My Feedback from my Outstanding inspection
I justed wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who posts about their inspections and everyone who post tips, with a special shout out to Sarah707 as I read every newsletter she does and every thread she starts to pick up ideas and things that I need to know. Without all of these i would never have been able to get my Outstanding in my own inspection. :clapping:
To try and help others here is my feedabck about my inspection:
How Inspection ran:
- Came in, introduced herself, set herself up on dining room table and did a quick chat about how she would inspect me. She talked about how she would mainly observe me, we would then do a joint observation and she would go through all my files. She would ask me questions intermittently and finally we would go through the judgements in the Inspector Handbook ready for feedback.
- The inspector watched me play with the children during free play, watched the activity I set up for joint observation, watched me during one of my 10 minute teaching music session I do throughout the day, watched me take the children the toilet to wash their hands, observed dinner time, came with me upstairs as I put the children to bed, and then just observed everything else that happened.
- One of the grandparents came half way through to collect their grandson, so she had a private word with them in the hall for feedback.
- She read everything I gave her in great detail. This included looking at all of my certificates, reading all of parents feedback letters, going through a learning journal page by page, all progress reports, policies and procedures and my self-development sheets.
- Lots of questions about Prevent, British Values, how I share information with parents, how I track children’s progress, how I gather starting points, the 6 monthly progress reports I do
- She then went through every Good statement in the inspector EYFS handbooklet and asked me if I felt I had or could demonstrate each statement. We then did something similar with the outstanding grades but more of a overview.
What she liked:
- I have a spreadsheet which detailed every course I have completed and I have then put 2 bullet points of things that I had taken away from the learning and that I was going to implement in my setting.
- I use Facebook private groups (one for each child) to share the daily diary, photographs, videos, important notices and shared learning ideas with home. She was really impressed with the amount of parental input got through using this method as most of the parents respond to the daily diary, tag me in photos of children learning at home and also share ideas with me about what their child can do or likes.
- I had not done a SEF however I do have a self-development spreadsheet which note’s down every time I change something in the setting, attend a course, gain knowledge from the internet, change a process or policy. I then note down the reason for change and what I hope to gain from it going forward.
- That I am constantly evaluating my setting and what resources I have and adding new ones or tweaking existing ones to suit the children I have and that I am always making sure that each resource links to EYFS and understand how it aids me in teaching the children.
- I do quick 10 minute focus activities throughout the day to support teaching the children. I do things like number songs, reading books, welcome song in morning were we register each other with photos on the board and talk about the weather, etc. She felt that these were good ways of getting the children school ready as all my children are just around 2, so it was teaching them to sit and listen for a short time whilst being engaged
- That my activity I set up was simple, kept the children engaged, and that at the beginning when she asked me what my objective was with each child that I was to the point and kept it realistic and again simple. She said the simplicity of the activity let her know that I knew my children really well and wasn’t doing it to impress the inspector, but instead to create a fun activity for the children.
- I use a form called ‘My Play Plan’ from Sarah707 for children’s individual planning. She liked that it meant that all my planning was then linked to the children’s own interests therefore giving the children in the setting unique and individual ways to learn whilst being engaged. My next steps were then taken from this and followed through.
- That I encourage children to be independent and also get them involved with things like tidy up time or choosing which songs we sing too.
What she focused on
- Knowing your children inside out
- Prevent – what it is, how you would report a concern, how you embed this in the setting. She loved that I had completed the free course for this.
- British Values – explaining how I embed these. I explained that these are already imbedded in the EYFS in regards to turn taking, sharing, allowing the child to have their voice heard, responding to each other’s feelings, understanding and following the boundaries of the setting and that all of these I already do and that I would just continue to do so.
- Promoting Children’s health – how I teach this to the young children.
- How do I challenge children’s view on equality
- How do I teach the children – through child led activities and through adult led activities
- What were the childrens starting points, how did I include the parents in this, and were the children making good progress.
Hope this helps someone else. Any questions just ask.