Ensuring high-quality Foundation Phase teaching
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Information about the school
Cogan Nursery School is in Penarth in the Vale of Glamorgan. At the time of the inspection there were 50 children on roll aged three to four years. Children attend part-time in either the morning or the afternoon.
At the time of writing, 16% of children have been identified as having special educational needs, and around 38% of children come from an ethnic minority background or have English as an additional language.
Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
The foundation phase curriculum has been fully implemented at Cogan Nursery School. Practitioners are constantly reviewing their practices to ensure that they provide the best possible learning activities for all learners. The activities are primarily developed as a result of the children’s interests. Through providing these opportunities, as well as some discrete teaching, staff enable learners to develop a comprehensive range of skills and knowledge as they play.
All practitioners devise, plan and evaluate activities together. Discussions involve consideration of children’s current interests. Practitioners’ understanding of effective foundation phase provision and child development enables them to support the children to lead their own learning when accessing the activities. The school has a strong focus on children independently moving around the indoor and outdoor provision, with practitioners acting to monitor and support the children as needed.
The headteacher and governors at Cogan Nursery School believe our most important resource is our staff. As such, a considerable investment has been made in ensuring that the teaching at our nursery is consistently of a high quality, which aligns fully with the foundation phase ethos.
Description of nature of strategy or activity
There are high expectations of all practitioners, who are supported to work as a highly effective team. All are highly skilled professionals with a thorough understanding of foundation phase practice.
Every practitioner is valued and each person’s strengths are recognised. These strengths are shared with other practitioners to develop their understanding and practice, as well as to lead initiatives. Examples include practitioners who are trained in the use of sign language sharing this knowledge with others, so that signing is used by everyone to support children with communication difficulties; and a member of staff who is a qualified gymnastics coach supports other staff members to deliver physical activity sessions.
There are robust procedures in place to manage the performance of all practitioners, and leaders ensure that all have suitable opportunities for effective professional development. Staff training and continued professional development, as well as staff empowerment to take responsibility for their own practice, have contributed to the consistently high quality of teaching and learning at the nursery. There is consistency in everything practitioners do, for example the thoughtful and effective use of a range of different types of questions when challenging children to improve their skills and develop their understanding.
At nursery, the children are encouraged to move independently around all the many areas both inside and outside. It is the staff who are timetabled to be in a particular area. All staff work together to devise and plan the learning experiences together. This also helps to ensure the consistency in teaching and learning that is evident.
What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?
This practice has had a significant impact on all the provision at the nursery. All practitioners are highly skilled professionals with a thorough knowledge of foundation phase practice. They know each child exceptionally well and use this knowledge to challenge children to achieve at a high level.
All staff devise and plan learning experiences and evaluate them, together. During activities and when supporting children in their play, practitioners skilfully identify the needs and interests of the children at any moment in time and modify their questioning and teaching accordingly.
Practitioners also ensure that there is a balance of challenge and support for the children, and consistently encourage children to attempt tasks before intervening. This means that, after only a short time at nursery, the children lead their own learning.
This practice has an extremely positive impact on the progress the children make and the standards they achieve. Most children join the nursery with literacy, numeracy and personal and social skills below those expected for their age. Nearly all children make good progress in the development of their skills during their time at nursery and, in many cases, make very good progress.
How have you shared your good practice?
The nursery has welcomed staff from many schools within their consortium to share their practice.