Yaxley Infant School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils at Yaxley Infant School are happy.

They enjoy learning about the world around them. Staff encourage pupils to be independent, curious learners. This prepares pupils well for the next stage of their education.

From the moment pupils start at the school, they are taught to be respectful and listen to others. As a result, pupils' kind and caring behaviours follow them through the school, creating, in the words of several parents, 'a family feel'.

Through staff's calm and positive relationships, pupils' behaviour is consistently good.

Pupils experience a range of innovative support to keep them focused, such as daily massage sessions.

Pup...ils feel safe and bullying rarely ever happens. Pupils have strong, trusting relationships with staff.

Support is available if pupils find school life tricky, for example attending the 'happy sad club'. Consequently, pupils are confident to talk to adults in school if they have any worries.

Most pupils attend at least one of the clubs on offer.

These include gymnastics, dance and football. The clubs enhance the curriculum to support the wider development of pupils. Other opportunities, such as being on the school council and raising money for charity, enable pupils to understand how their actions affect others.

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

Leaders have worked with staff to design a curriculum that is ambitious. The curriculum is planned to ensure pupils make links with what they already know. Leaders provide staff with effective support and training.

Therefore, staff are confident in their delivery of the curriculum. Most of the curriculum is taught by using first-hand experiences. Pupils have opportunities during each lesson to recap and then share their new learning with a partner or teacher.

Pupils are able to remember key words and concepts due to staff's skilful use of questioning and clear explanations.

Most pupils learn to read well. Pupils are enthusiastic about their reading.

Staff have strong subject knowledge and follow the chosen phonics programme well. Pupils read books that are well matched to the sounds and words they know. Pupils who are at an early stage of reading are correctly identified and assessed.

Most are receiving appropriate catch-up sessions that are having an impact. There are, however, a small number of pupils who are not having enough opportunities to practise and remember the sounds they need to learn. This is affecting the fluency and confidence of these pupils.

Children in the early years get off to a strong start. Skilled adults model behaviours and language to set the children up to be confident learners. All areas of the classroom encourage children to rehearse throughout the day what they have been learning.

Children are taught how to regulate and express their feelings. Common, shared language of 'making good choices' supports children to understand right from wrong.

The general needs of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are identified.

These pupils are supported to access the same ambitious curriculum alongside their peers. Most pupils are achieving well. The majority of staff are experienced and well trained.

However, some pupils with SEND are not having their more specific needs correctly identified and do not have precise enough targets. This leads to these pupils making less progress in their reading and writing. The monitoring of pupils with SEND has not picked up these few inconsistencies.

Consequently, these pupils are not making the progress they could.

Pupils behave well. The school characters of 'Tommy Tortoise' and 'Ritzy Rat' are central to pupils' understanding of what good behaviour looks like.

Staff are consistent in their use of rewards and 'warnings'. Older pupils in the school take care of the children in the Reception Year. Pupils take their responsibilities seriously and show a maturity beyond their age.

Leaders ensure all pupils are offered the same opportunities in the wider curriculum. These range from sports clubs to trips to the theatre and visits to the seaside and ancient castles. Pupils remember these experiences and talk excitedly about them.

The governing body carries out its statutory responsibilities well. Governors use information from their own checking to support them to ensure leaders' work is making a difference. Governors take a key role in keeping an eye on well-being and the workload of staff.

Staff are overwhelmingly positive about the support they receive, and all enjoy working at the school.

Parents spoken to, and those who responded to the Ofsted questionnaire, were, without exception, complimentary about the school. Many commented that the school is a 'special place'.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Leaders and staff know their families well. The safety and well-being of pupils is at the centre of their work.

Staff are skilled at noticing any signs that may indicate a pupil is at risk of harm. All concerns, however small, are recorded and followed up promptly. Where further support is needed, leaders are persistent at achieving this support for their families.

Pupils know how to keep themselves safe online and are aware of the dangers. The personal, social and health education (PSHE) curriculum teaches pupils to understand information about their own personal safety and relationships.

All necessary checks are carried out on adults working with pupils in school.

Ongoing training keeps staff informed of any changes in safeguarding policies.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• A small number of pupils are not having enough regular opportunities to practise the sounds and words they need to learn to improve the fluency of their reading. This means that these pupils are not catching up quickly enough.

Leaders must ensure this becomes a focus of their monitoring. They need to make sure that staff have a clearer understanding of the expectations and actions required to ensure those readers who struggle to read are supported effectively to become fluent and confident readers. ? The needs of some pupils with SEND are not always correctly identified.

Therefore, targets set are not specific enough to enable these pupils to achieve as well as they should. Leaders must ensure the current targets are more precise and closely linked to pupils' needs. Leaders also need to ensure staff have the right training to be able to review and monitor this support to ensure pupils achieve well from their starting points.

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