Bordon Infant School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Bordon Infant School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils love to learn at this welcoming and nurturing school. They are happy to come to school, and say that staff are kind.

Staff have high aspirations for all pupils. They strive for all pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), to achieve their very best. Pupils rise to this challenge well.

They work hard in lessons and take their learning seriously.

Relationships between adults and children are warm and respectful. When talking to adults, pupils are polite and confident.

Bullying is not tolerated. There are clear systems i...n place to resolve bullying incidents quickly when they occur. In addition, pupils trust staff implicitly to help them if they are worried or upset.

Leaders seek to inspire pupils through a variety of rich experiences. Trips to places such as Southsea Castle and a local military museum enrich the curriculum. Visitors into school, such as a mini farm and the NSPCC charity, broaden pupils' understanding of the world and teach them how to stay safe.

Furthermore, leaders help pupils make effective contributions to their local community. Most recently, pupils have done this by collecting food for the local food bank.

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

Leaders are ambitious for all pupils to achieve well.

Leaders have designed a broad and ambitious curriculum which identifies the important knowledge that pupils need to learn. Generally, this knowledge builds in a coherent sequence right from the start of Reception to the end of Year 2. Where this is most effective, the precise concepts that pupils need to learn and the order they need to learn them in are identified clearly.

This enables teachers to design tasks that help pupils to learn well. For example, in Reception, when learning about the concept of 'four', children developed secure understanding through tightly focused activities. This included seeing different patterns of four dots several times in various orientations.

However, sometimes, in some subjects, the knowledge that teachers need to teach, and when they need to teach it, is not identified in enough detail. This means that teachers are not able to design tasks which secure and deepen pupils' understanding effectively. In addition, in some subjects, the curriculum sequence does not always provide sufficient opportunities for pupils to review and revisit the important knowledge they need to remember.

This means that sometimes pupils struggle to recall previous learning.

Leaders are ambitious for all pupils with SEND to achieve highly. Leaders have ensured that recent adaptations to classroom practice support pupils with SEND to access the full curriculum alongside their peers.

Leaders rightly recognise that these adaptations also impact positively on how well all pupils learn the curriculum. As a result, teachers now use these strategies in all lessons for all pupils.

Leaders prioritise reading.

They want pupils to love reading. Teachers read high-quality texts to pupils regularly. The keen engagement of pupils as they listen to stories is a joy to watch.

They join in with familiar rhymes enthusiastically and readily share their opinions of books. Children learn phonics right from the start of Reception using a consistent, highly effective approach to learning to read. Pupils read books that are closely matched to the sounds they know, so they get the practice they need to read with confidence.

Adult support for the weakest readers is systematically planned and effective. This means that almost all pupils learn to read fluently by the end of Year 1.

Pupils have highly positive attitudes to learning.

They behave very well in lessons and around the school. Low-level disruption is rare. This is because pupils do not tolerate anyone trying to distract them.

Leaders also recognise the importance of developing pupils' confidence and resilience. Opportunities to perform, including in assemblies to parents, build confidence in speaking to an audience. Deliberate teaching of strategies to cope in difficult situations promotes resilience for all pupils at the school.

Pupils enjoy making a difference to the school. The 'Young Governors' are rightly proud of the improvements they have made to lunchtimes. They have encouraged better eating habits and good table manners in the dining room.

Furthermore, the playground monitors speak confidently about why they need to keep the playground equipment safe and tidy. They recognise that the large amount of outdoor equipment they have ensures fun playtimes for everyone.

Staff are highly positive about the school.

They feel that leaders and governors support them well to manage their workload. Staff's time is definitely prioritised so they can focus on actions that have the most impact on pupils' learning.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Leaders have established a strong culture of vigilance. They complete all appropriate checks to ensure that adults in school are safe to work with children. Staff know exactly what to do if they have a concern about a child.

Comprehensive systems for recording concerns ensure leaders identify pupils at risk of harm promptly. When necessary, leaders make swift referrals to external agencies. This ensures that pupils and their families get the help they need quickly.

Pupils learn age-appropriate knowledge about keeping safe online. They know to talk to a trusted adult if they see or hear something online which upsets or worries them.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• In a minority of subjects, leaders have not identified with enough precision what teachers need to teach and when they need to teach it.

As a result, pupils do not always build knowledge consistently well across all subjects, and sometimes struggle to recall prior learning securely. Leaders need to strengthen and refine the curriculum further so that all pupils achieve well across the whole curriculum.

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 second ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in January 2012.

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