An Outstanding School! Ashmore Park Nursery School

With the announcements in the Express and Star last night that suggested that Schools in Wolverhampton had not been judged particularly well by OFSTED.
I thought it was worth reminding Wednesfield people of the great result Ashmore Park Nursery received. When Ofsted visited and inspected the school in 2009.

The nursery and children's centre provide an outstanding quality of service to the local community. Children get a superb start to their education. Parents receive excellent support and first-class guidance to obtain the services that they require. Both the nursery and children's centre have developed outstanding links with various agencies such as speech and language therapists, health visitors and social services. This ensures that parents get help quickly, and this immediate intervention impacts very positively on children's learning and well-being. The centre was opened in November 2008, and whilst the headteacher is still in the process of streamlining systems and procedures to ensure parity of provision, outcomes for all groups of children are exemplary and parents are unanimous in their support of both the nursery and the children's centre.

Children of all abilities and backgrounds settle very successfully into nursery and centre life. This is because they have very secure relationships with all staff, and especially with their key workers. Staff provide excellent care guidance and support, and are particularly effective in identifying the uniqueness of each child through exceptionally thorough observations and assessments. One parent summed it up by saying, 'The staff know our children as well as we do. We are always made to feel welcome and we are so proud of our nursery and centre.' The success of both the nursery and the centre is attributable to the excellent leadership and management of the headteacher, senior leadership team and governing body, who are passionate about giving children the best start in life. Nursery self-evaluation is thorough and accurate, and termly reviews of the impact of all aspects of provision on children's outcomes are undertaken. This ensures that speedy interventions are put in place to address any aspects of underachievement, and results in children making outstanding progress in all areas of learning.

Children enter the nursery with levels of attainment well below those expected for children of their age, and leave exceeding the levels expected of them in all areas of learning. Their excellent outcomes are attributable to excellent teaching, which is characterised by very thorough planning, and informed by rigorous assessment and knowledge of children's individual preferences and learning styles. There is no difference in the achievement of different groups. Children with learning difficulties and/or disabilities make excellent progress because of regular reviews, targeted support and excellent implementation of their individual targets in lessons. The excellent leadership and management of special educational needs provision have ensured an inclusive environment where all children can succeed in relation to their given starting points. The nursery has made very good improvement since its last inspection and has closed the gender gap between boys and girls, especially in writing. Nevertheless, in lessons observed there have been some missed opportunities for children capable of higher attainment to develop their early reading skills.

In lessons, not a moment is wasted. Relationships with children and care for their well-being are outstanding. Children's interest levels are taken into account and every opportunity is taken to develop children's language and thinking skills. When using water colours to paint a butterfly, the class teacher asked a small group of children to make the pattern 'symmetrical'. Children quickly understood the concept because of excellent explanations. The nursery has taken a bold step in ensuring that children use a very good range of natural resources and that wall displays are simple, purposeful and not over-cluttered with colour. This has had an outstanding effect of children's concentration, creativity and thinking skills. This 'less is more' philosophy is paying dividends in developing very positive attitudes to learning.

Children's personal development and well-being, as well as their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, are outstanding and supported by excellent curriculum planning. The curriculum is broad and balanced and covers all areas of learning. It encourages children to develop their interests through exploration. Children have excellent knowledge of healthy lifestyles, and they encourage their parents to eat fruit (kiwi being their favourite!). Excellent outdoor provision extends children's learning. Children behave exceptionally well and have a love and desire to learn. Discussion times enable children to learn extremely well about how to keep themselves safe. Safeguarding procedures in the nursery and centre meet requirements. Children love learning because they enjoy all of their activities and staff ensure that they experience success in their undertakings, for example when they support children outdoors whilst they manoeuvre equipment over 'the bridge'. Attendance is good and some parents say that they regret that the nursery is not open at weekends because their children love coming to the nursery.

Children's contribution to the nursery and local community is outstanding. Visits to the allotments, for example, have developed very good links with senior members of the local community. There is still room for improvement in ensuring that children have a greater awareness of the diversity of multicultural Britain. A very successful visit was undertaken to Wolverhampton where children visited the theatre and art gallery, and this provided an excellent stimulus for learning about the local environment. Many opportunities were followed up in the nursery such as making mosaics and exploring bridge structures in art work. Children are exceptionally well prepared for their next stages of education. They are confident, articulate, polite, very good team players and have mastered basic skills in order to access the curriculum.

The leadership and management of this highly successful nursery and centre are not complacent. The chair of the governing body commented, 'The headteacher's ability to engage the whole workforce, parents and governors has created a united workforce with an excellent ability to continue to improve.'