March 2025

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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 outstanding 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 second ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be outstanding for overall effectiveness in October 2019.

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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). 11 and 12 March 2025

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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Headteacher

Rohan Allen Website www.rebeccacheetham.newham.sch.uk

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Headteacher

Date of previous inspection 9 December 2020, under section 8 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 The school has a provision for two-year-olds.  The school does not currently make use of 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. The inspector discussed the impact of the pandemic with the school and has taken that into account in the evaluation of the school.  The inspector held meetings with the headteacher, senior and curriculum leaders and groups of staff and children.  The inspector visited a sample of lessons, spoke to some children about their learning and looked at samples of children’s work.  The inspector met with representatives of the governing body, including the chair. The inspector also spoke with representatives from the local authority. 11 and 12 March 2025

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 The inspector took account of the responses to Ofsted Parent View, including the free- text responses, and responses to Ofsted’s staff survey.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, the inspector: 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 inspector reviewed school documents, including those relating to governance, behaviour and attendance. The inspector scrutinised leaders’ plans for improvement and their assessment of the school’s effectiveness.  The inspector spoke informally to children at breaktimes, in the dining hall and on the playground.

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Inspection team

Sean Flood, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector 11 and 12 March 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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