Inspection Report - Harrison Nursery School

Harrison Nursery School

DE Ref No 511-6190

Inspection Report - October 2025

All of the staff and governors in Harrison Nursery School are wholly committed to the holistic development of each child and have created a happy, nurturing and inclusive environment in which every child is supported to feel ready to learn and where the motto ‘Where learning is fun!’ is embraced and brought to life by all.
Self-evaluation is robust, honest, collegial and informs strategic priorities for development. For example, the current focus on developing further a shared understanding of trauma-informed practices to support staff to meet more fully the changing needs of the children.
The indoor and outdoor learning environments are thoughtfully resourced with natural and everyday materials that promote creativity, imaginative thinking, risk taking and open-ended exploration. The open-plan setting, with simultaneous access to indoor and outdoor spaces, enables the children to make choices that suit their preferences, fosters autonomy and provides developmentally appropriate experiences that are engaging and accessible.
The children are exceptionally well-behaved and manage well their emotions. Behaviour is managed consistently by the staff, supported by trauma-informed practices that promote well-being and positive attitudes to learning.
The children’s communication and language skills are very well developed for the time of year. They access and use books independently; listen attentively, enjoy and respond to a story; and express their thoughts and ideas with confidence during the high-quality role play.
The children move confidently with increasing control and co-ordination, and are developing resilience, perseverance and creativity, as they navigate the exciting, challenging and thoughtfully resourced outdoor area.
The staff extend skilfully and seamlessly the children’s independence, thinking and language during the dinner routine, after which the children independently clear their own places and prepare for going home.
All of the staff are highly knowledgeable and skilled. They have a deep understanding of the pre-school curriculum, child development and the repeated patterns of play in which the children engage as they explore their environment. This supports the staff very well in tailoring their interactions, provision and planning to meet the children’s individual needs and extend learning through purposeful child-led play. The staff reflect daily on the children’s engagement in and responses to play and adapt the provision accordingly, ensuring learning remains personalised and meaningful. As a result, the children make excellent progress from their individual starting points across all areas of the pre‑school curriculum.
The school’s approach to inclusion is robust. The guiding principle, “We first meet children’s needs, and then we ask for them to learn”, reflects a deeply child-centred philosophy. Early identification of need is prioritised and Personalised Learning Plans (PLP) are implemented with clear targets and strategies. Provision mapping is detailed and ensures needs are systematically identified and addressed.
The effective use of the open-plan, free-flow environment across indoor and outdoor areas fosters a culture of collegiality and shared professional learning, enabling continuous reflection, modelling, and refinement and sharing of practice through ongoing collaborative engagement.
The staff make excellent use of daily photographs and videos to document the children’s learning and development. These are used purposefully in team meetings to inform professional dialogue around the children’s progress and to plan next steps. These are also shared regularly with parents via a home-school communication app, to strengthen home‑school partnerships, deepen understanding of the children’s learning experiences and role model for the parents child-led play and approaches to story reading.
At the time of the inspection the evidence provided by the nursery school demonstrates that the arrangements for child protection align to the current statutory guidance.

Next steps

The experienced and highly professional staff in Harrison Nursery School are delivering high‑quality pre-school education which is underpinned by contemporary pedagogical approaches and a shared vision for child-centred learning which, in line their vision, enables children to be each of the following: happy, independent, confident, socially competent, communicative, thinkers.

The ETI will continue to work with Harrison Nursery School as it addresses, the area for action: to embed further trauma-informed practices within the nursery school. ETI will also work with the school to share an example of highly effective practice from which others may learn: the thoughtfully curated and authentically resourced indoor and outdoor learning environments, that promote learner agency and autonomy and stimulate creativity, collaboration and curiosity.