Dorking Nursery School

Overview

Dorking Nursery School is described as a “happy, busy” setting where children are “consistently well prepared for the next stage of their education.” The report highlights a “nurturing and harmonious culture” with “strong standard” outcomes in achievement, attendance, inclusion, leadership, and personal development, while curriculum and teaching meet the “expected standard.”

Strengths

• Children make “impressive progress” in physical, personal, social, and emotional development, acquiring “firm foundations in early reading, writing and mathematics.”
• The school is “highly inclusive,” with leaders providing “care and attention” to individual needs, including for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities.
• Staff demonstrate “consistently high expectations” and are “very knowledgeable about how to support children to behave well,” resulting in children who “behave extremely well.”
• Leaders and governors are “determined to provide the very best education,” maintaining a “cohesive staff team” during a period of rapid growth.
• Parents are “overwhelmingly positive,” describing the school’s impact as “miracle workers” and “life-changing.”

Areas to improve

• Leaders should ensure staff know the “precise learning focus of each activity” so interactions consistently develop “key knowledge and vocabulary.”
• Leaders should maintain their focus on ensuring “consistently strong standards across all areas of the school’s work.”

Safeguarding

The safeguarding standards are met, with an “open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility” ensuring pupils are “made safer and feel safe.”