A new blog to talk through some of the recent inspection actions.

http://www.childmindinghelp.co.uk/forum/blogs/sarah707/90-recent-inspection-feedback-04-2014.html

I hope you find it useful :D

Thank you Sarah, very useful.

How do you allow younger children independent access to their water cups without them picking up each other's?! My own daughter who is almost 2 is obsessed with other people's drinks and will help herself to anybody's if she can get to them!

How long after a child starts would you fill in a tracker with starting points? On our LA course we were told 4 weeks and that in the meantime you'd be making observations and assessments - do you do these, along with individual planning, from the outset?

Thank you Sarah, very useful.

How do you allow younger children independent access to their water cups without them picking up each other's?! My own daughter who is almost 2 is obsessed with other people's drinks and will help herself to anybody's if she can get to them!

Our children all have their own coloured cups and we teach them to only use their own - and put them back on a tray when they have had a drink... otherwise we'd be washing them all day lol!

How long after a child starts would you fill in a tracker with starting points? On our LA course we were told 4 weeks and that in the meantime you'd be making observations and assessments - do you do these, along with individual planning, from the outset?

From as quickly as possible using parents information about what the child can do at home. Recently we've heard that Ofsted inspectors are looking for planning almost from the child's first days in the provision.

Hope that helps :D

Wonderful. I can't tell you how much help you've been to me over the past few weeks with your ebooks and the free resources on here. Thank you x

Thank you Sarah, very useful.

How do you allow younger children independent access to their water cups without them picking up each other's?! My own daughter who is almost 2 is obsessed with other people's drinks and will help herself to anybody's if she can get to them!

How long after a child starts would you fill in a tracker with starting points? On our LA course we were told 4 weeks and that in the meantime you'd be making observations and assessments - do you do these, along with individual planning, from the outset?

Another way is to put the child's name on the cup? that means you are teaching them from early to recognise their name and introducing 'print' to your environment

During your settling in you should be able to gather a lot of info about a new child...this will give you an idea what you may want to plan
Starting points are very important and unless you observe a child when he/she is entirely in your care it may be hard to plan individually
Starting points is another way of 'tracking' children...by observing what they can do
My personal experience is that I have never been able to plan for each child until I knew that child well

Inspectors vary in judgement...we hear stories every day of how different they are so really up to you to discuss with her how to record the starting points and track children's learning...you are the key person for that child not the inspector

I know the advice is different from this forum but ...having just attended a workshop with an ex Ofsted manager I take her advice: know the EYFS and challenge the inspector if you feel her judgement is wrong

When teachers will do the 'baseline assessment' for reception children ....this will be done very quickly but teachers will not be expected to plan until they have gathered what those children can do...it should go both ways!