Bordesley Green East Nursery School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Short inspection of Bordesley Green East Nursery School

Following my visit to the school on 5 March 2019, I write on behalf of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. The visit was the first short inspection carried out since the school was judged to be good in January 2015.

This school continues to be good. The head, with the support of the leadership team, has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Bordesley Green East Nursery School is a happy and nurturing school.

You and your staff effectively support children to settle in quickly. The welfare and happiness of children and their families ar...e at the heart of your work. You have established a calm and positive environment in which all children learn and develop successfully.

You have worked hard to improve the engagement of parents and carers, and involve them in their child's education. Parents and carers have positive views of the school and value the work of staff. Typical comments include, 'The nursery is a happy and loving environment.

My child is well prepared for primary school,' and, 'The staff are very caring and motivated.' Staff are quick to build warm, trusting relationships with the children in their care. As a result, children settle in quickly and learn well.

During my visit, I saw children happily learning together. They found out about new things, for example, placing blocks carefully to climb on so they could safely reach items from a shelf. They developed skills such as throwing and catching a ball and learning the names of insects.

Other children were talking cheerfully to each other while making 'pancakes' in the mud kitchen. While staff are very aware of the need to develop children's language and vocabulary, they do not take advantage of every opportunity to extend children's language and vocabulary skills. The learning environment is appealing to children.

They engage well in the activities that staff provide for them indoors. For example, they moulded shapes using modelling clay, a rolling pin and cutters. They also drew letters in the sand and placed small pieces of furniture into a doll's house.

These activities help to improve children's fine motor skills which, in turn, assist them in holding items such as writing pens. The activities provided in the outdoor area are similarly attractive and varied, with spaces for children to explore and play. I noted children taking turns to roll a car down a ramp and running under a parachute when their name was called.

All areas that were identified as needing to improve at the last inspection have been rectified. Regular monitoring of the quality of the provision has ensured that improvements continue. Adults use their knowledge of the abilities of each child to plan suitably challenging activities.

Children make good progress in their reading skills as a result of good-quality teaching. They behave well, listen carefully and demonstrate good levels of concentration when they are learning in a group. Governors are passionate about their role and keen to develop further, so that they can offer the very best support to you.

However, governors do not always have the training and therefore the knowledge and skills they require to rigorously hold leaders to account. They are not fully aware of where further work is still needs to be done. You evaluate the effectiveness of the school's provision and the learning environment regularly.

The school's improvement plan details actions you are taking to further improve children's learning. The plan, however, is not fully effective because it is often unclear when you propose to complete each action and the criteria by which the impact of the action is to be measured. In addition, it does not set out who will monitor the actions and how the governing body can be sure that these actions are having the success you intend.

This means that governors are not able to fully check whether the actions that are detailed are leading to better outcomes for children. The majority of children make good progress during their time with you. This includes disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

These children are provided with extra support and experiences that have a good effect on their learning. Most-able children undertake extensions to their learning, such as taking part in an intergenerational project, where children enjoyed visiting a care home for the elderly, talking to them and singing songs for them. Safeguarding is effective.

Leaders have ensured that everyone at school has a rigorous approach towards safeguarding. Children's safety and well-being are central to everything staff do. Staff receive appropriate training for safeguarding and know their responsibilities.

Leaders are relentless in following up any concerns and involve different agencies when necessary. Records are detailed and are held securely. Procedures to recruit and check job applicants' suitability are thorough.

Suitable checks are conducted on visitors before they are given access to the school. Parents state how safe they feel their children while they are in the building, and how close supervision is at the start and end of a session. They are confident that their children are taught to keep themselves safe while taking part in appropriately risk-assessed activities.

Inspection findings ? All staff have had professional development opportunities to enhance their skills in teaching reading and phonics. Staff visited other early years settings to enhance their knowledge of different practices. They have had training and observed senior staff.

Planning has been revisited and a systematic methodology for the teaching of phonics and reading skills has been introduced. Staff teach phonics within play and regularly share books with children. The children clearly enjoy stories and independently select books to sit and read.

The learning environment is rich in many opportunities for the children to develop their literacy skills. Resources, such as word and picture symbols and visual timetables, are used widely. While communication and language are clearly an important focus for the school, more work needs to be done to further develop children's language and vocabulary skills.

• There are many instances of the written word, together with picture cues, being built into the activities. For example, a group of children who were making pancakes referred to word and picture cards to identify the ingredients. Reading and phonics are always kept as a focus due to the children's language skills generally being underdeveloped when they start school.

There is a genuine interest from the children for exploring text and wishing to communicate their own stories and ideas. Consequently, children make good progress in developing early reading skills. ? The previous inspection highlighted that staff with leadership responsibilities do not check often enough on the quality of provision, especially in reading.

You have addressed this. You keep a close eye on the quality of teaching to ensure that children are receiving a good start to their education. Children's progress is tracked carefully, and you make sure that each child's key worker is aware of any potential underachievement.

Your staff have access to training, linked to school priorities, which keeps their teaching skills fresh and up to date. ? A particular strength of the school is the children's behaviour and attitudes to learning. As we toured the school, I observed confident young children with beaming smiles who were keen to learn.

Children's achievements are celebrated, and staff constantly provide praise and encouragement. Children from different cultures mix well together. Children are well behaved and are a credit to the school and their families.

High levels of care help to promote good progress for all groups and high standards of behaviour. You keep detailed logs of incidents of poor behaviour and share any concerns with parents. Support is put in place for any child who needs extra help and your records reflect that this makes a difference to children's well-being.

Staff work closely with parents if children exhibit behavioural concerns. Responses to the Ofsted online questionnaires for parents and staff indicate that children and staff feel safe in the school environment. Procedures and processes that are associated with promoting good behaviour are carefully followed through by leaders and staff.

Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: ? teaching consistently promotes excellent gains in children's communication and language skills ? the school improvement plan contains precise timescales for actions, shows who will monitor the actions, and when and how success will be measured ? governors' knowledge and skills in challenging leaders and holding them to account for the effectiveness of the school are further developed. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children's services for Birmingham. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

Yours sincerely Lynda Townsend Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection, I held meetings with you, your deputy and members of the governing body, and with parents and the headteacher of a local nursery school. Accompanied by you, I visited classrooms to see the learning that was taking place. I looked at examples of children's work in their books.

A range of documentation was considered, including the single central record, the school improvement plan and the school's own assessment information relating to current children's progress. I took account of eight free-text responses to the Ofsted online questionnaire. Consideration was also given to the Ofsted online questionnaires completed by six staff.