How many different areas do Ofsted grade you on and if you get different grades for different things then how do you work out what your overall grade is? Sorry just been curious as even the other childminders local to me who have been doing it for years didn't seem to know!

there are 16 areas for grading (if I remember correctly) and the final grade depends on the inspector ... and what you get for safeguarding.

Hth :D

i got satisfactory for working with parents, hygiene and working with professionals and good for the rest. good overall. as long as you get good for major ones, safeguarding, risk ass, policys, welfare you will do just fine. 'Good' is strongly following the statutory guidelines.
go through the booklet and if you do it all and understand almost all you are fine!

Thank you very much!! I've no idea when my first inspection will be but I really want to get it right! (obviously!)

My inspector told me that safeguarding was one of the most important judgements - you could be outstanding in everything else but if safeguarding was not spot on it would bring the judgement down.

If you want to see the judgement areas go on the Ofsted website and look under inspection reports for childminders - if you type in your postcode you will see recent reports in your area - the judgements are given at the end of the report. Can be quite useful to read a few reports before your inspection as you can get an idea of what inspectors in your area are looking for and what sort of actions they are giving out.

Miffy xx

you're right it really does depend on the inspector though. I got outstanding in lots of areas - well all besides how I interacted with the child as said child had to go to bed as was only 10 months old and I had already kept her up for the inspection. (Inspector was late and didn't want to see me play with her first but paperwork!). Anyhow I had to put her for her mid day nap and the inspector said she would have graded me outstanding all over (I got good in the end as my final grade) if she could have seen me play more with her - however what I did was very good.

Felt like I couldn't win as she gave me a list of 3 dates and times. I gave her my timetable and plans and if she had come on one of the other days she would have seen me playing with her loads as it was after bedtime!

Hey ho - onwards and upwards.

LMHALL i bet you were spitting blood!
how annoying. i kept my 8mth old up a bit later but luckily for me he doesn't sleep in the AM. She was there from 9.15am to 12.30pm, how could anyone not expect a baby to sleep? wasn't an issue as i'm not near the big O. Well done though, your parents will know and so will you, bah humbug to ofsted!!

Thank you very much for your replies. How is best to demonstrate good safeguarding? I have a safeguarding policy but is there anything that I can say or do during an Ofsted to particularly demonstrate good safeguarding? Or indeed that I should be doing anyway?
Also going back to 'good' and 'outstanding' grades if I had a good ofsted but one of my areas was 'outstanding' could I promote myself as being ofsted good but then quote ofsted on what i was graded outstanding for - So for example 'Helping children achieve well and enjoy what they do - outstanding'
Its been really useful reading the other inspection reports because it shows what other childminders have been asked to do to improve their settings. Its a bit disheartening though because NONE of the childminders in the area have been graded outstanding! I'm not expecting to be outstanding on my first go but I'd like to at least be aiming for that!

one of our local colleges promotes its good ofsted report on huge billboards across the town but cites the only quote from the report which highlights its outstanding aspect. I can't see anything wrong with that.

well lets hope I get something that I can promote as being 'good' then!! No idea how long it will be before my ofsted! hoping I will have some permanent bookings by then as I have just holiday ones at the moment!!