Martenscroft Nursery School & Children’s Centre

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Children are provided with an exceptional start to their education at this school. The school is highly ambitious for children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

Children are immersed in a curriculum that teaches them about where they live and the different cultures that make up their community.

Children happily come to school. They are keen to learn.

Children benefit from carefully chosen learning activities that build on what they already know. These activities are delivered by skilled staff, who have a deep knowledge and understanding of child development. Many children, including those with SEND, achieve extremely ...well.

The school has high expectations of children's behaviour. When children join the two-year-old provision, they quickly learn the importance of sharing, cooperating and taking turns. Children in the Nursery class are extremely well equipped with the vocabulary that they need to express their feelings.

This helps them to confidently seek help and support from adults and from one another.

Children make a positive contribution to their community. For example, they explore the impact of discarded plastic containers on wildlife.

Such knowledge encourages them to carry out litter picks in the local community to help improve the environment.

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

The curriculum is highly aspirational. The school has used the expertise of staff across the setting to meticulously map out the important knowledge that children should learn through to the end of the Nursery Year.

This helps staff to know how they should build on children's knowledge as they move throughout the provision.

The school has put highly effective systems in place to accurately identify the additional needs of children with SEND. Staff use well-chosen activities and resources to ensure that children with SEND access the same curriculum as their classmates.

Staff use assessment information extremely well. They identify any small gaps in children's knowledge and make sure that these are resolved quickly. This means that children's knowledge is fully secure before they move on to exploring new ideas.

Children, including those with SEND, are exceptionally well prepared for the next stage of education.

The development of children's communication and language is seamlessly woven across the different areas of learning. The highly effective and consistent approach to language development begins with the two-year-old children.

This continues across the school. Many children have English as an additional language. Staff skilfully introduce children to new and interesting vocabulary as part of the different learning activities.

Children hear lots of carefully chosen language expertly repeated and modelled to them by staff. As a result, most children become very confident communicators by the end of the Nursery Year.

Children experience a broad range of books from the moment that they join the school.

These books are carefully chosen to support children to learn the words and phrases that they need at the different stages of language development. Children's access to books is further enhanced by a wide range of nursery rhymes and songs that they regularly enjoy listening to and joining in with.

The school's clear rules and routines help to create calm classrooms in which children learn and flourish.

Children act sensibly, take care of resources and are extremely considerate towards one another. The school works exceptionally well with families to ensure that children attend the nursery regularly. This helps children to benefit from the excellent standard of education that it provides.

Children learn about the important celebrations in different cultures. They begin to understand which foods and drinks are healthy for them. This is modelled in school with children eating a range of healthy snacks and drinking either milk or water.

Visits from police officers and members of the fire service help children to learn about keeping themselves safe. The school provides an exceptional range of opportunities to promote children's personal development.

Governors work in close collaboration with the school to make sure that the excellent standard of education is maintained.

Partnerships with universities, galleries and museums further enhance the quality of education. Leaders at all levels are focused on giving children the best possible start to education. The school has highly effective relationships with parents and carers.

For example, staff regularly organise parent workshops to explain what children are learning and to support parents with routines in the home.

Staff are extremely proud to work at the school and value the consideration and support that the school shows towards them. For example, they welcome the training that they receive, which helps them to deliver the curriculum exceptionally well.

Staff appreciate the school's actions to keep paperwork to a minimum. This ensures that staff use most of their time helping children learn.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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