Brightside Nursery and Infant School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

This school provides an exceptional education for its pupils.

Well trained and caring staff support pupils extremely well in their education and personal development. They foster a 'family feel'. This helps pupils to feel safe.

The school's high expectations ensure that opportunities for purposeful learning experiences are maximised throughout the day.

Pupils are polite and respectful. They are courteous to adults and visitors.

Pupils consistently demonstrate extremely positive attitudes to their learning. A high proportion of pupils join the school at different times of the school year. The school supports them well to settle in quickly.

Pu...pils enjoy making new friends. The school has ensured that the curriculum provides high-quality opportunities for pupils to learn about the world around them. Visits to places in the local community, and further afield, enable pupils to learn about places beyond where they live.

Pupils with leadership roles in school carry these out responsibly. Members of the school council confidently contribute ideas to develop the school.

Parent and toddler groups, curriculum workshops and coffee mornings establish strong partnerships between home and school.

This helps parents and carers to find out about what their child is learning in school and how to support them at home.

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

Leaders, including those with responsibility for governance, are resolute in their ambition for all pupils. The school has ensured that the knowledge and skills that pupils must learn is carefully broken down into small steps.

Teachers regularly check what pupils know and remember. The school frequently reviews the curriculum. Where necessary, refinements are made to it so that it meets the needs of individual cohorts of pupils.

The school ensures that pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), and those who speak English as an additional language (EAL), fully benefit from the curriculum. Teachers explain new learning clearly. Teaching assistants provide high quality support to pupils.

They consistently reinforce important learning and vocabulary when working with individual pupils and groups. During their time at the school, pupils benefit greatly from the broad range of learning opportunities provided by the curriculum.

The school prioritises the development of reading.

Children in Nursery learn to identify sounds that they hear through songs, rhymes and poems. In Reception, children begin to learn phonics from the very start of the academic year. Pupils read books that are matched to their stage of reading.

They enjoy listening to stories that are read to them by adults at the end of the school day. This, along with a range of other strategies, such as the outside library, encourage a love of reading for pupils.

Children in the early years make a strong start to their education.

They enjoy exploring learning activities in the classroom and outside. High-quality interactions between adults and children create an environment in which communication and language is constantly developed. Staff model how to say words, form sentences and ask questions.

This enables children to communicate with increasing confidence. Adults skilfully develop and enrich learning experiences by connecting what children already know to new concepts. During the inspection, an adult worked with a group of children to help them find out about different types of creatures that live in a garden.

Through this, children were effectively supported to use language such as 'bigger than' or 'the same as' to describe the similarities and differences between insects. Through on-going refinement of the curriculum, informed by regular checks on children's development, the school provides children with the skills that they need to become independent learners. This prepares children extremely well for the demands of the key stage 1 curriculum.

The school's personal, social and health education curriculum supports pupils to learn how to keep themselves physically and mentally healthy. This is further supported by healthy mind ambassadors. These pupils promote important messages, such as why it is important to eat healthy food, to their peers.

Pupils demonstrate an age-appropriate understanding of different faiths and cultures. Some pupils told an inspector that this helps them to understand each other and get on with people.

The school has established processes to support and promote high attendance.

It regularly tracks and monitors attendance. The school's actions have resulted in pupils attending school more regularly. This is particularly notable for disadvantaged pupils.

Governors are well known members of the school's community. They visit the school regularly. Governors use their visits to check that decisions that are made are having the intended impact.

Leaders ensure that staff benefit from regular, high-quality training and support. Staff speak overwhelmingly positively about the support and coaching that they receive. This refines their practice.

Over time, the school has supported an impressive number of support staff to train and qualify as teachers. The school is benefiting significantly from this long-term development of its staff.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.