Hazel Wood Infant School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

The school's determination for pupils to experience a 'journey of opportunities' means that they thrive and flourish. The values of independence, creativity, resilience, and teamwork thread through the curriculum themes.

These form the basis for consistently high expectations for pupils' learning and behaviour. Pupils are highly motivated in their lessons and achieve extremely well. Their behaviour is exemplary at all times.

The school listens and responds to pupils, giving them a strong voice in shaping systems and procedures. At breaktimes, activities and equipment such as chalk and boards are available, following pupils' requests. Pupils take an active part in orga...nising and running games for their friends, such as 'What's the time, Mr Wolf?' Members of the school council are proud of their contributions to the sensory garden and to restoring the pond.

Parents and carers are overwhelmingly positive in their feedback about the school. From the moment their children start in early years, they feel part of the school family. They receive helpful information to allow them to support learning at home.

This offer includes opportunities to attend reading and mathematics workshops and lessons, working alongside their children. Families value how the school helps them to feel connected with the local community, including participation in Totton's Christmas lantern parade.

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

The school has designed a curriculum that enables all pupils to be successful.

Barriers to learning are examined carefully and addressed for all pupils. This means that disadvantaged pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, are extremely well supported and, as a result, achieve very well. Teaching staff are highly skilled because they embrace all training opportunities made available to them.

Consequently, they are clear about how the curriculum, in every subject, builds from early years to Year 2. Subject leaders are experts and share this expertise through a strong culture of support and coaching. The governing body is thorough in the way it examines the school's strategic plan and is unwavering in its high ambition for all pupils.

Every decision is evaluated in terms of its impact on pupils' learning and enjoyment.

Children get off to a really strong start in early years. They access a well-thought-through environment with an appropriate balance of teacher-led activities and their own 'discovery time'.

The effective development of children's communication and language sits at the heart of this provision. Teaching staff promote conversation very well, and this widens children's vocabulary successfully. Children are emotionally secure.

They show they can share and take turns when using equipment in the mud kitchen and sand pit. They demonstrate high levels of resilience and teamwork when completing their learning challenges. The environment is rich with numbers and letters and children refer to them in their mark making.

During the inspection, many were writing celebration cards to their families and enjoying a Christmas-themed treasure hunt. Children showed that they could use their growing knowledge of letter sounds when writing or solving clues.

Reading is taught exceptionally well.

From the start of early years, children learn their letter sounds and use them to read with increasing fluency and enjoyment. Pupils who need extra help are supported well, through a highly personalised approach, which allows them to catch up quickly. The school's many motivational reading rewards, including the 'ready, steady, read marathon' are highly effective at encouraging pupils to read a wide range of text types.

Pupils enjoy hearing their teaching staff read to them. These include books from the diverse 'windows and mirrors' collection which allow pupils to learn about differing cultures and discuss moral dilemmas.

Teaching ensures that pupils successfully accumulate and apply their learning across the curriculum.

This is particularly evident in the teaching of mathematics. Pupils become extremely confident and skilled mathematicians because they have strong recall of their prior learning and then apply it in mathematical investigations and problem-solving. This expertise is also evident in the high standard of pupils' writing.

Pupils show they can apply their knowledge from English lessons in other subjects. For example, in history, pupils write letters to Queen Victoria describing the nursing conditions that Florence Nightingale experiences. This writing clearly shows how pupils apply their grammar and persuasive writing skills from recent English lessons to their learning in other subjects.

The school places high emphasis on pupils' personal development. Pupils show empathy and kindness and know the value in making others feel happy. They sing at local care homes as part of the choir and make pictures to be displayed in hospital wards.

Pupils have meaningful opportunities to develop their entrepreneurial skills through charity work and running stalls at the school's fundraising events. They enjoy their after-school clubs and the weekly 'Rise and Shine' event.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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