Scawsby Saltersgate Infant School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Scawsby Saltersgate Infant School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

There are high expectations at Scawsby Saltersgate Infant School and pupils rise to these expectations.

Pupils achieve well in reading and mathematics but do not achieve as well as they should in some other curriculum subjects.

The behaviour policy is child friendly, and all pupils understand the 'golden rules'. Most pupils behave well consistently.

For the very small proportion of pupils who struggle with self-regulating their behaviour, the school is creative in finding ways that help individual pupils calm down.

Pupils feel safe. They are happy that ...their older siblings at the junior school are welcome to come and join them at breakfast club.

Many parents are ex-pupils themselves, and this adds to the 'family-feel' of a school that is at the heart of the community.

There are lots of opportunities to develop pupils' talents and wider interests. The school makes reasonable adjustments so that all pupils can participate fully in residential and other educational visits.

The school makes the most of the local community to enrich the curriculum. When pupils learned about the religious ceremony of welcoming someone into the Christian church, in religious education, the vicar re-enacted a baptism. Pupils enjoyed pretending to be proud pupil 'parents' and 'godparents' cradling their doll in the local church.

Such vivid experiences help to bring learning to life.

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

This school is well led and managed. Staff appreciate leaders' support for their workload, their health and well-being.

The school has designed an ambitious key stage 1 curriculum in all subjects. In some subjects, such as mathematics, pupils are achieving well. This is not the case in some other curriculum subjects.

The school offers some whole-class teaching, and some opportunities for pupils to work in groups with an adult. However, for much of the time, the school has planned opportunities for pupils to self-direct their own learning throughout the curriculum. Lots of the work provided is easy enough for pupils to get on with it independently.

However, some pupils are not able to select the most appropriate task to match their academic ability. Some pupils are capable of more challenging work.

The school introduced a new curriculum for phonics in September 2022.

All staff are well trained in this, and they teach early reading and phonics consistently well. The school uses all the resources and reading books that match the phonics curriculum. As a result, pupils' achievement in reading improved significantly in 2023.

Pupils are now achieving as well as they should for their age. The school knows that in their context, a larger proportion of pupils should be achieving at the higher standard. The governing body is effectively challenging leaders to help them achieve this.

The school has recently improved its assessment arrangements. This includes breaking learning down, into much smaller steps, to track the incremental progress made by pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). This is helping the school to identify the next learning step for each pupil with SEND accurately.

The school adapts the curriculum well for pupils with SEND. They adapt resources so that all pupils with SEND can take part in lessons with their peers. Parents and carers are fully involved in discussions about their child.

These discussions start well before children start Nursery. This helps parents to support their children in their learning. Pupils with SEND are achieving well.

The school identified that pupils' behaviour sometimes disrupted learning. All staff were trained to help them meet the needs of pupils with communication and language, additional sensory or social and emotional needs. Pupils are also learning strategies to help themselves stay calm independently.

This combination has led to a significant improvement in pupils' behaviour so that disruption to learning happens very rarely now. This work undertaken by the school has been highly successful.

The school has trained all early years staff to improve the quality of adult-child interactions.

The Nursery learning environment is rich and enabling. Every opportunity is taken to help children learn when they are playing. Children show resilience and perseverance when they use tools safely.

The school prioritises language development in all interactions, whether with other children or with adults. Children's understanding of the world is enhanced by thrilling real life opportunities to make observations. For example, children draw detailed pictures of real chicks and ducklings that children have watched hatch from eggs in Nursery.

Children grow their own vegetables and then make their own soup. Children are happy, learning well and thriving in the early years.

The school has designed an effective curriculum for pupils' wider development.

Pupils have an age-appropriate understanding of equality and diversity. They know that there are different types of family structures with equal value. The school uses stories, such as 'Katie Morag Delivers the Mail', to discuss moral dilemmas, including the importance of telling the truth and making mistakes and learning from them.

Pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Some pupils in key stage 1 are not developing detailed knowledge and skills in some curriculum subjects.

The work set for pupils in these subjects does not enable pupils to achieve as well as they should. Leaders should review their pedagogical approach to curriculum implementation so that all pupils have greater opportunities to achieve the school's ambitious curriculum intent.

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 October 2014.

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