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:
- ‘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.
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.
You may also like this blog on about supporting children with transitions:
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.
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Welly Wren products that can help you have a calm, stress free inspection:
The Ultimate Childminding Checklist:
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- Working With Assistants Checklist
- Countdown to your Ofsted Inspection Checklist
- Outstanding Checklis
3 in 1 Safeguarding Pack
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- Resource Two: Forty multiple choice safeguarding questions to help you revise your safeguarding knowledge.
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