Carr Infant and Nursery School is welcoming and cares for all pupils, believing that every pupil has the right to a safe learning environment which adapts to meet their individual needs. Our school aims to encourage an understanding and acceptance of other cultures, races and beliefs.

Our school provides a high standard of teaching for ALL pupils. Children are taught a well-balanced and fun curriculum from experienced, committed and adaptable teaching staff. Staff ensure the children are well prepared for not only their next step in education but their future working lives in what is a diverse and continually changing world. We fully promote high levels of achievement and base our learning from the very beginning in Nursery to the final year in Year 3 on our values and vison.

Carr Infant School is located within the Acomb, a residential area in the northwestern suburbs of York. It is right in the heart of the community, with good transport links into the centre of Acomb and York itself. It is a 10–15-minute walk from Front Street, the location of shops, cafes, the local supermarket, and the Library within Acomb. The school has many bus stops within walking distance that provide access to regular routes for the 2.5 mile journey into York City Centre. There are a wide range of local businesses providing services in the immediate vicinity around the school, including newsagents, takeaways, a post office, beauty salon, and pharmacist. The surrounding area is served by a number of local churches including Lidgett Grove Methodist Church, and St Stephen’s.

A mixed catchment area, currently 18% pupil premium though this is usually around 20-22%

The catchment area for the school is made up mostly of residential streets within the northern area of Acomb wood. Running from York Road at its southern edge to the River Ouse in the north and from Beckfield Lane at its eastern side to Carr Lane on the west. There are a number of other Primary Schools in the immediate vicinity (including Poppleton Road, Westfield, and Poppleton Ousebank) in recent years the demographics of the city have contributed to lower rolls in all.

Special features and benefits of the school:

In September 2016, we moved into an attractive new two-storey building with modern ICT infrastructure, spacious classrooms, large breakout spaces and a multi-purpose hall. The building is designed to be inclusive and has facilities including a lift, making all areas accessible, and a hygiene suite.

• The school is a bright and welcoming environment with examples of current learning is used and displayed as decoration. The building has a versatile design with a number of break out areas for group work and interventions, with additional dedicated cooking space and a welcoming library space.
• The school has fantastic outdoor learning areas and play equipment. Our Forest School status gives every child the opportunity to engage with the natural environment as part of their learning and is embedded as a key element of weekly learning; the forest school area has been developed by staff, and through fundraising for facilities such as a small outdoor classroom.
• In recent years the school community has benefited from the development of full wrap around care offer including for nursery children run by school between 7.30am - 6.00pm. We have a busy nursery offering 15 hours (mornings) and 30 hours places for 3 year olds. Numbers in the nursery are typically around 35-45 for the busiest sessions depending on the time of year.
• The Junior School is a separate school neighbouring the site and usually all our pupils move on to the Junior school.

Our Pupils:

The school catchment is diverse, and the pupil body is reflective. The school fosters a welcoming and open environment and pupils are well behaved, engaged, friendly, and happy. The school’s nurturing ethos creates an environment where children are happy to come to school and settle well. When they occur, the school adopts an adaptive, child-centred approach to manage any behaviour issues.

We welcome and celebrate the diverse range of backgrounds and needs of our pupils, we are inclusive and adaptive to reflect this, which was reflected in our recent OFSTED report.

Ofsted Recognised – Ofsted 2022

“Staff model the behaviours and attitudes they want pupils to have and pupils respond enthusiastically to these high expectations. Pupils work hard in their lessons and are keen to talk about their learning.”

“Pupils behave in a calm and orderly way. Adults talk to pupils with respect, kindness and a deep sense of care. Pupils speak to each other in the way in which adults speak to them. Staff work with skill and compassion to help pupils manage their behaviour.”

The SEN provision within the school is strong, meaning that families are well-supported in accessing support, and a robust methodology is in place to understand

Child wellbeing:

The emotional wellbeing of the children at the school has always been a high priority and children are encouraged to talk in class and to their peers about their mental well-being. Mental health has continued to be of key importance as we come out of the Covid pandemic and activities, such as mindfulness, have been shared with the children. Online safety is also a key factor and regular information is shared with children and parents on how to stay safe on the internet.

Ofsted Recognised – “Leaders develop pupils’ character well. The caring and nurturing ethos of the school contributes to this development. Pupils are taught the knowledge they need to keep themselves safe”. – Ofsted 2022

Our staff are our greatest resource and are incredibly committed, talented, loyal, positive and hardworking. They always have the best interests of the pupils at heart and are determined to find something at which every child can shine. All our staff get to know the children in our school very well and use this information to personalise opportunities for learning and socialisation. Everyone in the school works together to achieve the best outcomes for our pupils.

Ofsted Recognised – “Parents and carers are overwhelmingly positive about how staff keep their children safe. Pupils are safe and talk about how they feel cared for by adults. They know that adults are there to help them. Staff support pupils to be independent”. – Ofsted 2022

SLT structure:

The current leadership structure at Carr Junior is:

Headteacher supported by two Phase Leaders (EYFS and KS1). This level of leadership is supported by a part-time SENCO and an Attendance/Welfare Lead who also supports our Early Help offer.

There are 6 classes across school in addition to Nursery.

Staff:

This year we have introduced two school-led enhanced provisions for a small number of KS1 children, and Reception children with additional needs, currently operating in the mornings only.

We have a high number of experienced teachers (UPS) with subject leaderships shared amongst teaching staff, which currently consists of:

• 10 class teachers
  • 6 work part-time (0.4-0.6 FTE)
  • 2 further teachers currently work 0.8 FTE

Non- teaching staff are allocated across school with priority for meeting additional needs, ensuring staff ratios for Early Years, and for supporting teaching and learning in classes particularly for pupils entitled to Pupil Premium.

In addition, a number of support staff are trained ELSAs and our welfare lead is trained to deliver Drawing and Talking therapy.

The Governing Body’s role and support:

The school benefits from a range of skills and expertise by the Governing Body as well as links to the local community and school community.

The governors work closely with the headteacher and support the school through visits often focused on school development priority areas, as well as safeguarding and finance support, alongside the cycle of governors meetings through the year.

The Headteacher is supported directly by the Chair of Governors who is a critical friend feeding relevant areas to the committees and FGB.

The school has two sub-committees, Resources and Development Committee, which meet at least once a term. The Resources Committee has delegate responsibility for budgets and health and safety reporting. The Development Committee oversees the school performance against the national curriculum.  The school has a number of link Governors visiting monthly, these cover key areas of SEN, Maths, Literacy, Health and Safety and welfare.

Meet and read more about our Governing Body here.

Carr Infants School is a friendly and welcoming school, lots of visitors comment on this.

The vision is currently expressed as:

Our aim is to create a nurturing environment to help children achieve and fulfil their potential. We promote confidence, communication and creativity.

These three values are defined, based on what they mean for children, staff, and the school as a whole, can be seen on the school website

Ofsted May 2022 – (Good)

Current areas identified for improvement:

Areas for improvement were identified by OFSTED, with recognition that there are plans in place to develop these:

• Some aspects of the teaching of phonics are not as well embedded as they could be. As a result, in phonics lessons, some pupils do not have precise methods of segmenting and blending modelled to them. This increases the risk of pupils developing misconceptions that may go unaddressed because teachers are not always sure which parts of words pupils are finding tricky to read. Leaders should ensure that the new approach to phonics is embedded with total consistency, so that all key elements are modelled with precision by all adults.
• Assessment is not consistently and systematically used in lessons to check the understanding of pupils. It is not used well to identify and address any misconceptions or gaps in pupils’ knowledge. This means that gaps in learning for some pupils who are working below the level of their peers are not identified or closed as quickly as they could be. Leaders should ensure that there are clear assessment strategies in place for teachers to use during lessons. This will help them to identify the gaps in knowledge or misconceptions and to address these quickly.

Subject leads have made great moves over the past year to ensure that they are taking a whole school approach. There are clear plans for the core subjects. There is a need to ensure that this approach is embedded and extended to all subjects.

Teams are working on being accountable for changes that need to happen without recourse to their line manager.

The school is working towards a more collaborative approach, rather than a top down approach.

The new headteacher may wish to explore new ways of managing finances for example through the appointment of a School Business Manager.

Main areas of development are outlined in our school improvement plan and focus on the following areas:

Future considerations:

The headteacher has encouraged staff to develop in their careers, with 2 staff members moving into leadership positions at new settings recently.  This has been important to address the imbalance of UPS teachers on the staff and allowed the school to recruit an ECT (second year) this year.  Currently, three existing members of staff are enrolled on the NPQ programmes.

St Paul's:

We have been working with the local authority to provide temporary accommodation for St.Paul's Nursery while their school building work takes place and they are unable to remain on site.  From January 2024 St.Paul's will occupy two classrooms at Carr; for their Nursery and ERP.  We have agreed to offer this accommodation until the end of December 2024.  The two schools will operate as separate schools with some planned collaboration for Wrap Around Care and shared use of some of our facilities such as our catering provision.  An outdoor area has been allocated for St. Paul's which has been newly fenced.  Going forward it is noted that Carr Infant and Nursery are likely to require this space back from January 2025 as our Nursery numbers grow in this term and we expect to expand our enhanced provision offer for EYFS and KS1.

Make-up, needs and expectations of pupils:

We have increasing diversity in our intake of pupils, with a growing number of children with English as an additional language including for example, Chinese, Greek Russian and Spanish.

Current school strengths:

The school has a dedicated, talented and hard-working staff who work well as a team and who believe in the potential of their children to succeed. There is an extensive and very able classroom-based support staff who have a significant positive impact upon learning and achievement in every year group.

The school community is ambitious for all its pupils and there is a determination for the school to succeed in all aspects of its work. Our parents and families are supportive of the school and its work.

We work hard to engage with parents, and they trust us implicitly to deliver a fantastic learning environment for the children.

These strengths were reflected in our recent OFSTED report

Ofsted Recognised – Ofsted 2022

“Leaders are ambitious for all pupils. They have made significant improvements to the curriculum in a short space of time. The curriculum is well sequenced.”

“The identification of, and support for, pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are a priority. Pupils with SEND are given targeted support that is well matched to their needs. Leaders have shown tenacity in making sure that external agencies are used well to support pupils who have the most extreme needs”.

“Staff feel well supported by leaders. They report how leaders at all levels are considerate of their workload and well-being. Governors are committed to the school and its community. They understand the strengths of their school and the areas that need further development.”

“There is a strong culture of safeguarding.”

• There is strong recognition of development areas and robust plans to overcome them.
• A culture of sharing skills across the school is being established.
• Good interaction with parents enables transparency of communication.
• The school goes above and beyond to support families in need through their excellent community links and recognition that school is just one part of a child’s development.
• Safeguarding is a priority with an ‘if in doubt’ report it approach. Staff make good use of safeguarding reporting systems and have robust contacts in the school from both the Safeguarding lead and her representative in this area.
• The school has a delightful feeling of being welcoming, safe and above all nurturing. Throughout the school it is clear that the children are treasured.

Current levels of pupil achievement, attainment and progress:

2022-2023

• 2023 phonics outcomes were an improvement from previous years, and this continues to be an area of development.
• In EYFS 64.6% of children achieved GLD, slightly lower than the previous cohort which reflected the diverse needs within the year group.
• This year there have been some staffing changes in EYFS both in teaching staff and in leadership support to continue to develop practice.
• The Early Talk for York project and WellKom has had a positive impact on language areas.
• Our 2023 KS1 outcomes reflected a greater emphasis in developing basic skills in writing. Year 1 outcomes were encouraging showing a rise to 69% of pupils on track in Year 1, compared to 45% of Year 2 pupils identified as our vulnerable cohort post pandemic. In reading,
• 4% of Year 1s and 6.7% of Year 2s were on track.
• Maths outcomes have been settled throughout the school, in 2023 75% of Year 1 children and 68.3% of Year 2 children were on track.

Budgetary position:

Governors and the school have been working hard to manage a challenging budget, with an in-year deficit for the past 2 years fulfilled by a cumulative carry forward.

The headteacher has worked hard to reduce inefficiencies with a reorganisation of assistant level positions and a review of the catering contract. There has been work to also increase nursery provision and begin income generating wrap around care. This is showing signs of turning a profit.

We are working closely with CYC but are determined to submit a realistic budget that meets the needs of our pupil body.

Ofsted Recognised – “This is a school at the very heart of its community. Leaders have ensured that relationships between the staff and families are strong. This sense of partnership impacts positively on pupils.” – Ofsted 2022

The school is highly regarded for its engagement with the whole family particularly those with high support needs. Communication is well managed, and the school has migrated towards electronic communication providing strong links between parents/carers and the faculty staff.  Senior Leaders are visible in the school entrances at the beginning of the day providing families with opportunities to engage.

The school recognises the importance of building relationships with the local community. This is an area the school and governing board are keen to develop.

Local Authority and School Improvement:

The school has a positive relationship and works closely with the LA, in recent years we accessed funding support for curriculum development CPD through YSAB (York Schools and Academies Board) and this was supported by the LA.

Through the maintained headteacher’s network we hoping to explore further collaborations within authority including budget focused savings and a peer review project for school-to-school support.

The Wider Community and Collaborative Partnerships:

The school is co-located with Carr Junior School which is part of the South Bank Academy Group. The schools co-host family events three times a year but more opportunities for engaging both communities could be developed. Relationships with the Junior School have significantly improved over recent years but strengthening the relationship could be a key area for development.

The school has engaged with local communities in the past such as the church and community centres but has no consistent links to local events or communities, e.g annual choir performances. Community ties could be an area of improvement for the incoming head.

Carr Community Challenge: in its second year, our Year 2 children participate in a variety of challenges through the year to take on responsibility for making a difference for their local and wider community, for example through fundraising or organising charity events.

We invite visitors into school through the year, including the local church Reverend, YoYo group and Food Bank. We support a variety of charities through the year and host events in school to support these.

Trips and visits out of school are linked to curriculum learning and we offer experiences to the children they may not access otherwise, for example Howsham Mill, the local Mosque, Rufforth farm.

We work with Family Learning to host Adult and parent/carer learning events at the school, and signpost families to other offers for example through the local SEN offer and YIKS (York Inspirational Kids).

Support that will be available to the new Headteacher:

The school has a strong relationship with the LA who will support in establishing the objectives and support needs. The school has in the past engaged Mentors from local schools for the interim Head. The Head would be encouraged to establish themselves in existing professional networks including the West of York School Heads. There is a wider York Schools and Academy Heads network who have been particularly engaged during the current pandemic.

The Governing Body are committed to the onboarding, success and development of the new Head. More detailed information on the Governing Body is detailed in section two. The school buys in LA services for Finance, Admin and HR which is available to provide subject expertise when needed.

Living in York

English in York is located in the beautiful and historic city of York. York is England’s most visited city outside London and is situated in the north east of the country, in the stunning county of Yorkshire, by the River Ouse.

With its many tourist attractions: impressive architecture, museums, riverside walks, cafes and restaurants, York is an ideal place to study.  The city has the good fortune to be situated approximately two hours by train from London and Edinburgh with frequent direct train services. Once the capital city of England, York is a much-loved destination, particularly by students, offering a mix of a modern, cosmopolitan city in an ancient setting.

The history of York is said to be the history of England. It is an ancient city with Roman walls and Viking remains, and the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe towers over the Medieval streets. Museums illustrate this history. A major tourist destination, York hosts events and festivals all year round, showcasing different types of music, theatre, culture, food and drink.

You can find out more here:

North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is England's largest county and one of the most rural. The area comprises the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors, three areas of outstanding natural beauty, the Pennines and a stunning coastline around Scarborough and Whitby. There are ruined castles and abbeys, serene gardens, unique breweries, thrilling rides and industrial heritage. The area hosted the phenomenal Tour de France in 2014 and has since created the Tour de Yorkshire, an annual event with global recognition. Our success in supporting these events led to Harrogate hosting the UCI Cycling World Championships in 2019.

North Yorkshire has plenty to offer the outdoor enthusiast. From the hard gritstone of Almscliff and Brimham rocks to the limestone of Malham, Gordale and Kilnsey climbing venues are in abundance. The Yorkshire Dales is the premier area for caving and for mountain biking; there are the bridleways of the Dales and North York Moors as well as the renowned trail centre at Dalby Forest. There are a small number of sailing clubs on reservoirs around the county and fantastic surf sport venues and sea kayaking on the east coast.

While the county is rightly known for its wide-open spaces, it also incorporates attractive market towns including Pickering and Helmsley, traditional seaside towns, the Spa town of Harrogate and the ancient city of York. There are a wide range of shopping, leisure, and cultural facilities as well as excellent schools, universities, road and rail links, there really is everything to offer you and your family as a place to work, live and enjoy!

Travelling further afield we have convenient connectivity, with close proximity to metropolitan cities of Leeds and Newcastle, with little over two hours commute on the main train line to London. We border the Lake District, Lancashire, County Durham, and Yorkshire & Humber regions with all they have to offer.