Happy infants 'excel' at Nyewood Infant School

The first inspection of Nyewood CofE Infant School in five-and-a-half years showed that its 209 pupils were delighted by spending time in their classrooms.

Lead inspector Diane Wilkinson said enjoyment played a large part in their excellent attitudes to learning.

"...an especially strong feature is an enthusiasm of staff which inspires pupils to embark on an exciting learning journey, enjoying their successes and wanting to come back for more.

"Pupils love coming to school, work hard and try to do their best. As a result, they achieve well," she said.

"Basic literacy and numeracy skills are especially well taught and the school's determination to improve writing and calculation in mathematics has led to good progress being made in these areas in the past 12 months."

This led her and her two fellow inspectors to give the Brent Road school an overall rating of good.

She judged that staff worked well together to provide a broad range of interesting activities which generate a great enthusiasm among pupils for learning.

Ms Wilkinson praised recently-appointed headteacher Jacqueline Cobb for her impressive grasp of the school's strengths and weaknesses. Her success in gaining the confidence of everyone in the school was also commended.

"The school knows how well it is doing and where improvement is needed. Effective strategies to address weaker aspects have been put in place.

"These are already improving provision and raising standards, though both staff and governors recognise that more needs to be done in some important areas," she stated.

Mrs Cobb said: " I am pleased that Ofsted have verified all of our hard work, but most of all the governors and I are really proud of the children, the staff and the families we support in our school community."

She was told by the inspectors to tell the children more often about their targets and to strengthen the new activities to help boys to do as well as girls.

The separate inspection of Anglican schools also judged the school as good.

The rating reflected the strong Christian ethos of care that is reflected in all areas of school life.

That report stated all pupils were happy, felt valued and realised everyone was special.

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