Lesley Brown, Strategic Director, Education Scotland. Early Years Scotland Conference, 1 October 2016.

1. Inspections for Improvement
Early years Scotland National Conference – Saturday 1 October 2016
Lesley R Brown
Strategic Director

2. What will this session cover?
• Role of Education Scotland
• Purpose of inspection and its place in the
improvement cycle
• Importance of self-evaluation
• New HGIOELC and QIs for inspection
• What are we finding from inspection?

3. We want to build and
support a learning system in
which the strong collective
engagement of a highly
professional workforce
creates a virtuous cycle of
improvement.
This learning system has
learners at the centre and
relies on a high-quality
professional workforce to
make it work.
The Virtuous cycle of Improvement

4. Purpose of Inspection –
to improve outcomes for
learners
• provide independent assurance and accountability;
• provide a solid base of evidence drawn from
professional evaluations of ‘front line practice’ to
inform national policy development; and
• promote the adoption of effective practice and
assisting providers to increase their capability to
self-evaluate and drive their own improvement.

5. The cycle of self-evaluation
Looking inwards
to evaluate performance at every level
and use the information gathered to
decide on what needs to be done to
improve.
Looking outwards
to learn from research, others and best
practice and use this to facilitate
innovation and creativity and inform
improvement actions.
Looking forwards
to explore what the future might bring and
use this information to anticipate what
change is required to ensure the
education system is responsive to the
future needs of all learners.

6. Reflections –
self-evaluation or self-delusion?
• What have you achieved ?
• What is working well and you
should do more of?
• What impact have you had?

7. How good is our early learning and childcare? The new
framework

8. • Developed with practitioners in 2015/16.
• Emphasises the importance of practitioners
extending and deepening their knowledge and
understanding of early learning pedagogy.
• Level 5 illustration based on each theme.
• Features of highly-effective practice.
• Challenge questions.
How Good is our Early Learning and
Childcare?

9. “Making sound
judgements about
the impact on
learners should be
central to self-
evaluation.”

10. What will we focus on in inspection?
• 1.3 Leadership of Change
• 2.3 Learning, Teaching and Assessment
• 3.2 Securing Children’s Progress
• 3.1 Ensuring Wellbeing, Equality and Inclusion
 From August 2016 we will include the Learning and
Developmental Pathways theme from QI 2.2 Curriculum, and will
refer to QI 2.7 Partnerships, in evaluating the impact of parental
engagement. We will also continue to have a focus on
safeguarding in every inspection.
 A further QI will also be negotiated and agreed with each setting.

11. Strengths identified from inspections
• Children’s engagement in free play
• Relationships with and support from committed staff
• Literacy-rich environments
• Effective support for pastoral transitions
• Teamwork of staff
• Staff commitment to self-evaluation
• Increased access to outdoor play

12. Areas for Improvement identified
from inspections
• Balance between free play and more formal learning.
• Children’s involvement in planning and leading learning.
• Depth, choice and challenge in children’s learning.
• Tracking and monitoring progress and using this to plan.
• Self-evaluation that systematically improves children’s
experiences.
• Leadership of learning.

13. “Mankind owes to children
the best it has to give. Their
life is fragile. If they are to
have a tomorrow their needs
must be met today. Many
things can wait but not the
children.”
Gabriela Mistral

14. Follow us on Twitter
@CaFTeam
@Lesleyrbrown
@EducationScot
Lesley.Brown@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk