Myth: The Ofsted on-line self evaluation form (Also known as the SEF) is long gone. However, Ofsted has not removed the requirement for childminders to self-evaluate. So all childminders need to have in place a method to reflect on your practice, especially if you are being inspected any time soon, as your inspector may want to discuss your evaluation with you. It is good practice to have a method for ongoing self-evaluation.
While there is no requirement to write out a written self-evaluation, the reason many people do written reflective practice is that it can make it easier for you to think through the different aspects of your business and monitor what you need to change. Writing things out can help you to focus and get organised. It can also be a great way to prepare for your inspection.
Remember that your Ofsted inspector will want to discuss your setting’s self-evaluation during your inspection. The Early Years Inspection Toolkit is a useful tool to help you self-evaluate your setting and your inspector will expect you to be familiar with it. One of the things your inspector will be looking for is:
‘Leaders’ understanding of their setting’s strengths and areas for development and the
effectiveness of the actions they take to improve the setting and/or to sustain high standards
of education and care’ Early Years Inspection Toolkit
In my opinion, writing things out is the best way to feel properly prepared and to remember to put things into action.
There are lots of Welly Wren products that can help you audit and evaluate your practice:
Leadership and Governance Self-Evaluation Workbook
This is the first in a new series of special workbooks aimed at childminders, that will help you go through the new Early Years Inspection Toolkit to evaluate your setting and put on place an action plan to help you improve or maintain your existing standards.
This workbook focuses on the ‘Leadership and Governance‘ area of inspection evaluation. It is broken down into separate sections, each covering one of the new Ofsted inspection judgement standards. Each section breaks down the requirement descriptions from the Early Years Inspection Toolkit into smaller, easy to understand chunks to make you practice easier to evaluate. There is also guidance on every section. This is to help you to understand what might be expected of you in order to meet each inspection standard. There is space for your notes next to each section and an ‘action plan’ template to help you organise your plans for improvement.
The Ultimate Childminding Checklist
The Ultimate Childminding Checklist is an essential tool for every childminder. Updated to comply with all the requirements of the September 2025 EYFS for Childminders.
This resource should be in every childminder’s toolkit. The pack now contains four checklists in one:
- All the things you MUST be doing to meet the EYFS requirements Checklist
- Working With Assistants Checklist
- Countdown to your Ofsted Inspection Checklist
- Exceptional Checklist
FREE UPDATES
BOTH of these Welly Wren resources come with a three year update guarantee which, with recent announcements that documents like the EYFS and the Early Years Inspection Toolkit are going to be updated EVERY YEAR, is an invaluable service!
