Thomas Wall Nursery School

Inspection of Thomas Wall Nursery School Robin Hood Lane, Sutton, Surrey SM1 2SF

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The quality of education Good Behaviour and attitudes Good Personal development Good Leadership and management Good Previous inspection grade Outstanding 13 and 14 May 2025

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What is it like to attend this school?

Children are happy and settled here. They confidently explore the wide range of learning activities in the classroom and outside. Staff show them a great deal of care and provide strong examples of how to treat others, which children model in the way they interact with each other. The school enables children to feel secure, valued and supported, allowing them to express their needs with increasing independence.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Staff have high expectations for what children will achieve. They are ambitious for children in the ‘Dragonflies’ specially resourced provision for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). They support children to develop the knowledge and skills that they need to be prepared well for the move to primary school.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Children are familiar with the school’s routines, such as registering their names and putting their bags away when they arrive. Staff help them to practise tidying up and moving sensibly around the nursery.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Children are encouraged to take responsibility. For instance, children take care of a giant snail in their classroom. Parents and carers have many positive things to say about this school. They value the clear and regular communication that helps them work in partnership with the nursery and support their children’s development.

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

The nursery has established a broad, ambitious curriculum. It has identified precisely what children need to know and be able to do and in what order these things need to be learned. For instance, using small tools like scissors, tweezers and paintbrushes supports children’s ability to perform precise, small movements using their hands and fingers, laying the foundation for later skills such as writing. The specific learning aims in the curriculum are well understood by staff, which enables them to check children’s understanding and development carefully. This helps staff to identify further learning to build on what children have learned previously.

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

Staff have secure knowledge of what they teach and a clear understanding of how children learn. They talk to children about their play to build their language comprehension. Children grow increasingly confident in their own attempts to communicate their wants, needs and ideas. However, while staff share some ambitious vocabulary with children, they do not routinely encourage children to practise using it for themselves. This makes it difficult for children to remember some key language.

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

The nursery’s approach to teaching storytelling is well thought through. Stories are linked to the nursery’s curriculum, meaning that children have lots of opportunities to experience characters and events from stories in their play. For instance, children enjoyed tasting beetroot as part of a salad they made and recalled that a character from their story did just the same. 13 and 14 May 2025

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The nursery identifies children with SEND carefully. Staff have a detailed understanding of the needs of children in the Dragonflies specially resourced provision and use highly effective approaches to help them to learn and develop well. Across the nursery, staff support children’s needs by helping them to communicate and manage their emotions. On occasion, staff receive less precise guidance about how to support the learning of children in the mainstream nursery. Consequently, a small number of children do not benefit as well as they could from their experiences at school.

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Staff help children to consider how their behaviour impacts upon others. Children typically show kindness and respect to staff and their peers. The nursery prioritises children’s personal development. For example, children enjoyed talking with each other about their families when they shared family photos. Visits to the aquarium, the seaside, farms and the library and visits from the dentist, birds of prey and reptile experts extend children’s experience of the world around them. The nursery promotes children’s knowledge of different cultures and backgrounds by them learning about a range of festivals, including Christmas, Diwali, Eid and Holi.

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The governing body focuses on carefully identified improvement priorities. Staff work together closely and benefit from the school’s support for their workload and well-being.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 The school does not routinely encourage and support children to use a range of ambitious vocabulary in their own talk. As a result, children hear a range of ambitious language but are not as confident as they might be in using it. The school should ensure that children have opportunities to practise and use the key language that the school has identified for them to know.  In a small number of instances, the school has not precisely identified the best approaches that staff should use to help children with SEND in the mainstream nursery to learn the curriculum. As a result, children sometimes have fewer opportunities to learn all that is intended and to interact with staff and other children. The school should ensure that guidance about how to support children is specific so that staff know how best to help them.

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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. 13 and 14 May 2025

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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). 13 and 14 May 2025

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Chair of governing body Lesley Steers and Shane Sorour (co-chairs)

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School details

Date of previous inspection 18 July 2023, under section 8 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 The school has a specially resourced provision for up to 20 children with speech, language and communication needs.  The school does not make use of alternative provision.  The school runs extended nursery provision from 8.30am to 3.30pm.  The school is in a hard federation with Robin Hood Infants’ School. They share the same site, and children in early years from the two schools mix in the shared outside area.

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Information about this inspection

The inspectors carried out this graded inspection under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. During a graded inspection, we grade the school for each of our key judgements (quality of education; behaviour and attitudes; personal development; and leadership and management) and for any relevant provision judgement (early years and/or sixth form provision). Schools receiving a graded inspection from September 2024 will not be given an overall effectiveness grade. 13 and 14 May 2025

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 Inspections are a point-in-time evaluation about the quality of a school’s education provision.  This was the second routine inspection the school has 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.  Inspectors held meetings with the headteacher and other senior leaders. Inspectors also met with leaders with responsibility for SEND, behaviour and attendance and children’s personal development.  Inspectors met with representatives from the local governing body and the local authority.  Inspectors carried out deep dives in these areas of learning: communication and language; personal, social and emotional development; understanding the world; and literacy. For each deep dive, inspectors discussed the curriculum with leaders, visited a sample of lessons, spoke to teachers and support staff, spoke to some children about

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their learning and looked at samples of children’s work.  Inspectors also looked at curriculum information in some other areas of learning.  Inspectors considered responses to Ofsted’s online surveys for parents, Ofsted Parent View, and for staff.  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.

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Inspection team

Rebecca Iles-Smith, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Rekha Bhakoo Ofsted Inspector 13 and 14 May 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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