leeloo1
03-03-2016, 08:18 AM
I've realised this is super long... so I've copied and pasted the KEY INFO - re Grading - which is what I really need urgent advice on in a new post below)
Apologies as I don't post here that often, but I could really, really do with some help, so would appreciate any advice as I know some of you are very experienced on the technical side of childminding.
I had my Ofsted (from Tribal if that makes a difference) inspection yesterday. I had 2 days notice of it as she called on Monday morning. I asked if it could be deferred as I had a new baby starting for full days on Monday (had done 5 hours over 3 days previous week, so a big step up) and my 2 x 2 year olds are unsettled by the change and I wanted to give them my full attention, but she insisted no as you aren't allowed more than 5 days notice.
She came at 9.15 and left at 3.30 - although she offered to leave for "5 or 10 minutes" at 1.20 so I could finally get the kids to sleep - I asked her to come back at 2, which she did - it barely gave me time to get all 3 down, but not enough time to eat anything. Whilst she was here she ran me ragged. Except when I was doing the shared observation she kept interrupting me when I was with the children (e.g. 3 times during a short story - the child got bored and wandered off as I had to keep stopping to answer her. I feel like she was disorganised and kept flicking between subjects and it shouldn't have taken this long.
It was insanely hard, as the 1 year old wouldn't be put down without howling, the 2 x 2 year olds (baby's brother and my own toddler) were climbing the walls as used to being out/having attention, but I stayed calm and did my best.
I'd left everything in files, clearly labelled, but she'd keep asking me e.g. "so, risk assessments.." - so I had to come and find them, instead of looking in the file herself. Also, while the kids were eating lunch and I was trying to feed the new baby she asked me to go and find proof that I give the Ofsted complaints information to the parents (I email it in my handbook - instead of having a poster up) and to find the 2 year progress check - and to find the proof I give that to the parents - as apparently they should sign and date it to say I gave it to them! Luckily I have email trails to prove it.
In hindsight I should have said 'no I'm busy', but I was a bit flustered and just wanted her to finish and go!
But here's the awful bit... In 2012 I registered my mum as my assistant and she worked for me for about 12 days over 3 months in Aug/Sept/Oct 2013 - whilst I was very pregnant and then settling the children back in after 4 weeks mat leave. I have a log of when she worked, and the few brief times she was alone with the children and why, her paediatric first aid and CRB check, details of when she was inducted and shown policies, explained ethos of setting etc (signed), that I checked my insurance covered her.
She hasn't worked for me since then, but I kept her registered 'just in case'. So, when Ofsted lady went off at 1.20, she said she had to make a phone call to her supervisor as I didn't have a 'disclosure about disqualification by association' form signed. She said it meant she couldn't give me my Outstanding, and it should be an automatic requires improvement but she might be able to get me a good. Obv I was very shocked.
Having looked online I see this wasn't a requirement when I registered my mum and she hasn't been 'active' since it was a requirement... but still obv my fault as on record she's still my assistant, I asked if I could call Ofsted and say I'd forgotten to notify them of a change of circumstances - or get the form signed today, to rectify this but she said no. Obv thats understandable too. :(
When she came back she said there were 2 things I could do - call and de-register my assistant while she was there and get good; or accept the requires improvement. As I don't have this disclosure form (so a safeguarding fail) and I don't have minutes of meetings and signed dates of appraisals/targets etc (so a leadership and management fail too). She said I could re-register her again straight away if I wanted to (pointless!)
I took the first option:(, but asked if I would have got outstanding otherwise and she said yes. I know that all the gradings for every area have to only be good only because it was a safeguarding issue, but she also said that her comments have to reflect the grading. She said if she said my teaching and behaviour management was exemplary then she'd be asked to rewrite it as the comments have to match the grade - how is this fair?
She said not to be disheartened, that if I keep doing everything as I am now then I'll get outstanding again next time (its been 6 years since my last inspection, so I suspect I'll be 'good' for a while). She praised my exemplary teaching, calm manner with the children, open body language, lovely setting and resources and other stuff thats now a blur.
Her improvement ideas for me were a behaviour thing - she said she thinks my daughter doesn't want to share her toys because they're hers (she's also 29 months old!) - I managed this (as well as I can with O lady constantly demanding attention) - making d ask, wait, take turns, share etc and reminding mindee to say 'I'm using it you can have a turn in a minute' - to be fair, mindee also wants to come and take whatever my d has (which is fine - I model same thing for him). She noted my d is dominant and mindee is passive - I said I knew, its their natures, but I'm working on it and have bought books about confidence, standing up for yourself etc and encourage him and insist that she shares, is kind - apologises when she's not etc. I said it was hard though, as obv its my daughter's home. She agreed with everything I said and wasn't sure how she'd phrase it but she thinks there's an issue with the 'pecking order'.
I honestly do try to treat them the same, but I do think imposing boundaries is easier for mindees - and these will be relaxed for them when they're at home, whereas for my d this is her home - and the boundaries are obv blurred.
Other idea for improvement was to ask parents and mindees to be more involved in the setting - they are fully involved with observations/reports etc etc and I do ask them to share if activities / events at home went well or if they want me to do/support them in anything, but she wants me to do a questionnaire so I have evidence.
The whole thing just feels so shabby. She was very nit-picky all the way through about my record keeping - I have highlighted excel spreadsheet with the EYOs by age where I record my observations, then a matching paper colour coded tracker where I just highlight the 'achieved' EYOs, every 3-4 months and use this for summative reports to the parents. She said I should just photocopy the EYFS and date when they've achieved something (where would the evidence be?). She also didn't understand the PACEY register, as she kept saying 'but its not the 29/2 - and I had to keep explaining, yes but it says 'Week Beginning' - 29/2 was Monday and its now Wednesday. In the end she grudgingly accepted it, but said she thought an old style school register was best. She did say I could use whatever system I like, and that she had no preference, but she clearly did and I felt very criticised throughout the procedure.
Sorry again, that this is such a rant. I feel so exhausted and I've clearly failed myself and the lovely children (who overall were stars during a very trying day) and I just want to howl. On the plus side the parents of the mindees have been so supportive (yeah, sorry Ofsted not so confidential!) and have asked if they can do anything to help persuade Ofsted/provide references, which I hugely appreciate.
So (well done if you've managed to read all this!) I just wanted any advice on if this sounds fair/right. Most importantly, can I argue against the grading - as perhaps I should just have de-registered my mum when she was no longer needed (when I called Ofsted to notify them the lady said 'don't you want to leave her registered 'just in case?'"!)- and couldn't this just be a case where I failed to notify them of a change of circumstances? Or do I deserve this (I probably do).
Apologies as I don't post here that often, but I could really, really do with some help, so would appreciate any advice as I know some of you are very experienced on the technical side of childminding.
I had my Ofsted (from Tribal if that makes a difference) inspection yesterday. I had 2 days notice of it as she called on Monday morning. I asked if it could be deferred as I had a new baby starting for full days on Monday (had done 5 hours over 3 days previous week, so a big step up) and my 2 x 2 year olds are unsettled by the change and I wanted to give them my full attention, but she insisted no as you aren't allowed more than 5 days notice.
She came at 9.15 and left at 3.30 - although she offered to leave for "5 or 10 minutes" at 1.20 so I could finally get the kids to sleep - I asked her to come back at 2, which she did - it barely gave me time to get all 3 down, but not enough time to eat anything. Whilst she was here she ran me ragged. Except when I was doing the shared observation she kept interrupting me when I was with the children (e.g. 3 times during a short story - the child got bored and wandered off as I had to keep stopping to answer her. I feel like she was disorganised and kept flicking between subjects and it shouldn't have taken this long.
It was insanely hard, as the 1 year old wouldn't be put down without howling, the 2 x 2 year olds (baby's brother and my own toddler) were climbing the walls as used to being out/having attention, but I stayed calm and did my best.
I'd left everything in files, clearly labelled, but she'd keep asking me e.g. "so, risk assessments.." - so I had to come and find them, instead of looking in the file herself. Also, while the kids were eating lunch and I was trying to feed the new baby she asked me to go and find proof that I give the Ofsted complaints information to the parents (I email it in my handbook - instead of having a poster up) and to find the 2 year progress check - and to find the proof I give that to the parents - as apparently they should sign and date it to say I gave it to them! Luckily I have email trails to prove it.
In hindsight I should have said 'no I'm busy', but I was a bit flustered and just wanted her to finish and go!
But here's the awful bit... In 2012 I registered my mum as my assistant and she worked for me for about 12 days over 3 months in Aug/Sept/Oct 2013 - whilst I was very pregnant and then settling the children back in after 4 weeks mat leave. I have a log of when she worked, and the few brief times she was alone with the children and why, her paediatric first aid and CRB check, details of when she was inducted and shown policies, explained ethos of setting etc (signed), that I checked my insurance covered her.
She hasn't worked for me since then, but I kept her registered 'just in case'. So, when Ofsted lady went off at 1.20, she said she had to make a phone call to her supervisor as I didn't have a 'disclosure about disqualification by association' form signed. She said it meant she couldn't give me my Outstanding, and it should be an automatic requires improvement but she might be able to get me a good. Obv I was very shocked.
Having looked online I see this wasn't a requirement when I registered my mum and she hasn't been 'active' since it was a requirement... but still obv my fault as on record she's still my assistant, I asked if I could call Ofsted and say I'd forgotten to notify them of a change of circumstances - or get the form signed today, to rectify this but she said no. Obv thats understandable too. :(
When she came back she said there were 2 things I could do - call and de-register my assistant while she was there and get good; or accept the requires improvement. As I don't have this disclosure form (so a safeguarding fail) and I don't have minutes of meetings and signed dates of appraisals/targets etc (so a leadership and management fail too). She said I could re-register her again straight away if I wanted to (pointless!)
I took the first option:(, but asked if I would have got outstanding otherwise and she said yes. I know that all the gradings for every area have to only be good only because it was a safeguarding issue, but she also said that her comments have to reflect the grading. She said if she said my teaching and behaviour management was exemplary then she'd be asked to rewrite it as the comments have to match the grade - how is this fair?
She said not to be disheartened, that if I keep doing everything as I am now then I'll get outstanding again next time (its been 6 years since my last inspection, so I suspect I'll be 'good' for a while). She praised my exemplary teaching, calm manner with the children, open body language, lovely setting and resources and other stuff thats now a blur.
Her improvement ideas for me were a behaviour thing - she said she thinks my daughter doesn't want to share her toys because they're hers (she's also 29 months old!) - I managed this (as well as I can with O lady constantly demanding attention) - making d ask, wait, take turns, share etc and reminding mindee to say 'I'm using it you can have a turn in a minute' - to be fair, mindee also wants to come and take whatever my d has (which is fine - I model same thing for him). She noted my d is dominant and mindee is passive - I said I knew, its their natures, but I'm working on it and have bought books about confidence, standing up for yourself etc and encourage him and insist that she shares, is kind - apologises when she's not etc. I said it was hard though, as obv its my daughter's home. She agreed with everything I said and wasn't sure how she'd phrase it but she thinks there's an issue with the 'pecking order'.
I honestly do try to treat them the same, but I do think imposing boundaries is easier for mindees - and these will be relaxed for them when they're at home, whereas for my d this is her home - and the boundaries are obv blurred.
Other idea for improvement was to ask parents and mindees to be more involved in the setting - they are fully involved with observations/reports etc etc and I do ask them to share if activities / events at home went well or if they want me to do/support them in anything, but she wants me to do a questionnaire so I have evidence.
The whole thing just feels so shabby. She was very nit-picky all the way through about my record keeping - I have highlighted excel spreadsheet with the EYOs by age where I record my observations, then a matching paper colour coded tracker where I just highlight the 'achieved' EYOs, every 3-4 months and use this for summative reports to the parents. She said I should just photocopy the EYFS and date when they've achieved something (where would the evidence be?). She also didn't understand the PACEY register, as she kept saying 'but its not the 29/2 - and I had to keep explaining, yes but it says 'Week Beginning' - 29/2 was Monday and its now Wednesday. In the end she grudgingly accepted it, but said she thought an old style school register was best. She did say I could use whatever system I like, and that she had no preference, but she clearly did and I felt very criticised throughout the procedure.
Sorry again, that this is such a rant. I feel so exhausted and I've clearly failed myself and the lovely children (who overall were stars during a very trying day) and I just want to howl. On the plus side the parents of the mindees have been so supportive (yeah, sorry Ofsted not so confidential!) and have asked if they can do anything to help persuade Ofsted/provide references, which I hugely appreciate.
So (well done if you've managed to read all this!) I just wanted any advice on if this sounds fair/right. Most importantly, can I argue against the grading - as perhaps I should just have de-registered my mum when she was no longer needed (when I called Ofsted to notify them the lady said 'don't you want to leave her registered 'just in case?'"!)- and couldn't this just be a case where I failed to notify them of a change of circumstances? Or do I deserve this (I probably do).