Ham Drive Nursery School and Day Care

Philosophy: Their example of professionalism and their effective management of children’s personal as well as academic development are at the heart of the school’s ethos.

Activities: Staff ensure that activities hold children’s interest as well as covering all required aspects of the curriculum.

Skills , Knowledge and Behavior: Children of all abilities and backgrounds achieve well. They make good progress, particularly in speaking and listening, and learning to read and write.

Communication: There are strong links between the school, parents and outside agencies that ensure children’s needs are well known and catered for.

Community Building: Nursery nurses and key workers forge outstanding relationships with children and often with their families.

Programs and Resources: Support for those with additional learning needs is well managed. Consequently, such children make at least good progress.

Staff Training: Close one-to-one and small-group support, sometimes involving visiting specialists, helps children to grow in confidence and frequently make outstanding progress.

Welcoming and Professional Staff: The headteacher’s leadership is outstanding. He is well supported by the staff and governors. Together, they make a good team and manage the school well.

Safeguarding Training: The school has robust systems in place for risk assessment including for site security, the safety of equipment and for school trips.

Play and Learning Integration: The school is very good at making learning fun and children much enjoy the challenge of choosing activities as well as responding well to staff direction and guidance.

Transition to Primary School: All children attend part-time. The vast majority remain at the school until age five when they transfer to local primary schools.

Diversity Management: Children make good progress in learning to read, benefiting from associating sounds with letters, looking at familiar stories and developing research skills from pictorial non-fiction books. The very small proportion of children whose first language is not English benefit from the same approach and make rapid progress, especially in learning how to communicate.

Child Safety Management: The school’s work to keep children safe and secure is outstanding. The school has robust systems in place for risk assessment.

Children's Safety and Security: Children feel safe and know who to turn to if they have a problem. They clearly trust staff and the very strong relationships which are common throughout the school.

Teaching Personal Safety: Children are very successfully encouraged to appreciate how to keep themselves safe. They know that electricity can be dangerous and are aware of how to cross roads safely.

Happiness and Settling: Children are extremely enthusiastic and are keen to come to school.