Prestwood Infant School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

Prestwood Infant School is exceptionally well led and provides its pupils with an outstanding education. The headteacher has created an extremely effective team of committed teachers and support staff with uniformly high expectations of all children.

As a consequence of excellent provision in all areas of the school, pupils thrive and from a very young age develop both the skills and the enthusiasm for learning. Self-evaluation and monitoring procedures are sophisticated and well-managed, enabling accurate and timely information about pupils' progress and other aspects of the school's performance to be used effectively by all staff, including subject coordinators. This, together with a strong track re...cord of high levels of achievement for all pupils and a forward-looking and proactive governing body, gives the school outstanding capacity to sustain improvement.

The majority of children who join Prestwood now begin in the pre-school where they get off to a flying start with their learning. They make the transition to Reception classes very smoothly and from mainly above average starting points, make outstanding progress before they commence Key Stage 1. Consistently excellent teaching across the school and meticulous attention to individual pupils' needs enable pupils to reach high levels of attainment by the end of Key Stage 1 in reading, writing and mathematics.

All groups of pupils, including the most able and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make at least good progress in all year groups. The outstanding curriculum provides an excellent foundation for a variety of stimulating activities across the age range. There is a very strong emphasis on instilling basic skills in numeracy and literacy, which are developed imaginatively in all areas of learning.

Pupils make extensive use of the excellent facilities for information and communication technology (ICT) and, increasingly, the school's outdoor areas are being used to promote innovative approaches to learning. Outstanding care, guidance and support for pupils, and, when required, their families, is at the heart of the school's success. This enables all pupils to feel exceptionally safe, happy, highly valued as individuals and an important part of a strong and outward-looking community.

Children in the school, including the very youngest, behave exceptionally well. They enjoy each other's company and that of the staff and are eager to please others. The occasional upset is expertly managed by staff with minimal fuss and with patience.

Pupils' enjoyment of school is reflected in high rates of attendance and excellent punctuality. Such is pupils' dedication to school that one parent commented, 'Our daughter was awoken on Saturday and said, disappointedly, 'I love school. I wish I could go every day.'

Pupils are extremely well prepared for the next stage of their learning at junior school both academically, through their well developed skills in literacy, numeracy and ICT (for which the school has received a national award) and socially. They have a good appreciation of their own local community and those in other countries, although their awareness of the religious and cultural diversity within the United Kingdom is less well developed than it could be.

Information about the school

Prestwood is larger than most infant schools.

Most pupils are of White British heritage and a very small percentage speaks English as an additional language. The proportion of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities is much lower than average; these pupils' needs are related to speech, language and communication and specific learning difficulties. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is also much lower than average.

Early Years Foundation Stage provision is in two Reception classes. There is also pre-school provision which, since April 2010, has been integrated into the main school and is now managed by the governing body. The school has received a number of national awards in recent years recognising achievements in information and communication technology (ICT), physical education and music.