Hampton Infant School and Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils thrive in this nurturing and supportive school. They benefit from positive and respectful relationships with adults and other pupils. This starts in the early years, where children learn to play well together.

These strong foundations, together with clear and consistent expectations, mean that pupils' behaviour is exemplary. Pupils enjoy receiving 'Bee' rewards. These are awarded to celebrate the school's values, such as resilience or inclusivity.

The school develops pupils' knowledge and confidence through a rich curriculum and thoughtfully planned wider experiences. Pupils excel in all aspects of their learning. This is because the school has very high academ...ic ambitions for all pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

Pupils are rightly very proud of the work that they produce in different subjects. They are exceptionally well prepared for the next stage of their education.

The school promotes responsibility and independence in pupils, starting from early years.

For example, pupils represent their peers as part of the school council. Pupils' ideas have driven changes within the school, such as establishing different zones for activities in the playground. Pupils take these responsibilities seriously because they know that their ideas are listened to.

Through this, pupils learn to understand the importance of democracy and how it works.

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

The school has designed a highly rigorous and ambitious curriculum. In each subject, important knowledge is explicitly identified and sequenced so that pupils return to and deepen their understanding.

This careful curriculum thinking starts from early years onwards. For example, in mathematics, children in Nursery learn about how numbers work, building a strong foundation of knowledge for numbers to 5. Older pupils expand on this knowledge further by working with more complex operations and numbers to 100.

Similarly, children in early years learn about themselves and their families, developing an understanding of where they live and a sense of place. This provides a strong foundation for their future learning in geography. For example, in Year 2, pupils broaden their knowledge by identifying and exploring geographical features in the local area.

Effective use is made of assessment to check that pupils understand what they have learned. Teachers routinely identify and address any misconceptions to ensure that they do not persist and limit pupils' understanding. This helps pupils to develop an excellent understanding of key ideas and concepts across the curriculum.

A strong reading culture is evident across the school. Children in the Nursery practise listening to and recognising sounds that they hear around them. This helps to get them ready to learn to read using phonics.

This foundation is then carefully built on further through the well-delivered phonics programme. All staff are trained and supported to be experts in the teaching of reading. Pupils practise reading with books that are consistently well matched to the sounds that they know.

This helps to ensure that they develop as confident and fluent readers. Timely and appropriate extra teaching support is put in place for those pupils who need additional help to read well. The school selects ambitious texts to ensure that, in each year group, pupils are exposed to a broad and rich range of literature.

Pupils with SEND are swiftly identified. The school works well with external agencies and specialists to establish the right types of support based on pupils' needs. This information is communicated with staff, who make appropriate adaptations to tasks and activities across subjects.

This means that pupils with SEND are very well supported to access the same ambitious curriculum as their peers, wherever possible.

The provision for pupils' wider personal development is exceptional, from early years through to Year 2. A wide variety of enrichment activities are available.

These are popular and appreciated by pupils. Examples include drama, tennis, chess, dance, sewing and coding. Pupils are taught about issues such as equality and diversity and have plentiful opportunities to discuss these further during their weekly assemblies.

Intertwined within the curriculum are purposeful educational outings, visits and workshops that enrich pupils' education further. Pupils also enjoy singing in the school choir and have performed at venues such as the Rose Theatre.

Pupils' behaviour around the school and attitudes to their learning are exemplary, including in early years.

This is because pupils understand the well-established routines that help them to behave well and consistently focus on learning. The school has effective systems in place to support families to ensure that their children attend school regularly and on time.

Staff appreciate the support that they receive from the school to develop professionally and to manage their workload and well-being.

Leaders and those responsible for governance have a detailed and accurate understanding of the school's effectiveness. They are ambitious for pupils and keen to develop the excellent provision on offer even further.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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