Jennifer Childminding best practice, Childminding Inspection Tips, Inspection

Changes to Childminding Inspections 2025 – an overview

The new Early Years Inspection Toolkit was published this week (9th of September 2025) This new document sets out the guidelines for the new inspection reporting process due to come into force on the 10th of November this year. This blog looks at the main changes and some of the Welly Wren resources that have been designed to support you.

Here are the main ‘headlines’

Changes to the Areas of Inspection

The five existing graded inspection evaluation areas (still in place until November) are:

  • Leadership and Management
  • Quality of Education
  • Behaviour and Attitudes
  • Personal Development
  • Overall Effectiveness

There is also a separate met/unmet judgement for Safeguarding.

These are going to be replaced by the following six evaluation areas:

Inclusion

This evaluation area assess how you support disadvantaged children, children with special educational needs and disabilities, looked after children or children known to social care and other children that may face barriers to learning or well/being, such as children who have a protected characteristic.

Curriculum and Teaching

This area looks at how you understand child development and how your structure your curriculum so that children can build on what they already know. You will be assessed on how you teach across all seven areas of learning and how you assess children and adapt your teaching in response to this.

Childminding Best Practice Club

There are lots of Welly Wren resources to help you with your curriculum, including the Childminding Best Practice Club and topic and activity packs such as the ‘Under the Sea’ activity pack and the ‘Learning about Frogs’ topic pack.

join the childminding best practice club and get 25% off lots of other welly wren resources, plus a special childminding toolkit every month.

You may also be interested in these two other blogs about curriculum:

‘Continuous provision is all the resources and activities that you continue to provide on a daily basis. In a small early years setting such as a childminders this may look slightly different depending on your children and the sorts of needs they have, but in general your continuous provision should . . .‘ read more by clicking on the link

tHE role of continous provision in effective childminding curriculums

‘In order to offer your children the best learning opportunities it is important to provide opportunities over and above what you provide as part of your continuous curriculum. This is especially important  . . . ‘ read more by clicking the link

enhanced provision in childminding curriculums

Achievement

This area looks at how much progress the children in your care make in comparison to their starting points and whether all children gain appropriate knowledge and skills. It looks at how you help children become ready for their next stage of learning and how you adapt your teaching and offer support to make sure all children can make good progress.

Useful Welly Wren resources to help you with the area include the Summative Assessment System, the Transition to School pack and the new Development Records.

Behaviour, Attitudes and Establishing routines.

This area considers looks at how you support children to manage their own emotions and behaviour. It looks at how you work with parents to establish routines and encourage good attendance. It looks at how you make reasonable adjustments when working with children with additional needs or barriers.

The Welly Wren Personal, Social and Emotional Development Pack.

The Personal, Social and Emotional Development pack had lots of ideas and resources to help you teach children about things like understanding their emotions, following rules and adapting to routines.

You may also like the Contracts, Policies and Forms pack which, as well as a comprehensive childminding contract and plenty of useful forms also contains essential policies such as an Attendance policy (a new requirement of the September 2025 EYFS) an Equal Opportunities and Inclusion policy and a Special Education Needs and Disabilities policy. The longer policies all come with a special ‘Key Features’ section to help your parents understand the most important parts.

Children’s Welfare and Well-being

This area is concerned with how you promote children’s welfare and well-being, including how you create positive relationships, help children learn about how to stay healthy and how you create an inclusive environment.

Welly Wren resources that can help you with this area include the Be Safe Be Healthy and the Diversity MEGA Packs and the ‘Looking After Our Teeth’ topic pack.

Leadership and Governance

The area considers if you understand and meet the statutory requirements set out in the EYFS and looks at your commitment to providing high standards of education and care to improve the lives of all children.

The Ultimate Childminding Checklist is an essential resource that will help you with this area of inspection. It lists all the requirements of the EYFS along with sensible guidance and advice about how to fulfil each one. This Welly Wren resource also contains a ‘Countdown to Your Inspection,’ checklist, a ‘Working with Assistants‘ checklist and an ‘Outstanding‘ checklist.

GET THE ‘ESSENTIAL’ ULTIMATE CHILDMINDING CHECKLIST

The ‘Safeguarding’ inspection judgement remains the same and will still be graded as either met or unmet. You will find the 3 in 1 Safeguarding Pack really useful to help you with this area of inspection.

Changes to the way inspections are graded

The existing grading statements of:

  • Outstanding
  • Good
  • Requires Improvement
  • Inadequate

Are being replaced with

  • Urgent Improvement
  • Needs Attention
  • Expected Standard
  • Strong Standard
  • Exceptional

You will receive a separate grading for all six of the new inspection evaluation areas.

This is just a very brief overview of the changes as there has been a lot to process over the last few weeks, and I am sure everyone’s heads are still spinning form catching up with the changes to the EYFS. I will be creating more resources and writing more about the changes over the upcoming weeks, but I hope that this helps you to start to get to grips with the new inspection process.

You can find all of the Welly Wren resources mentioned in this article, plus many more in my Welly Wren shop here:

www.wellywren.co.uk

If you have an inspection due soon, I recommend investing in a copy of the Ultimate Childminding Inspection Pack. This includes full versions of the Ultimate Childminding Checklist and the 3 in 1 Safeguarding Pack as well as focus point questions for the Guided Self-Evaluation Pack. Plus, if you are on the mailing list for the free weekly Childminding Best Practice newsletter you are entitled to claim free updates of any of the resources in the pack, meaning you are covered for the next three years.

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Jennifer Childminding best practice, Childminding Inspection Tips, Inspection

Inspection Focus – September 2024

When it comes to Ofsted inspections things are always changing and September is a popular time for ‘those in charge’ to make official changes. This blog will help keep you up to date with the latest inspection issues.

Changes to Ofsted Inspection Grading for Schools

From the 2nd of September 2024, single word judgements have been scrapped for Ofsted school inspection reports. This means that instead of being graded Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement or Inadequate, schools will now receive individual grades for each aspect of their work. These will be under the pre-existing individual areas of: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development and leadership & management, which are the same for childminders and other early years settings.

As yet, there is no news about whether this new system will also be applied to early years providers at any point. Some childminders may want to keep the old system, as, if you have worked very hard for your grade, you are rightly proud and want to keep it. However, I worry that if childminders and other early years setting operating outside schools are inspected in a different way to schools then this may create or reinforce the idea that early years setting outside school are not as good as their school colleagues.

I also think that focusing on the different areas and giving childminders separate gradings for each one is a much fairer and more transparent way of sharing information with both childminders and parents. I read lots of different inspection reports so that I can feedback any trends or concerns, and there does seem to be a mismatch in some reports between what the inspector writes about the different aspects of each childminder’s work and the grade they are then given for that area. In fact, I have yet to see a report where the judgements under each area are not exactly the same. A system that honestly reports on each providers strengths and weakness in each of these areas, rather than trying to make them all conform to fit a particular narrative around a one word judgement, would surely be better?

Changes to the Early Years Inspection handbook

There have been a few minor changes to the Early Years Inspection handbook which come into force from the 9th of September. There is less emphasis on the effects of the COVID 19 pandemic and, with the new funding arrangements continuing to be rolled out, more emphasises on what inspectors will expect if you provide funded places for any disadvantaged children or receive any Early Years Pupil Premium funding. (Disadvantaged children includes children with SEND – Special Education Needs or Disabilities,)

There have also been changes to two of the grade descriptors for ‘Quality of Education,’ which again, highlight this new emphasis on disadvantaged children who receive funding:

Point three of the ‘Good’ grade descriptors, now states that, in order to be graded ‘good’, ‘The provider is ambitious for all children, including disadvantaged children, which includes those with SEND.’

Point four of the ‘Inadequate’ grade descriptors, now states that, ‘Children are not well prepared for school or the next stage of their learning, particularly disadvantaged children who receive additional funding, including early years pupil premium funding. Strategies for engaging parents are weak and parents do not know what their child is learning or how they can help them improve.’

If you have an inspection and have disadvantaged children that receive funding (including children with SEND) or if you receive Early Years Pupil Premium for any of your children be prepared to show your inspector what benefits you are providing the children with this funding.

Some recent Ofsted recommendations

I have been looking at some recently published reports. Here are some of the recommendations that childminders received, along with my thoughts:

  1. ‘Focus more precisely on what children need to learn when planning and supporting activities.’

Under the pressure of inspection it can be very easy to forget things like exactly what you intended to do when planning your activities. However, remember that when you are being inspected you need to clearly demonstrate what you know. (Inspectors have to gather evidence to support their judgements so make that evidence clear and easy for them to see!) When planning your activities for inspections, think carefully about what each child’s next step is. Then try and plan an activity where it is clear that what you have put in place is there to support that next step. This will make your intentions more visible to the inspector and will hopefully take some pressure off yourself.

For example, a child’s next step is to be more independent with their drinks at lunch and snack time. The activity you provide involves playing with lots of jugs and containers in the water tray, the objective being for the child to practise their pouring skills so that they can pour their own drink at meal times. You can then, if necessary, break down the activity further with the child starting to learn to pour with more control rather than just ‘dumping’ the water out, moving onto pouring using the spout of the jug rather than the side, to being able to pour water into a smaller container and then stopping when the container is full! (The child may also be learning about things like cause and effect, capacity and the qualities of water that you can mention to your inspector but the main focus is on their pouring skills.)

If you would like more help planning your activities and next steps so that you can talk about intent, implementation and impact, I recommend looking at the Childminding Best Practice Club toolkits that do this for you.

more about the childminding best pratice club

2. ‘Share information with other settings that other children start to attend and help provide a consistent approach to support the children.‘

    Again, this can be tricky if you are trying to share information with a setting that doesn’t want to know. (We have all unfortunately encountered them!) However, with an increased focus on disadvantaged children, including those with SEND, in the Inspection Handbook, this sort of recommendation may become more popular with inspectors. Along with your standard permissions, I recommend getting the settings email from parents. This way, if you send emails sharing information, you will have proof that you doing what you can. Do keep persisting with the partner setting too. They may not have responded for lots of different reasons so if you do not get a response from your first email keep trying.

    If you would like support and resources to write useful transition reports you can find them in the Summative Assessment System. This kit contains all the tools you need to sum up a child’s development and achievements, right from when a child starts with you, all the way until they leave to go to nursery or school. From ‘All about Me’ forms, starting points, transition and report templates as well as sample reports, tips and of course a gap tracker for when you need it.

    Get the summative assessment system

    You may also like this blog on about supporting children with transitions:

    supporting children with transitions at their childminder

    3. ‘Ensure that routines are flexible to allow children time and space to explore
    without interruption, extending their focus and concentration even more.’

    This was the recommendation in another really lovely report. I have included it here as it is a theme I have seen occurring a few times in recent reports – that of children being rushed to start the next activity before they are finished with the last one. Again, I can see this easily happening in an inspection scenario where you are trying to show your inspector all the brilliant things you do in what is actually a very short space of time. Instead of doing this try and take a breath and silently ask yourself if you really need to move the children onto the next activity or are they still engrossed in what they are doing and showing lots of lovely learning that your inspector will love. You can always show the inspector anything else you had planned and just explain that the children were getting so much out of what they were doing that you decided to do the other activities another day. Or, do as I did and have a display of photos showing all the other lovely things that you do, that you can show and talk to your inspector about. This may lesson your urge to rush through as many activities as possible in order to show the inspector everything you do.

    If you found this information helpful please share it with a friend. You can also leave any comments below.

    Welly Wren products that can help you have a calm, stress free inspection:

    The Ultimate Childminding Checklist:

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    This checklist removes the guesswork and presents a simple list telling you exactly what you SHOULD be doing at your setting. It takes the requirements listed in the 2024 Statutory Framework for the Foundation Years (EYFS) for childminders and sets them out in a way that is simple to understand and keep track of.

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    This resource should be in every childminder’s toolkit. The pack now contains four checklists in one:

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    • Resource one: A detailed and fully editable safeguarding and child protection policy for childminders. The policy in this pack is designed to help you create a policy which is tailored exactly to your childminding setting, meeting the requirements of the EYFS and helping you make sure you have everything covered effectively. It comes with clear notes to help you edit your policy.
    • Resource Two: Forty multiple choice safeguarding questions to help you revise your safeguarding knowledge.
    • Resource Three: Safeguarding Audit Tool.
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    Jennifer Childminding best practice, Childminding Inspection Tips, Inspection

    Communication, Language and Curriculum according to Ofsted- a childminder’s perspective.

    Observations from the North-West Ofsted Big Conversation January 2023.

    Introduction:

    This blog was originally going to cover the whole Ofsted Big Conversation event. However, after trying to fit in all the information and re-writing it several times I have decided, to provide you with concise and useful information, this particular blog will just cover Ofsted’s main focus at the event – Communication and Language.

    On the 28th January 2023, along with around 700 other attendees I took part the Northwest Ofsted Big Conversation. The main theme from the Ofsted section centred around communication and language.

    Amanda Spielman, Head of Ofsted, was the first Ofsted member to speak, followed by Ofsted colleagues from the Northwest Region, Kirsty Godfry, Head of the Curriculum Unit who spoke about communication and language curriculum requirements, and Rachel Flesher, a Senior Ofsted Inspector who spoke about how Ofsted look at communication and Language during inspections.

    Amanda spoke about the importance of rebalancing the curriculum to give greater weight to communication and language. She emphasised, that as far as Ofsted are concerned, spoken language and communication is the most vital area in Early Years. I can see where Ofsted are coming from given the impact of the pandemic lockdowns seen on children’s speech and language abilities, however I think it is very important to judge your children’s skills and needs yourself as not every child has been affected in the same way. I also think it is a mistake to forget about the holistic needs of the child. I have worked with children with communication difficulties, but this does not mean that the other two prime areas of learning, personal, social and emotional development and physical development, were not equally as important to their development. I am glad that the Early Years Alliance have been challenging this with Ofsted and the Department of Education.

    The Curriculum for Communication and Language

    After Amanda’s speech, Kirsty Godfry, spoke about the curriculum for communication and language. These are the main points:

    • The curriculum for communication and language underpins all areas of learning. This is now re-iterated in the EYFS: ‘The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development.’ Statutory Framework for Early Years Foundation Stage, Page 8.

    (While this is true, I would personally also argue that all three prime areas perform this function and if you neglect one area you will find children struggling in the others.)

    • Your communication and language curriculum MUST be based on the education programme laid out in the EYFS. (The section under the Communication and Language title on page 8 of the EYFS in case you are wondering. You can find links to the EYFS and other important documents on my Official Documents Links page here:
    Official Documents Links Page
    • Leave the teaching of formal reading and writing until reception. There is no need to be teaching phonics to the children. I would agree with this. The way phonics is taught can be complicated and can differ from school to school so unless you have specific training that matches the school your children will move onto and work closely with the support and blessing of the school I would leave formal reading and writing alone.
    • It is important to give children words so that they can express their thoughts and feelings.
    • Activities are not enough. This is the second time I have heard this new Ofsted mantra. Kirsty explained it by giving an example of a group of children playing at a beautifully resourced mud kitchen. She argued that a child without appropriate speech and language skills will be less keen to get involved and will therefore not learn as much as the other children. I do not necessarily agree with this. I had a little one with severe communication difficulties who would happily get stuck into any activity with their peers because their personal skills were strong, this in turn meant that I could support them with their language development as they were engaged and happy. Again, I personally feel, it comes back to a combination of all the prime areas. However this is the position that Ofsted are currently taking so be aware of it.
    • The difference between curriculum and pedagogy. (For anyone who has not heard this term before, pedagogy refers to how you teach something.) Curriculum is what you teach. Pedagogy is how you teach it. Your curriculum must come first. Put simply, decide what you want to teach and then how you are going to do it.

    How Ofsted look at communication and language in inspections

    • Ofsted have laid out how they inspect in the Early Years Inspection Handbook. (You can find a copy here:)

    Early years inspection handbook for Ofsted-registered provision – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

    • Ofsted will look at what it is like to be a child in your setting.
    • They will talk about how you decide what your children need to learn, what you do to help them learn it and how you know it has worked. (In other words, intent, implementation and impact!) This will probably form part of your learning walk. (Or learning ‘sit’ for childminders as Rachel referred to it.)
    • Your inspector will be observing how you use things like storytelling, role play, conversation and sensitive questioning to support the children’s language development.

    Your Inspector will also be interested in finding out:

    • How all the children benefit from your curriculum.
    • What topics or themes do you use, what vocabulary you want the children to learn, is it age appropriate and how will you share this with their parents?
    • How do you encourage children to use new vocabulary and how do stories, rhymes and songs link into what you want the children to learn?
    • What are you doing to help any children who have fallen behind catch up?
    • Are you giving the children enough time to speak and practice new vocabulary and language structures?
    • Are you giving children enough exposure to new language as well as repeating new vocabulary so they can learn it.
    • Are children demonstrating that they have remembered vocabulary by using it in their free play?

    You may find the Kids To Go Guided Self-Evaluation Pack helpful to help you think about these sorts of questions. You can buy it on its own or save yourself £6.50 by buying it with the Ultimate Childminding Checklist as part of the special Inspection Pack:

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    I hope you find this information useful. What do you think? Did you attend too? Do you agree with my points, or have you got another point of view? Let me know in the comments below.

    Although I have included a lot of information here this is a very condensed version of what was discussed. As I mentioned in the introduction, far more information was shared during the event than is sensible for me to include in one blog. Therefore, please look out for further blogs about the event from me coming really soon.

    The Big Conversation event has evolved since the Covid Pandemic and it is now possible to attend either in person or buy an on-line ticket. I opted to join in via the computer as living in West Cumbria means getting anywhere takes hours, not to mention factoring in things like childcare, transportation and accommodation costs, etc. I hope the organisers continue to provide this option as it really does make the event more accessible to different people. If you have always fancied taking part but find the travel part of the procedure too daunting then joining in on-line may be the way forward for you too.

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    Jennifer Business tips for childminders, Childminding best practice, Childminding Inspection Tips, Inspection, Official document links

    8 Things Ofsted wants childminders to STOP doing – by Jennifer Fishpool

    Change is upon childminders again! The new EYFS Framework becomes statutory on the 1st of September 2021 and with inspections up and running again and now potentially only once every 6 years, there is more pressure than ever on getting it right on the day. But what about the long stretch of time that falls between inspections? With a six year gap it would now be entirely possible to look after a child from when he was a baby until when he starts school without any paperwork you create for him ever being seen by an inspector. So should childminders stop doing all paperwork?

    There is a growing rumour that Ofsted have banned paperwork and some practitioners say that they are going to stop doing ANY except the statutory requirements. This represents a gross misunderstanding of the expectations on childminders. Before you throw the baby out with the bathwater let’s make sure we really understand what Ofsted is asking.

    1. Stop ticking boxes on ‘trackers’ and highlighting copies of Development Matters

    Trackers are the biggie which lots of people have been talking about. Ofsted have NEVER asked you to highlight copies of Development Matters or to spend hours colouring in boxes on individual trackers. Childminders should be focusing on providing a broad and balanced curriculum for children and one of the reasons Ofsted do NOT want you to use trackers in this way is because some settings were so focused on getting the children to achieve and exceed each one of the ‘statements’ that the children were getting a very narrow learning experience.

    However, all that being said, don’t throw away all those trackers just yet! Many practitioners find them very useful and if that applies to you there is no need to stop using them as long as you consider their limitations. If you find yourself using them as a curriculum, a list of goals or next steps for children, or worrying if children miss steps or do not develop in the exact order written on the paperwork then STOP! This is not how trackers should be used. If you use a simple tracker which is quick and easy to use and helps you spot any gaps in learning or key points that may raise concerns, then great, this is a useful way to use this type of assessment.

    2. Stop writing pages of meaningless observations

    childminding paperwork

    It is our job as childminders to constantly observe children to assess their development and needs. However, STOP making pointless observations that simply generate paperwork and don’t really add value for either the childminder or the child. If you know and the parents know that the child can use a spoon you don’t need a photo and accompanying write up to prove it. Think about what you really need to observe and whether writing it down will add value to what you already do. Let me be clear that you should not stop doing written observations altogether, as done properly and with clear purpose, they are extremely useful.

    (If you are new to observing children and how to get the most benefit from it without it taking too much time look out for our ‘Don’t Panic! Beginners Guide to Observations,’ coming soon.)

    3. Stop generating ‘data’ and ‘evidence’ in general

    The new EYFS and Development Matters are intended to give you an opportunity to refresh your setting’s curriculum to ensure that it focusses on your children’s needs. You should stop spending time unnecessarily gathering evidence and you should certainly spend less time generating ‘data’. Data includes photographs that serve no proper purpose and next steps that are not followed up. Instead spend time creating a broad and balanced curriculum.

    4. Stop assessing children unnecessarily

    Stop doing any assessments that are not beneficial to the children you are looking after. Pages and pages of ‘next steps’ in learning journeys are not helpful. Especially if they are not acted upon. If you instead ‘know’ inside of you from your knowledge of Development Matters what comes next, you don’t need to write this out anymore. You are allowed to use your ‘professional knowledge’ of child development and the child.

    5. Stop making learning journeys without asking yourself why you are making them?

    Please notice that I did not say to stop making learning journeys. This is another hot topic of debate on forum discussions and many childminders are overreacting and throwing away their learning journeys. Ofsted does not want you to do this as long as you are making them for the right reasons.

    So why make learning journeys?  Do not make learning journeys with photographs of observations and little circled areas of learning and development FOR the Ofsted inspector. They are not interested and may not even ask to see your learning journeys. These documents should only be generated for you and for the parents and only if you find that making them is helpful. Many families enjoy receiving them and you may secretly enjoy making them. However, many parents are perfectly happy with WhatsApp messages and you are allowed to use your ‘professional knowledge’ as long as you really do know where each child is at in his or her stage or development. Personally I think a balance is a good solution. I will still send my parents lots of photos as I love taking them and they love receiving them, but I will not be printing many out and will only include the occasional observation in a much shorter ‘learning story,’ to help me remember where each child is and to provide a lovely memento for the parents when the child eventually leaves my setting.

    6. Stop doing unnecessarily detailed written planning you then don’t stick to

    STOP doing any paperwork at all that has no use aside from the fact that you think Ofsted might want to look at it. For example horrifically detailed weekly plans that you don’t stick to. The new Development Matters makes it clear that it is up to childminders to use their professional judgment and knowledge to observe children and to plan for their next steps. Julian Grenier led on the revision of Development Matters for the Department for Education. He is clear that you should use Development Matters to help you use your knowledge of each child to facilitate holistic learning that helps children to make progress “without generating unnecessary paperwork.”

    This video is a nice overview of the new EYFS and how it links to Development Matters with its goal to “improve outcomes for all children, especially disadvantaged children, and to reduce teacher and practitioner workload.”

    7. Stop hitting the target and missing the point with the Early Learning Goals

    The Department for Education does not want you to feel restrained by the Early Learning Goals and actually they are primarily there for reception teachers to assess their children against at the end of their time in the Foundation Stage.

    The most important point is that a childminder should not write a curriculum plan around a learning goal because the ELGs are really narrow. For example, one of the ELGs under physical development is that children should be able to ‘move energetically, such as running, jumping, dancing, hopping, skipping and climbing’. A childminder could read that and decide that since jumping is obviously important that they would buy a trampoline, but not waste their time with ball skills since those are not specifically mentioned. That is pretty much what the Department of Education does not want you to do with the ELGs. Your physical development gross motor skills curriculum should not exclude spending time doing ball and other PE skills

    8. Stop doing anything ‘for Ofsted’

    They always say this, but nobody really believes them. With inspections now every 6 years, of course you are going to want to get the best grade you possibly can at your inspection because you will be stuck with whatever you get for a long time!  So, of course you should prepare carefully for your inspection as you always would by being mostly ready for inspection all the time, by being the best childminder you can be all the time, but by perhaps reading through a copy of our Ultimate Childminding Checklist before the big day to make sure you aren’t forgetting anything obvious.

    In conclusion, childminders need to think about what is really beneficial to support our practice (and this will be different for each practitioner depending on their needs.) It is about finding a sensible balance, not stopping all paperwork.  If you only have one child you may be able to retain all the information you need on their development without writing anything down but how will you share that information with the parents? You may have more children but have a fantastic memory and still not have to write down much in order to be able to confidently tell an Ofsted Inspector the ‘story’ of each child, but will you be able to spot gaps in learning quickly I think that most of us will still find keeping some sort of records beneficial so don’t burn those learning journeys and trackers just yet!

    References

    Burchall, J. (2021, May). Ofsted early education update . Retrieved from http://www.theofstedbigconversation.co.uk: https://theofstedbigconversation.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Ofsted-presentation-Ofsted-early-education-update-early-years-providers-Summer-2021.pdf

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    About Kids To Go

    Kids To Go was established by Kay Woods in 2008 and is now run by Jennifer. We provide childminding and Early Years resources such as the ‘Ultimate Childminding Checklist’, the ‘Childminding Best Practice Club’ and best practice resources promoting diversity, safety and childminding in the great outdoors (Forest Childcare). We also have a Facebook page at ‘Kids To Go’ and a free weekly newsletter which you can subscribe to by sending an email with the subject ‘subscribe’ to jennifer@kidstogo.co.uk

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    Jennifer Characteristics of Effective Learning (COEL), Childminding best practice, Inspection, Learning Journeys, Planning for childminders

    Understanding Cultural Capital for Childminders

    The first and most important thing to say about “Cultural Capital” –  is DON’T PANIC.

    • You do not need to attend a training course on cultural capital.
    • Ofsted does not want to see a poster up in your setting labelled cultural capital.
    • You do not have to start taking childminded children to the opera!

    Cultural capital is defined in the EYFS framework as ‘the essential knowledge that children need to be educated citizens’ and what is necessary to ‘prepare them for future success’. Some children arrive at your setting with different experiences than others. The experiences they arrive with are their ‘cultural capital’. All children have SOME cultural capital when they arrive with you at your setting. But for some, this cultural capital is not enough to narrow the gap and get them ready for school (and for life!). The curriculum you plan for that unique child can make all the difference to his or her future.

    Your job as a childminder is to find ways to establish what a child’s ‘gaps in learning’ are, and then plan your curriculum to help the child in the area that he is missing or behind.

    As soon as a child starts in your setting you should be gathering information about a child’s starting points to help you understand where they might have gaps in their cultural capital. I recommend using the ‘All About Me,’ forms from the ‘Super Summative Assessment,’ pack with parents to start with and then follow that up with your own starting points a few weeks later. (There is lots more information and advice in the pack so if you have a copy, fish it out and have a look!) For example, parents may write on their ‘All about Me’ form that their child does not know any nursery rhymes. Therefore for this child learning nursery rhymes would be very beneficial.

    Reading to children is essential to develop their communication and language

    Another key example is communication and language; an area in which many children are currently needing additional support and input. Some children arrive at your setting speaking really well with great vocabularies because they are exposed to lots of words and their parents read loads of books to them at home. Research has shown time and again that this gives them a massive advantage in school and in life. Other children come from much less fortunate backgrounds where they are not read to so much at home and know far fewer words. If you identify talking and vocabulary for example, as a child’s weakness, then your job as their childminder is to find ways to enhance it. In other words, you should make sure to plan a curriculum where you read a lot more and talk a lot more to children whose parents do not read to them at home.

    What about the Characteristics of Effective Learning?

    The same rule applies right across the areas of learning and development and also applies to the characteristics of effective learning. For example, if a child has not had opportunities to explore their creativity and imagination then this is an area on which I recommend you focus.

    Another example is a child who is never given any choices at home and who appears to passively take everything he is given. You can enhance his learning and prepare him for school by encouraging him to make choices and be independent while he is with you.

    If you find the characteristics of effective learning confusing, or would just like some more ideas around the topic, look the the ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning,’ pack for help and guidance.

    Provide a broad and balanced curriculum.

    Enhancing cultural capital by gardening with childminding and early years children.
    Gardening is one way to enhance children’s cultural capital

    I know, it sounds like a party political broadcast soundbite doesn’t it?! However this is really important and part of what Ofsted have been trying to promote. Simply put it means that you need to make sure you are giving children opportunities to learn about lots of different things across all seven areas of learning. It is good practice to use children’s interests, for example, tractors, to help engage and interest them in their learning but if all you ever offer is tractor themed activities they will not learn about other things like dinosaurs, plants, healthy eating and so on. Instead offer other activities that help children broaden their knowledge of the world.

    Here is a quick checklist of what you need to do to ‘do’ cultural capital:

    • Do starting points observations on all new children across all the learning and development areas and the COEL. This will show you the child’s strengths and areas of weaknesses.
    • Ask yourself what you would do to fill the child’s gaps in learning. Think of a plan for each individual child. What can you develop? What can you encourage? What are their next steps? (Don’t forget to share these with parents.) This is your ‘intent.’
    • Follow through on your plans. (This is your ‘implementation’ stage.) After you’ve been doing your plans for a while, check that your plans are having an effect. (What has been their ‘impact’?) Has the child started to catch up? Have you broadened their cultural capital from when they started with you?

    You may also find these resources helpful:

    Childminding Best Practice Club

    One way of making sure children are exposed to plenty of new ideas and concepts is by planning around themes. Childminding Best Practice Club members receive a monthly ‘toolkit’ containing loads of planning, crafts, activities and colouring sheets all around a different theme each month. To find out more see the information page here:

    Expand children’s learning with the Childminding best practice club

    Super Summative Assessment and Gap Tracker Kit

    This kit will help you recognise any gaps in children’s learning and also contains all the tools you need to sum up a child’s development and achievements, right from when a child starts with you, all the way until they leave to go to nursery or school. From ‘All about Me’ forms, starting points, transition and report templates as well as sample reports, tips and of course a gap tracker for when you need it.

    Super Summative assessment kit

    Characteristics of Effective Learning

    characteristics of effective learning for childminders

    Confused by the Characteristics? This pack can help. It contains information about the Characteristics of Effective Learning, broken down in a way that is easy to absorb, as well as business tools, printable posters and activities

    CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE LEARNING PACK

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