Woodfield Nursery School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

This school is a happy and caring place for all children. Many children have a limited knowledge of the English language when they start at the school.

Leaders and staff provide a warm welcome for children, parents and carers. This ensures that children feel safe and secure and settle quickly into the school.

Leaders have high expectations for all children.

They are clear about what they want children to achieve in readiness for school. Adults plan exciting activities across all areas of learning that capture children's interests. They make sure that all children can participate in these activities.

Children learn to share, to take turns and to play ...alongside and with each other. They develop important skills such as putting on their own coats, taking themselves to the toilet, and helping themselves to snacks. This helps them to become more independent and confident.

Parents speak highly of the school. Staff keep them well-informed about how their children are doing.

Children are well protected from bullying.

Adults teach children to be kind to each other. Children enjoy the praise they receive when they follow the simple rules and routines in the school. This encourages children to behave well throughout the day.

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

The ambitious curriculum ensures that children learn across all seven areas of learning. Leaders have made decisions about the order in which children develop their skills and knowledge. They have organised the curriculum to make sure that children build on what they already know and can do.

Most children at Woodfield are learning English as an additional language. The well-designed curriculum enables almost all children to achieve well, including those who are disadvantaged. Occasionally, individual targets for some children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are not clear or precise enough.

When this happens, it slows their learning down.

Developing children's love of reading is a high priority at this school. Children enjoy listening to their favourite stories.

They are able to remember the main events and characters' names. Adults are skilled storytellers. They bring stories to life.

For example, children were captivated when adults acted out the story, 'Owl Babies', complete with owl-like noises.

Children are taught phonics right from the start. Adults plan activities that build up children's ability to hear sounds.

Children learn to apply these good listening skills to hear the sounds that letters make in words.

Adults make sure that children have many opportunities to develop their mathematical skills. For example, as they play, children count in sequence and identify shapes in the environment, both indoors and outside.

The curriculum provides exciting activities that develop children's understanding of the world. For example, during the inspection, children handled ice and observed how it melted in their classroom water tray. These experiences help children to become curious learners who want to find out more.

Provision for children's personal, social and emotional development is strong. Adults encourage children to become independent learners. For example, they make sure children know where to find things, and how to put them away when they have finished.

Children learn to make choices for themselves. For example, they have the freedom to choose when they want to play outdoors. If it is raining, children are suitably clothed in wellingtons and waterproofs to ensure the rain does not disrupt their play.

Skilled bilingual staff provide sensitive support for children new to the English language. This helps them to feel confident and to participate fully.

Adults have high expectations for children's behaviour.

They make these expectations clear using language that the children understand easily. This ensures that children know what to do. For example, they know when it is time to stop playing and to tidy up, or to listen carefully.

Bilingual staff translate adults' expectations for behaviour into children's home languages. Children are keen to learn and poor behaviour rarely disrupts learning.

Leaders have worked hard with parents to improve children's attendance at school.

However, too many children are absent from school for long periods of time. Some of these children miss many weeks of learning. When this happens, they lose confidence, and struggle to catch up.

Leaders provide a varied range of activities for children that broaden their experiences and develop their life skills. For example, staff take children on visits to the library and the shops, to learn more about their community. Children learn about other faiths and cultures in ways that they can understand.

These experiences help to prepare them for life in modern Britain.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Leaders and governors have made sure that the school is a safe place for children.

They provide a range of training for staff relating to safeguarding issues. This helps staff to be vigilant for signs of harm to children.

Governors and leaders follow safe practices for recruiting new staff.

They carry out important checks to make sure that staff are suitable to work with children.

Staff teach children about using the internet safely, in ways that are appropriate to their age. Children know who to ask for help if they need it.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

Leaders make sure that children with SEND are included in all activities. However, on occasions, the individual plans for some children with SEND lack precision. The targets in those plans are not specific or detailed enough to enable adults to provide for the small steps in children's learning, or to check children's progress towards their targets.

Leaders need to ensure that the plans for all children with SEND are more specific and individualised, so that adults can better support their learning and development. . Although attendance at school is not compulsory, too many children are absent from school persistently.

These children sometimes struggle to regain the confidence they had gained, and to catch up with the important learning they have missed. Leaders need to think of more innovative ways of encouraging and supporting children to come to school regularly. This is so that attendance does not impede children's learning and development.