Getting ready for inspection: seminar for early years providers

Getting ready for inspection

Seminar for early years providers

Nursery World Conference 2015

Jo Caswell HMI

Penny Fisher HMIGetting ready for inspection – February 2015

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The purpose of today’s seminar

Getting ready for inspection – February 2015

This seminar is designed to help you:

prepare for your inspection

become familiar with documents used by inspectors

support your teams in making the inspection a positive process and a time for reflection

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Understanding the inspection framework


What is the purpose of inspection?The purpose of inspection is to evaluate the quality and standards of children’s care, learning and development, and the progress children make towards the early learning goals in line with the principles and requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).Where settings are also registered on the Childcare Register, the inspector will check you continue to meet the requirements of the register.

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Only good is good enough….


Settings which are not yet good, are now judged to require improvement or as inadequate.

Inadequate settings will have monitoring visits to help them improve. All inadequate settings will be re-inspected within six months.

Settings judged to require improvement will be re-inspected within 12 months. They will have two years to get to good.

5Getting ready for inspection – February 2015

Inspectors use the evaluation schedule to make inspection judgements.

Grade descriptors are published for each judgement. Settings can use the evaluation schedule to measure

their own performance. The grade descriptors can be used to help your staff

understand what good and outstanding practice looks like.

The documents can be found on the Ofsted website: www.gov.uk/ofsted - reference numbers 120086.

The evaluation schedule

http://www.gov.uk/ofsted

What happens during the inspection?


The inspector will:agree a timetable for the inspection, including joint observationsask for the setting’s self-evaluation (if not submitted online)ask about the different groups of children who attend the settingmake arrangements for providing final feedbackhave a tour of the setting and meet the staff and childrenensure the provider/owner/nominated person is aware of the inspection and can be present if possible.

Planning the inspection timetable


The inspector needs to gather relevant evidence to make judgements. This will be collected in a number of ways, such as:observing practice to ensure effective teaching helps children make good progress completing a joint observation with a manager or senior member of stafftracking individual children to measure their progresslooking at some recordshaving a meeting with leaders and managerstalking to staff, key persons, children and parents.

Key inspection activities

Assessing the quality of leadership and management

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Strong leadership and management is key to success

Strong leaders have high expectations.

Strong leaders take steps to ensure they are well-qualified and experienced.

Strong leaders communicate effectively and lead by example.

Strong leaders make the right changes possible.

Strong leaders identify strengths and weaknesses of the setting’s work.

Strong leaders seek external challenge.


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Strong leadership and management

Strong leaders ensure they regularly update their skills and have a well-qualified workforce.

Strong leaders take the necessary steps to improve the quality of teaching.

Strong leaders hold staff to account.

Strong leaders make sure their staff access on-going training and professional development.

Strong leaders learn from the best.



Self-evaluation

Think about how well your setting is doing…

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What do you do well?

The inspection processwill consider how well you evaluate the impact of what you do on children’s care, learning and development, and how you use that evaluation to bring about improvement.



You can use any form of self-evaluation

to measure how well you are doing.

There is no fixed time to carry out self-evaluation.

Develop a system that helps you identify what needs to improve and shows what is working well.

Involve the staff, children and parents in evaluating how well you are doing.

Demonstrate how well your system works in driving improvements.

Remember, self-evaluation is ongoing!

Measuring your progress


If you choose to use the Ofsted self-evaluation form (SEF), you can submit this online. If you need any help, you can call: 0300 123 1231.

If you complete the Ofsted form and submit it to Ofsted, the inspector will use it to plan your inspection.

Inspectors will consider all forms of self-evaluation. They assess how well these tools are used in making improvements to children’s care, learning and development.

Inspectors evaluate how accurately you know your provision.

The Ofsted self-evaluation tool

Assessing the quality of teaching and learning

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What is teaching?

Put simply: teaching is the many different ways in which adults help young children learn.



The Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage:

playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’

active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements

creating and thinking crit ically – children develop their own ideas, make links in their learning, and develop strategies for doing things.

Characteristics of effective teaching and learning

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What is teaching ?

Teaching includes:

the equipment adults provide the physical environment the structure and routines of the day.


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Characteristics of effective teaching and learning – the daily routine


There is sufficient time for children to create their own play and explore their ideas.

Children’s play and thought processes are not interrupted.

Time is allowed for children’s play and creativity to reach their own conclusions.

Children have the time and necessary resources to solve their own problems.

Children have opportunities to explore different ways of doing things and find alternative uses for objects.

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Characteristics of effective teaching and learning – the environment


A wide range of resources are readily accessible and visible to children.

Practitioners allow children to move resources around freely to support their play and ideas.

Play and learning consistently take place in all areas, including the outside.

Practitioners observe and support children’s play without inhibiting learning and creativity.

‘Open-ended’ resources are provided which have no intended outcome or use.


These are an excellent way of gathering evidence across all aspects of the evaluation schedule.

They help the inspector to assess the accuracy and quality of the provider’s monitoring and evaluation of staff practice (Leadership and Management).

They offer you an opportunity to contribute evidence towards judgements about the quality of teaching and learning, and children’s well-being.

Joint observations

23Getting ready for inspection 2015

For too many children, especially those living in the most deprived areas, educational failure starts early.

Gaps in achievement between the poorest children and their better-off peers are clearly established by the age of five.

There are strong links between a child’s social background and their readiness for school.

Too many children start school without the range of skills they need.

School readiness and narrowing the gap


‘Poverty becomes a life sentence, as cognitive development and educational achievement suffer. There is a direct relationship between household income, and school-readiness, and vocabulary at five’ (page iv)

‘Only a third of the poorest children in England go on to achieve five good GCSEs including English and maths’ (page iv-v)

Findings from Save the Children’s ‘A Fair Start for Every Child’ report 2014


Inspectors must track at least two children within your setting.

They may look at a child from a specific group of children, such as a funded two-year-old.

They will use the evidence to assess how well the setting helps all children to make effective progress, including those who may need additional support.

Case tracking

Action planning and making improvements


Some time for reflection

In your setting, think about how you are doing. Ask yourself:•What have you improved since the last inspection?•What has worked well?•What do you still need to do?•What barriers are you facing?

The answers to these questions form the basis of your setting’s action plan.Involve your staff and children in this process.


Action planning – making improvements

The principles of effective action planning:•use the evaluation schedule to benchmark your setting•involve your staff, parents and children. Ask yourselves – what do we need to do to move to the higher grade?•set yourselves measurable targets to enable you to improve – make sure these are monitored closely•be realistic – when things don’t go to plan, say so!•show how well leaders and managers drive improvement.


Questions to think about…..

How do you monitor the quality of teaching and learning in your setting? How often do you do it?

How do you know your work is making a difference?

How can you be sure all children, including those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, make good or better progress?

Thank you for listening.Any questions?

Getting ready for inspection: seminar for early years providers

Education

purpose of inspection

inspection timetable

inspection judgements

key inspection activities

reflectiongetting ready

inadequate settings

good progress

settings selfevaluation