Sparhawk Infant School & Nursery

Overview

Sparhawk Infant School & Nursery has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at its previous inspection, which judged it outstanding for overall effectiveness. The report describes a calm, positive environment where pupils are successful, happy, and achieve in line with high expectations. Leaders have strengthened quality assurance and staff support, ensuring a well-organised curriculum that prepares children well for Year 1 and beyond.

Strengths

• Pupils learn important foundational knowledge securely, such as number bonds and sentence structure, with confidence growing in skills like reading, painting, and singing.
• Reading is a clear priority; phonics sessions follow a familiar structure, and targeted interventions effectively close gaps for pupils who fall behind, helping many become confident, fluent readers.
• The school provides strong support for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), tailoring provision to individual needs and increasing resources to help them access the full curriculum.
• Staff in the early years are experts in child development, aptly supporting communication skills and fine motor development through carefully designed activities.
• Leaders balance ambition with staff workload considerations, and governors play an active role in providing support and challenge.

Areas to improve

• In some subjects, teachers’ activity choices do not always enable pupils to deepen their learning, meaning pupils do not deepen their understanding well enough in certain lessons.
• The school should ensure all staff have the expertise to make informed task choices that strengthen progression through all subjects.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.