Old Town Infant School and Nursery

Overview

This ungraded inspection found that the school’s work “may have improved significantly across all areas” since the previous inspection, prompting a future graded review. The report describes a “nurturing environment” where pupils “blossom” and rise to high expectations, resulting in a “calm and purposeful atmosphere for learning.” Leaders maintain rigorous accountability, and the curriculum is “highly ambitious” from the Nursery upwards.

Strengths

• The curriculum is “carefully designed” with a “sharp focus on the vocabulary pupils need to learn,” enabling deep knowledge development.
• Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities “thrive,” receiving “tailored support” that enables “accelerated progress through the curriculum.”
• Disadvantaged pupils “do equally well as their peers,” with “impressive” achievements in areas such as phonics.
• The teaching of writing is “exceptional,” securing basics so that pupils’ work is of the “highest quality.”
• Staff benefit from a “comprehensive programme of professional development,” and parents feel “highly involved” through purposeful partnerships.

Areas to improve

• The school must remain “unrelenting in its determination to improve attendance for a minority of pupils who miss too much learning.”

Safeguarding

The report states that “the arrangements for safeguarding are effective.”