Creswell CofE Controlled Infant and Nursery

Overview

Creswell CofE Controlled Infant and Nursery has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection. Pupils feel happy, safe and valued, benefiting from warm relationships with staff who demonstrate good manners and respect. The school is ambitious for all pupils, with a curriculum that ensures clear progression of knowledge and skills from Nursery through to Year 2.

Strengths

• Pupils achieve well across a broad, balanced and ambitious curriculum, with staff revisiting key content to ensure retention, particularly in mathematics.
• There is a sharp focus on communication and language from the start, with early years staff skilfully developing children’s vocabularies during play.
• Staff provide high levels of care and support for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities, making effective adaptations to learning activities.
• The school has transformed its approach to behaviour management, leading to a dramatic fall in serious incidents and a significant reduction in persistent absence.
• Pupils have positive attitudes to reading, with staff teaching phonics well and providing swift support for those who fall behind.

Areas to improve

• The school should ensure that writing tasks are well matched to pupils’ next steps in learning, rather than asking them to compose complex texts before securing spelling and handwriting skills.
• The school should ensure that the new behaviour policy is applied consistently by staff to help all pupils acquire positive attitudes to learning and high levels of engagement.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.