Getting ready for inspection: seminar for early years providers Presentation to Nursery World conference 6 February 2015

1. Getting ready for inspection
Seminar for early years
providers
Nursery World Conference
2015
Jo Caswell HMI
Penny Fisher HMI
Getting ready for inspection – February 2015

2. 2
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

3. 3
Understanding the inspection
framework
Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
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.

4. 4
Only good is good enough….
Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
 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.

5. 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

6. What happens during the
inspection?

7. 7Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
The inspector will:
agree a timetable for the inspection, including joint observations
ask for the setting’s self-evaluation (if not submitted online)
ask about the different groups of children who attend the setting
make arrangements for providing final feedback
have a tour of the setting and meet the staff and children
ensure the provider/owner/nominated person is aware of the inspection
and can be present if possible.
Planning the inspection timetable

8. 8Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
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 staff
tracking individual children to measure their progress
looking at some records
having a meeting with leaders and managers
talking to staff, key persons, children and parents.
Key inspection activities

9. Assessing the quality of
leadership and management

10. 10
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.
Getting ready for inspection – February 2015

11. 11
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.
Getting ready for inspection – February 2015

12. 12Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
Self-evaluation
Think about how well your setting is doing…

13. 13
What do you do well?
The inspection process
will 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.
Getting ready for inspection – February 2015

14. 14Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
 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

15. 15Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
 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

16. Assessing the quality of teaching
and learning

17. 17
What is teaching?
Put simply:
teaching is the
many different
ways in which
adults help young
children learn.
Getting ready for inspection – February 2015

18. 18Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
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 critically –
children develop their own ideas, make links
in their learning, and develop strategies for
doing things.
Characteristics of effective
teaching and learning

19. 19
What is teaching ?
Teaching includes:
the equipment adults provide
the physical environment
the structure and routines of
the day.
Getting ready for

20. 20
Characteristics of effective teaching
and learning – the daily routine
Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
 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.

21. 21
Characteristics of effective teaching
and learning – the environment
Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
 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.

22. 22
Getting ready for
inspection – February
2015
 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

23. 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

24. 24Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
 ‘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

25. 25Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
 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

26. Action planning and making
improvements

27. 27Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
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.

28. 28Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
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.

29. 29Getting ready for inspection – February 2015
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?

30. Thank you for listening.
Any questions?