News

Delighted to be throwing more good news your way, and this time, it’s from Houghton Community Nursery School!

The school, which is a large Local Authority (LA) maintained school, has achieved the IQM Inclusive School Award for Outstanding Education for Children.

Congratulations to everybody involved in this wonderful achievement! It’s always a pleasure to learn when one of our region’s schools gets the recognition it deserves.

Outstanding education for a diverse community

Houghton Community Nursery School provides outstanding education for children aged between 0-5 years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the school was also given a rating of ‘Outstanding’ in its last Ofsted inspection in November 2019.

The school, which is part of a hard Federation with Mill Hill Nursery School and is based in Houghton-Le-Spring, prides itself on a long-standing commitment to inclusion, and a drive towards providing the best education to all of its pupils. These qualities were indeed recognised by the IQM!

All staff, including the leadership team and governors, are experienced in working with a range of children and their families, the IQM assessor celebrated.. To ensure the individual needs of children are met, the team carefully adapts the curriculum, environment, teaching, and learning when necessary.

Additionally, it was reported that the nursery school caters extremely well for those children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Individual programmes of support ensure that these children make the progress they should.

Highly skilled staff who never fail to put the children first

The IQM assessor highlighted that staff at Houghton Nursery School are highly skilled, extremely reflective and constantly reviewing practice and the learning environment to ensure it meets the needs of all its learners and that every child reaches their full potential.

As well as this, they said that leaders have high ambitions for what they want their children to learn and their plans identify what children should learn.

The report highlighted: “Staff are proud to work at the nursery school and feel supported and appreciated. The Head Teacher, Leaders, Governors and staff share a passion for early year’s education that leads them to provide the best they can for all the children who attend their nursery school.

“All the adults who work with the children are highly skilled at questioning them and deepening their understanding.”

The children are extremely happy

Of course, our region’s children come first and should always be at the heart of every decision we make in the sector.

For children at Houghton Community Nursery School, this appears to be exactly the case! And that’s certainly something worth celebrating.

The IQM article continued: “Children are extremely happy and come into nursery and settle quickly. Children meet the high expectations that adults have for them in both their learning and behaviour.

“As a result, a sense of calm pervades every learning space. Children are very considerate towards each other and play well alongside each other. They learn to share and take turns, expressing their emotions using words or symbols. Children have time to explore their interests and engage with a range of indoor and outdoor learning experiences with confidence.

“The children enjoy Forest School and beach school activities, which helps the children to develop their resilience and learn to take risks. Children make rapid progress because they benefit from a rich and varied curriculum that stimulates them and extends their thinking.

“Houghton Nursery School has a strong community feel. Parents/Carers really appreciate the support that staff provide to them and their children. One parent commented how, ‘it’s like a family and she has also made friends.’ Parents are delighted with the nursery school and how their children thrive.”

Houghton Community Nursery School is a Schools North East Partner School . If you’d like to find out more about our Partner School membership, click here.

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