Recent Ofsted inspection focus points - 04.15
Focus points from recent Ofsted inspections - April 2015
Safeguarding is always an important part of inspections…
• What are the 4 types of abuse?
Get them in your head as a song or mnemonic so you remember them confidently when asked - the 4 types of abuse are physical, emotional, sexual and neglect.
• Describe them…
Once you know the 4 types of abuse you will be able to remember what the signs and symptoms are – if you have a safeguarding folder you could put some information in there about the 4 types of abuse and refer to that during your inspection. The ‘What to do if you are worried a child is being abused’ document has recently been updated (March 2015) – in our provision, we have printed the first 2 pages (header and contents) for our safeguarding folder and written on it where the document is stored in our computer files –
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...eing-abused--2
Other common safeguarding questions include -
• What would you do if you suspected abuse?
• What would you do if a child alleged abuse happening at home?
• What would you do if a parent made an allegation against you / another child / a member of your family / a member of staff?
• Who is your local safeguarding contact?
• Who do you contact if you are worried about a child?
All this information should be in your safeguarding and child protection policy and procedures. You can refer to your procedures if you are struggling to remember things during your inspection.
You might find this NSPCC website useful - What to do if you suspect abuse | NSPCC.
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Medication recording
This one has come up recently in a few inspections ... the inspector might look at your medication forms and check they are compliant with the requirements.
You need to make sure that you have 3 signatures for every medication –
1. Parent to say it’s ok to give the medication
2. You to say you have given the medication
3. Parent to confirm they are aware the medication has been given
If your forms don’t have spaces for 3 signatures change them! You will find a selection of free medication and other forms on the Childcare.co.uk website – you can log in with your free account to get them.
Free Childminding Forms - Childcare.co.uk
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Working with parents / carers
There are 3 main ways of showing evidence of working with parents –
1. Provide parents with lots of information about their child’s time with you – diaries, newsletters, individual planning, daily discussions, notice board displays, photos, meetings to look through learning files etc.
2. Ask parents for feedback about your service and the ways you run your provision; ask them for input into your decision making and include it in your self-evaluation / Ofsted SEF. There are suggestions for writing parent questionnaires in this document on the Independent Childminders Facebook page but you can also involve them verbally and write down their replies.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/inde...5338084154269/
3. Provide parents with activity ideas to follow-up with their child at home – this is a key inspection area so make sure you have evidence of sharing ideas to support home learning. In our provision we add activity ideas to our newsletter and give parents suggestions for games to play at home in their child’s daily diary, based on what they are enjoying while they are here or our current theme. We organise weekly book loans which work really well and often offer to loan resources if a child has a particular interest they want to develop at home or something they want to show parents. We also have a parent blog and if we ask parents to do something at home we will write a blog to share more information with them. Here is a recent blog about their children’s learning characteristics - https://knutsfordchildminding.wordpr...aracteristics/.
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Sharing with other settings
If other settings aren’t working with you, keep hacking away at them and put evidence in the child’s file of how you are trying to get information about what the child is doing there – it is important to document all the letters, phone calls, emails and visits etc. Meanwhile, ask the child and parents what they are doing at the other setting, ask the other setting to add your details to their newsletter email list and look at wall displays when you take or collect the child.
Use what the child is doing in their other setting to support and complement their learning while they are with you eg…
• At pre-school John is learning about Easter. He has read books about Easter (you saw a photo of him reading a book with his key worker on the noticeboard), made an Easter garden (they were displayed on the window ledge) and made an Easter card (it was in his bag)… to complement his learning in your provision he has been learning about eggs and oval shapes.
• At nursery Jane is learning the alphabet (you read about it in the newsletter). To complement her learning in your provision you have a letter of the week linked to things that Jane knows eg her name, mum’s name, her street name etc and you are playing lots of letter games.
Record these activities in the child’s observations and suggest ways to parents that they can be developed at home.
In our provision we have a very simple form which records –
• What the child is learning at the other setting …
• How we are supporting their learning in our provision …
• A brief observation, usually with a photo.
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Planned activity and joint observation
Most inspectors want to watch you doing at least one of your daily planned activities. Ideally the children over the age of 2 in your provision should be used to joining you in a planned activity a couple of times a day – usually one in the morning and one in the afternoon works well. The activity should be appropriate for their age and stage of learning and should involve all the children equally.
If you have children of different ages, think about how everyone is engaged in their learning and make sure you are meeting all their needs. This blog about joint observations will help you to prepare -
Joint observations - be prepared! -.
Your inspector will want to see that you –
• Know each child really well – what they know, what they are learning next and their learning characteristics.
• Record each child’s learning – observations, assessments linked to Early Years Outcomes, individual / next steps planning and tracking to show they are making progress.
You can look at their learning and development files to check information if you freeze during your inspection.
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Outside learning
Does your outside area complement what you offer inside? You don’t need to have everything the same but you do need to be confident that you offer children opportunities to explore all 7 areas of learning outside. A common action from inspections at the moment is to include print outside – if you don’t want posters, banners or bunting on your walls you need to think about other ways you might ensure a print rich outside play environment for the children.
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Promoting independence
Make sure the inspector sees children getting their own plates, preparing their own food, scraping plates after meals, helping to wash up etc as part of their daily routine. Spend time with them now showing them how to pour their own water and put on their coats and shoes, allowing lots of time in case things go wrong.
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Asking questions
In general most practitioners are very good at asking closed questions – how many can you see? What is the colour / shape? Etc… A lot of Ofsted inspectors focus on how well you ask children open questions to develop their thinking skills. We all know that children can go blank (just like adults) when there is a visitor in the house, so practice now by playing question games and asking questions so they get used to replying. Make sure you give them lots of time to reply and be prepared to re-phrase the question if they are struggling.
I have talked in more detail about open-ended questions in my recent parent blog - https://knutsfordchildminding.wordpr...ded-questions/
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Impact of training
When you have been to training sessions it is important to consider how the information you have learned has been used in your provision. You might want to write a ‘reflection of learning’ after the training with action points for changes you intend making - or you could do it in your head and add changes you have made to your self-evaluation / Ofsted SEF.
My reflection sheet which I complete after training (usually on the back of the certificate to keep everything together) considers…
• CPD - What training have I done / read / attended / discussed?
• Learning objectives - What do I want to learn? What areas does the training cover?
• My learning - What have I actually learned from the training?
• How will I implement my CPD? - What changes will I make as a result of the training?
• Impact of CPD training - What difference has my learning made? How has the training enhanced outcomes for children / partnerships with parents / working relationships / my provision etc?
• Date self-evaluation / SEF updated -
We know that inspections are changing – all inspectors have been re-trained recently and we have anecdotal evidence from childminders that inspections are improving.
Please report back on your recent inspections either on the Childminding Forum in the dedicated Ofsted inspection tips section here or on the Independent Childminders Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/inde...tchildminders/ and share your experiences with other childminders to help them prepare for their next inspection.
We can do this if we all work together! Thank you :D
