Woodlands Park Nursery School and Childrens Centre

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Woodlands Park Nursery School and Children's Centre continues to be an outstanding school.

What is it like to attend this school?

Children enjoy coming to school every day. They arrive happy and cannot wait to meet their friends and start playing.

Children flourish thanks to the nurture and care of adults and exciting learning opportunities.

Leaders and staff have very high expectations for all children, especially those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). They help to keep children safe.

Children have extremely positive attitudes towards their play and learning. Staff teach children to understand how to look after themselves, physically and... mentally. They provide many resources to support children's development.

Young children experiment in the outdoor area to make 'potions' from coloured liquids and different herbs. They create vivid wall designs using paint rollers.

Staff capture children's interests.

They encourage children to think creatively and develop their independence. For example, children learn stories and songs during 'island time'. Staff help children to behave excellently and remain focused.

Children achieve very well here. They are fully ready for their next stages in education.

Staff work closely with parents and carers who spoke highly of the school.

They valued that their children could thrive at the school.

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

Staff understand children's interests and consider carefully what, and how, children will learn. Leaders plan an exciting curriculum.

They provide a challenging and stimulating environment for children to explore and develop curiosity. Staff enable children to expand their knowledge and understanding thoroughly across all areas of learning. They help to develop children's social skills and encourage them to become resilient learners.

Children develop a broad and rich vocabulary and become confident communicators. Staff make sure that children have access to a wide range of books, reading materials and resources. Staff support children to develop their communication and language skills.

They ensure that children have regular, well-planned story times to listen to rhymes and poems.

Staff support children to learn new vocabulary very well. For example, they modelled new words and practised their use with children while making model cakes.

They helped children to use words accurately when describing how to fill containers with water. Staff help to deepen children's curiosity and creativity. Children loved developing videos of their space mission and role playing their ideas about pirate stories.

Staff encourage children to be adventurous and take measured risks. Children took great delight and showed determination and resilience in swinging across bars on the climbing frame.

Leaders identify the needs of children with SEND very carefully.

They work diligently with external agencies so that they can provide children with help and guidance they need. Staff make appropriate adaptions to activities and support children with SEND very well. This helps these children to learn very successfully.

Leaders enhance the curriculum further with many visits. For instance, children take part in many outings to the local area, visit the landmarks of London and use public transport. Staff help to develop children's wider interests through regular art and music activities.

This leads to exciting work, for example when children created their own wall designs and music compositions. Children really enjoyed sharing their performances and artwork.

Staff help develop children's behaviour with great expertise.

They encourage children to think about their behaviour and how it affects others. Staff support children to make choices, such as deciding on their meals as part of a 'family table' at lunchtimes. Each child has a trusted adult who takes a particular interest in their welfare.

Consequently, children are very well supported and play well together. They cooperate when sharing equipment. Staff make sure children settle into the school environment very quickly.

This helps children to learn without interruption.

The governing body reviews the quality of the care and education children receive regularly. They know the school well and support and challenge school leaders consistently.

Leaders are considerate of staff's workload and well-being.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Leaders make sure that all staff complete regular training to ensure their safeguarding knowledge is up to date.

Staff contribute to a strong safeguarding culture, including the reporting procedures. Leaders build strong links to appropriate external agencies. Consequently, they are aware of the procedures to follow should there be any concerns regarding a child's welfare.

Leaders take children's safety very seriously, including making sure that children are kept safe during outings. Staff help children are learn how to play safely.

Background

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

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 outstanding in December 2017.

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