Hadleigh Infant and Nursery School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Hadleigh Infant and Nursery School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

This is a school that is extremely popular with its pupils and parents. They love the family atmosphere, and pupils radiate enthusiasm for their work.

Pupils study a wide range of subjects. A typical comment from a parent was that their child was highly engaged with their learning and they knew what to do to improve and succeed.

Pupils wear their uniforms with pride.

They grow in confidence and develop a love of learning as they move through school. They work hard in lessons. Pupils told me that poor behaviour and bullying rarely happen and that staff quickly s...ort out any problems.

Staff have high expectations of pupils. They are committed to equipping pupils with a good work ethic and with values that will enable them to make the right moral choices.

Pupils have a rich range of first-hand experiences.

They speak with enthusiasm about how they learn from visits and visitors, in particular the reptile visits that took place recently. They enjoy many outdoor learning opportunities. Teachers and teaching assistants encourage them to take responsibility for their own learning.

Leaders involve pupils in choosing and shaping learning projects.

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

This school is well led. Staff are fully supportive of the leadership team.

The overwhelming majority of those who responded to the staff survey said that the school has improved since the previous inspection. They also said that leaders do all they can to ensure that the school has a motivated, respected and effective teaching staff.

School leaders have created an ambitious and carefully planned curriculum.

Leaders want every pupil to enjoy learning, find their strengths and achieve highly. Hadleigh Infants' curriculum brings learning to life through memorable experiences such as educational visits and visitors. The curriculum also gives pupils the knowledge and skills that they need for the next stage of their learning.

Leaders have devised a learning passport for every pupil that encourages pupils to broaden their experiences and take part in many different activities, such as 'searching for worms outside' and 'tasting something you have never eaten before'. Pupils enjoy these experiences and the challenge to complete as many as possible.

Teachers know how to teach the different subjects of the national curriculum.

For example, in science and geography, they have a good subject knowledge and pupils remember what they have learned. Teachers develop pupils' skills as artists well, such as how to use different tones. In other subjects, such as history, pupils do not remember what they learned.

This is because teachers do not use the specific vocabulary of the subject.

Leaders foster a love of reading and pupils see reading as an enjoyable activity. The phonics programme is well sequenced and consistently taught.

Teachers and teaching assistants encourage pupils to develop confidence, fluency and understanding. Most pupils quickly gain the skills they need to become fluent readers. Pupils who fall behind get support to catch up.

However, the books pupils use to practise their reading are not always well matched to their phonic knowledge closely enough.

Children settle quickly in the early years. They respond well to routines and expectations.

They enjoy learning and playing together. Resources are well organised so children can select what they need. Staff join in with children as they play, to extend learning.

Both the indoor and outdoor areas give children lots of opportunities to investigate and explore. For example, during the inspection children in the Nursery were planting potatoes and were using a variety of hand tools.

Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) benefit from the same engaging curriculum as their peers and they take a full part in school activities.

They too progress through the curriculum developing key skills because teachers and teaching assistants effectively adapt planning. The special educational needs coordinator works closely with teachers and teaching assistants, giving them good advice on how they can help pupils succeed in their learning.

Pupils behave well in class and around the school.

They love to be challenged in lessons and most have positive attitudes to their learning. Leaders have worked successfully to enhance pupils' personal development and parents value the work of the school's learning mentor. Pupils are encouraged to pursue their interests.

Pupils enjoy the many after-school clubs that the school runs. These include cooking, jigsaws, gymnastics, football and Spanish.

Leaders have worked successfully to improve pupils' attendance.

Good attendance is celebrated. This encourages pupils to attend regularly. Overall attendance is improving this year as a result.

However, there are still too many disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND who are absent from school.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Pupils feel overwhelmingly safe in school, and their parents share this view.

Staff know the pupils and their families very well. They use this knowledge to help them to keep pupils safe. Leaders make sure that staff are well trained, so that they are vigilant and alert to any risks.

If an issue arises, leaders take the right steps to involve other agencies that work with children. They keep good records. Leaders make the necessary checks on the staff who join the school.

The governing body plays an effective part in safeguarding.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

Although the school year has seen an improvement, both in the overall rate of pupils' absence and the proportion of pupils who are persistently absent, disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND have attendance lower than their peers. Leaders and governors have stressed to parents the importance of good attendance.

They should, nevertheless, redouble their efforts to demonstrate the benefits of good attendance to both groups of pupils. . Work has recently begun to ensure that reading books are more closely matched to pupils' phonetic ability.

This has not yet been completed and the school has further work to do to enable pupils to read books that are closely matched to the phonics knowledge that they are taught when they are learning to read. . In some subjects pupils do not develop relevant vocabulary, this impedes their learning in the subject.

In order to improve the quality of education further, leaders should ensure that teachers promote language and vocabulary that reinforces the learning that has taken place. This will enable pupils to remember more and progress through leaders' ambitious curriculum acquiring key skills more effectively.

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 a section 8 inspection of a good school or non-exempt outstanding school. We do not give graded judgements on a section 8 inspection. However, if we find some evidence that the school could now be better than good or that standards may be declining, then the next inspection will be a section 5 inspection.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the section 8 inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will convert the section 8 inspection to a section 5 inspection immediately.

This is the first section 8 inspection since we judged Hadleigh Infant and Nursery School to be good on 4–5 May 2016.