Lee Royd Nursery School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Lee Royd Nursery School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

Children are happy at this vibrant nursery school.

Kind and caring staff greet them warmly. Children enjoy playing and exploring in the school's outdoor areas. They benefit from the many worthwhile learning opportunities that the school provides.

The school is aspirational for children and wants the very best for their academic, social and emotional success. Children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), typically achieve well. They move on to primary school ready for the next stage of their learning.

Children behave well. They share ...and take turns. Staff help children to learn good manners.

Children say 'please' and 'thank you' when sharing food and toys. Children in the two-year-old provision are ably supported to understand the rules and routines of the school. They join in with story times, singing and learning activities with gusto.

The school seeks to create rich moments of learning that children will remember. Visitors to school, including Bollywood dancers, a nurse and a pilot, help to bring the curriculum to life. Children learn to care for living things, such as squirrels, caterpillars and chicks.

These rich opportunities help children to learn more about the natural world and to develop new interests.

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

The school has designed an ambitious curriculum that meets the needs of all children, including those aged two years old and children with SEND. In the main, the curriculum identifies the knowledge that children should learn and the order in which this should be taught.

The school strives to inspire children to learn. It provides them with the early building blocks of knowledge that they will need for later success.

Typically, staff deliver the curriculum well.

They are adept at choosing appropriate activities and resources that help children to learn effectively. Staff draw on their in-depth knowledge of child development to identify the additional needs of children with SEND quickly. Where needed, staff adapt the way that they deliver the curriculum to help children with SEND to learn successfully.

The school takes a well-thought-out approach to develop children's communication and language skills. For example, staff explain new words to children carefully and often. As a result, most children, including two-year-olds, become successful communicators.

They develop a secure understanding of new and important words.

Children enjoy listening to well-chosen stories, rhymes and poems. Typically, staff revisit important knowledge in the books that they read to children.

This helps children to develop a love of books. It also gives children the skills and confidence to retell stories independently.

In the main, staff take opportunities to address gaps in children's knowledge.

However, in one or two areas of learning, some staff are less clear on what children know and where their knowledge is less secure. On occasion, when staff do not check children's understanding, important learning is not revisited. This means that some children do not deepen their knowledge as well as they could.

Children are remarkably keen to learn and to take part in activities. They proudly showed inspectors their learning environment and their favourite resources. Children understand simple rules and follow the routines of the school.

Two-year-old children understand the importance of looking after equipment and enthusiastically help to tidy toys away.

The school has thought carefully about children's wider development. Children learn about diversity among people and families.

They know that there are people in the community who can help them, such as people who work in the emergency services. These experiences prepare children well for life in modern Britain.

Governors are proud of the school.

They are committed to ensuring that staff feel valued and that children receive a strong start to their education. The school is conscious of the pressures on staff's workload and takes positive action to minimise this. For example, it has removed any unnecessary paperwork involved in assessments of children's development.

This gives staff more time to support children in their learning.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• At times, in some areas of learning, staff do not check children's understanding of knowledge sufficiently well.

As a result, in these areas of learning, some children are not as well prepared for the next stage of education as they could be. The school should support staff in identifying and addressing any gaps in knowledge that children have.

Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good.

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 would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which 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.

This is the first ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in November 2018.