Harewood Centre Nursery School

Harewood Centre Nursery School

Address: Harewood Avenue, Pontefract, West Yorkshire, WF8 2ER Unique reference number (URN): 108134

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Safeguarding standards met

The safeguarding standards are met. This means that leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfil their specific responsibilities and have established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed. As a result, pupils are made safer and feel safe.

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How we evaluate safeguarding

When we inspect schools for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes:

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How we evaluate safeguarding

Met: The school has an open and positive culture of safeguarding. All legal requirements are met. Not met: The school has not created an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not all legal requirements are met.

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This school requires special measures

His Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to provide an acceptable standard of education, and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

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Achievement Urgent improvement

Older children do not secure the basic skills that they need, such as in early listening, talking, reading, writing and mathematics. They do not develop essential learning habits, for instance to cooperate with others and to focus their attention on specific tasks. This is because of the school’s weak curriculum and teaching. Older children are not ready for learning at primary school.

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Achievement Urgent improvement

Some children who face difficulties in their learning, such as children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, do not build an effective knowledge of important information. This is because leaders and staff do not act effectively enough on their needs. Gaps in children’s knowledge do not diminish. Children, including disadvantaged children, make too little progress from their starting points.

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Achievement Urgent improvement

Younger children at the school do gain a successful start to their education. For instance, they develop important physical, personal, communication and language skills. This is because of the effective support and teaching and the calm, settled start to school that they experience.

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Attendance and behaviour Urgent improvement

Leaders do not make sure that staff and children understand and follow the school’s agreed routines and behaviour policies. Staff do not challenge unsafe or disruptive behaviour by older children. These behaviours spoil children’s learning and distract staff from teaching. Older children are not sufficiently supported to understand why they must not climb on furniture or run through the provision. Staff do not consistently identify or act on this behaviour and teach children why it is unsafe. Staff’s expectations for children's behaviour are too low.

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Attendance and behaviour Urgent improvement

Some children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, struggle to concentrate on activities. When this happens, they flit around the classroom. Leaders do not make sure that staff are sufficiently skilled to help these children to focus their attention. Children miss valuable learning opportunities.

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Attendance and behaviour Urgent improvement

Leaders recognise the importance of developing positive patterns of attendance at the school. They know the children and families well and use this knowledge to help parents and carers to overcome barriers to children’s attendance. The well-developed response system, introduced by leaders, has a positive impact on the attendance of some children. Leaders support parents to ensure that children attend the school regularly.

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Curriculum and teaching Urgent improvement

Leaders neglect to ensure that staff think carefully about how they teach the children. Teaching does not focus sufficiently on helping children to learn basic skills in different areas of the early years curriculum, including early mathematics. The school provides children with access to high-quality story books, story sessions and singing songs and rhymes. However, these activities are not well thought out. Staff do not use these sessions to help children build their knowledge, including of essential vocabulary.

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Curriculum and teaching Urgent improvement

The resources and learning areas for all the children are well organised, but the poorly thought through activities for the older children do not engage or interest them sufficiently. Too often, staff's interactions with older children are directional or managerial. While the 2- year-olds benefit from exciting learning experiences or activities, the older children have limited opportunities to help them to converse, think, explore learning and develop their ideas.

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Curriculum and teaching Urgent improvement

Leaders and staff’s expectations for children, especially those who experience barriers to their learning, are too low. These children are not given the help they need to achieve. The school does not support children sufficiently to build their knowledge and skills, so they are ready for subsequent learning. Leaders do not have a secure grasp of what the school needs to do to improve its curriculum and teaching. Leaders’ priorities on this are ill-matched to the school. The school has recently started to work with advisors to start to improve the content and structure of its curriculum.

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Inclusion Urgent improvement

Leaders do not make certain that staff know what support each child needs. Leaders fail to ensure that staff put in place the school’s agreed ways to identify and support the needs of children who face difficulties in their learning. As a result, too many children’s needs are not prioritised. Barriers to children’s success remain unresolved.

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Inclusion Urgent improvement

Leaders do not ensure that staff enable children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) to learn well. At times, children are not included by staff. Staff limit some of these children’s learning opportunities, such as to use a wide range of painting resources or to share in a socialised snack time with their peers. Sometimes, the lack of effective support from staff results in children being dysregulated and/or distressed. When this occurs, staff do not have the expertise needed to support them. Staff leave some children to spend too much time playing alone when they need skilful support from staff.

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Inclusion Urgent improvement

Leaders make suitable decisions on how to spend additional funding to support disadvantaged children’s learning. However, the ways in which the school acts to help children overcome barriers to their learning are ineffective. Leaders and governors do not check the effectiveness of this aspect of the school’s work sufficiently. Children are not supported to achieve.

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Leadership and governance Urgent improvement

Leaders have a poor oversight of what happens in the school. They are unaware of where staff’s practice is weak and when improvement is urgently needed. Leaders’ actions to improve the school are not sufficiently focused on the most pressing priorities. Recently, the school has drawn on external help to improve the curriculum and teaching. However, it is over reliant on this support.

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Leadership and governance Urgent improvement

Leaders do not provide staff with training that is well thought out and focused on what they need to learn. As a result, staff lack understanding of many aspects of their work, such as how to teach the curriculum and manage children’s behaviour. Leaders do not ensure that staff know the needs of the most vulnerable children and what to do in response. Guidance for staff on how to include and support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is ineffective. These weaknesses lead to some children missing out on valuable learning and social experiences.

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Leadership and governance Urgent improvement

The school has struggled to recruit a full governing body. Currently, there are limited numbers of governors supporting the school and governance is extremely fragile. Therefore, governors are unable to hold the school to account effectively.

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Leadership and governance Urgent improvement

Staff are well supported by the school with their wellbeing and workload. However, the governing body does not take enough action to improve leaders’ workload, which negatively affects the school’s work.

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Personal development and wellbeing Urgent improvement

The school’s actions to support children’s personal development are ineffective. Leaders do not think deeply enough about how their aspirations for children’s wider experiences and learning will be achieved. Leaders provide children with suitable opportunities, such as visits to the library and a chance to meet some farm animals. However, such activities are not well chosen or connected to build children’s knowledge and skills over time.

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Personal development and wellbeing Urgent improvement

Leaders do not ensure that staff understand how to enhance older children’s skills as learners. Staff do not help children aged 3 and 4 years to share, cooperate and play together well. Often, staff step in too quickly to take choices away from children, rather than enabling them to see how and why they should or should not do something. In contrast, staff help younger children to successfully develop their confidence, independence and wellbeing.

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Personal development and wellbeing Urgent improvement

Leaders do not consider properly how the school will enable older children to understand the diverse world around them. Leaders and staff are generally respectful and tolerant, but they do not enable children to also act in this way. Leaders do not think carefully enough about how staff should develop children’s understanding of fundamental British values.

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Personal development and wellbeing Urgent improvement

Leaders do not ensure suitable, organised support for children’s feelings and emotions. Instead, it is ad hoc. This leaves many children without the assistance that they need, including when some individual children are distressed. At times, staff do too little to attend to individual children’s needs. Likewise, sometimes staff make too little attempt to include some children in all that the school provides. At times, leaders and staff leave some children out of activities. These weaknesses hold back children’s chance to flourish.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Too many children at this school, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), do not benefit from high-quality learning experiences. The oldest children do not experience a well-considered curriculum. They are not provided with meaningful learning activities or effective teaching. This is because leaders do not make certain that staff have sufficient knowledge of the school’s curriculum, nor about what high- quality teaching looks like. These weaknesses limit children's achievement.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Children aged 3- and 4-years-old do not receive consistent guidance and support to help them to play together well. They are not adequately helped by staff, who have low expectations for children’s learning and behaviour. Many of these children struggle to follow routines. Rules about not climbing on furniture or running inside the classroom are often ignored by children. They struggle to focus on their learning. Too many children receive insufficient support from staff to develop the necessary skills needed for the next stage in their education. Learning is more carefully considered for the youngest children in the provision for 2-year-olds, but this has only recently been developed.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Children with SEND or other barriers to learning do not receive effective support from staff to resolve the challenges that they experience. Generally, children here are cared about by the staff. Children are happy to come to school and many attend regularly.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Children are provided with experiences to extend their personal development, but these are not well thought out and connected over time. Children who need extra help, such as to manage their feelings and friendships, do not receive the skilled help that they need to thrive. Children's opportunities to develop their understanding of themselves and their place in the world are limited.

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Next steps

Leaders and those responsible for governance must ensure that they urgently improve their capacity to bring about rapid improvement across the school’s work. Leaders and those responsible for governance must ensure they have sufficient oversight of what happens across the school, to identify the correct priorities and provide appropriate action. Leaders must ensure that the school’s provision for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) or other barriers to learning is high quality for them to receive an effective education. Leaders must raise expectations of what all children can achieve, especially those who face barriers to their learning, such as children with SEND.

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Team inspector:

Alison Greaves, Ofsted Inspector Leaders must ensure that staff have secure curriculum and teaching knowledge to teach the curriculum well and support all children to achieve. Leaders must make sure that staff have the expertise necessary to support children through high-quality interactions. Leaders must ensure that all children develop the important foundational skills, particularly in communication and language development, to support their future learning. Leaders must ensure that staff understand and implement the school’s behaviour systems consistently well to ensure that pupils behave. Leaders must further develop the personal development programme so that children receive the pastoral support they need and benefit from a range of suitable opportunities that broaden their experiences and horizons.

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About this inspection

The chair of the board of governors in this school is Jack Kershaw.

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About this inspection

Inspectors carried out this full inspection under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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About this inspection

Following our renewed inspection framework, all inspections are now led by His Majesty’s Inspectors (HMIs) or by Ofsted Inspectors (OIs) who have previously served as HMIs.

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About this inspection

Inspectors spoke with the headteacher and staff during the inspection. They also spoke with a representative of the governing body and a representative from the local authority.

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About this inspection

In accordance with section 44(1) of the Education Act 2005, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

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About this inspection

The school may not appoint early career teachers before the next monitoring inspection. The position regarding the appointment of early career teachers will be considered again during any monitoring inspection(s) we carry out.

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About this inspection

The inspectors confirmed the following information about the school:

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About this inspection

The school currently uses no alternative provision.

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Facts and figures used on inspection

This was the data available at the time of the full inspection, taken from different sources . More recent data may have been published since the full inspection took place.

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Facts and figures used on inspection

The inspector(s) used this data during the full inspection on 23 June 2026

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What does this mean?

The total number of pupils currently at this school and how this compares to other schools of this phase in England.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils with an education, health and care plan. This covers pupils with more support than is available through special educational needs support.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils with reported special educational needs support at the school.

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What does this mean?

Based on the English indices of deprivation (2019) and the school's location, we have calculated whether the school is located in a more or less deprived area.

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Exceptional

Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other schools can learn from it.

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Strong standard

The school reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.

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Expected standard

The school is fulfilling the expected standard of education and/or care. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them.

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Needs attention

The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.

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Urgent improvement

The school needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care.

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Urgent improvement

services providing education and skills for children and learners of all ages, and inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people.

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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