The Castle Nursery School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 14 September 2023

The Castle Nursery School is a happy, welcoming place. Children enjoy learning here. Parents spoken to say their children settle in quickly and love coming to school. The school is proud of children's regular attendance. Children and families form positive relationships with the caring adults who provide care for them. The school is ambitious for children. Since the headteacher's appointment, many changes have taken place. All staff share a determination to provide exemplary care for the children. Children are encouraged to be curious and independent. The school's curriculum has been carefully planned to promote this, with communication and language development at the heart of all learning. The exciting learning opportunities offered, especially in the outside areas, enable all children to make good progress. The school helps children to learn about feelings and emotions. They promote kind and caring behaviour. This supports children to learn how to play together. Consequently, behaviour is usually positive, and children play cooperatively. If they do 'fall out', most staff use these situations to discuss how this upsets others. However, sometimes the opportunities to help children understand the consequences of their behaviour are missed.

What the school should improve

• The school's well-planned curriculum for developing communication, language and literacy is not always implemented as intended. This means that there are often missed opportunities to engage children in talk and support their language development. The school should ensure that staff fully understand how to encourage, support and model talk to help children use new vocabulary and develop understanding of language structures.
• While monitoring systems are in place, they do not always identify where there is variation in practice. For example, not all incidents of inappropriate behaviour are dealt with consistently. The school should ensure that all staff fully understand new approaches and implement them effectively.

Read the full Ofsted report (opens in a new tab)