Hadleigh Infant and Nursery School

Overview

Hadleigh Infant and Nursery School has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection. Pupils happily attend the school, where positive relationships create a safe space for learning and sharing concerns. The school continues to provide a high-quality education with strong behaviour and effective support for all pupils.

Strengths

• Pupils behave well, understand routines, and display empathy, creating a ‘supportive environment that pupils love to be part of’.
• Teachers have high expectations and use clear methods, enabling pupils to ‘retain new knowledge’ and develop a ‘well-rounded vocabulary’.
• The school prioritises reading, with skilled staff teaching phonics accurately and providing ‘targeted and effective extra support’ for those needing help.
• Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are accurately identified and make progress ‘in line with their peers’ through tailored strategies.
• Early years staff ‘ably prepare children... for the next stage of their education’, ensuring a strong base in phonics and mathematics.

Areas to improve

• In some subjects, teachers do not use checks on pupil understanding effectively to build on prior knowledge, which ‘slows the progress they make across the curriculum’.
• Some trustees lack a secure understanding of the school’s impact, preventing them from ‘fully holding leaders to account’ for performance.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.