Bolsover Infant School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Key findings

This is a good school.'

I am very impressed with the warm and friendly atmosphere … the staff seem genuinely interested in my children.' This reflects the many positive responses made by parents and carers about the school. Pupils make good overall progress and achieve well.

Provision and progress in the Early Years Foundation Stage are particularly successful and outstanding. Teaching is good overall. The teaching of children in the Nursery and Reception classes is excellent.

That for pupils in Key Stage 1 is more varied and includes both good and some satisfactory teaching. Across the school, pupils' speaking skills are often limited. While staff use good questions to encourage pupi...ls to respond, they sometimes miss opportunities for them to discuss their ideas and develop a wider vocabulary.

The planning of lessons is good but, occasionally, when staff are working with one group of pupils, they do not ensure that other groups are calm and well- focused. Conversely, in some other lessons, pupils are not fully involved in activities and listen passively to adults. They then find it difficult to concentrate and do not produce their best work.

Behaviour is good. The school values all pupils, who say they feel safe and enjoy being there. Pupils with additional needs, including behavioural difficulties, receive effective support from skilled staff, including learning mentors.

Good leadership ensures school self-evaluation procedures are tightly focused. The headteacher is driving improvement well, as reflected in the improvement in provision for the children in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Pupils' spiritual, moral and social development is good overall, although their cultural understanding, especially their multicultural awareness, is quite limited.

Information about the school

This is a larger than the average-sized infant school. Almost all pupils are of White British heritage. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is above average.

The proportion of the pupils with disabilities or with special educational needs is close to the average. Most of these pupils have speech and language difficulties or behaviour, social and emotional difficulties. The school has achieved a range of awards recently, including National Healthy School status, a silver ECO-School award and a Derbyshire Anti-Bullying Commitment silver award.

Since the previous inspection the school has appointed a new headteacher who is now in post and approximately half the teaching staff has changed. There have been two changes of leadership to the governing body in this period and several new governors have been recently appointed. There is provision for children from the age of three in the Early Years Foundation Stage in the Nursery and Reception classes.