I plan on spending at least a couple of hours outside every day with the kids so I was wondering whether you had to stay at home? Especially as during te summer months I would be at the pasturelands / woodlands 90% of the time.

They do expect you to be in, but also depends on how long the inspection is. Can you use your garden instead? If not, then the inspector should have no objection to you going out as long as it was not too far away.:)

They do prefer you to be at home (or in the garden) as they're tapping away on their laptop all the while. They may also be looking at paperwork while you're with the children. There's no harm in being in the garden most of the time. Just give the inspector somewhere to sit.

If you do need to go out, for the school run, for example, they generally wait in their car until you get back. I'd love to have an inspector come on the school run - they'd see it's such a learning experience, but they don't seem to want to.

We went on the school run and the inspector sat in her car and checked through our paperwork then came back in when we got back.

:D

Your inspection is just a few hours and not that often, so would see that staying at home whilst being inspected isnt a problem unless you have a school run to do and that cant be avoided

my inspection was done totally in the garden. Mrs O sat under shade and tapped away, nipping into the house to look at my pile of paperwork set out on the dining table. i forgot she was there...:o


mandy xxx

Last time I was inspected, the inspector came out on the school run with me and also spoke to a few of the mums down at school about me which I thought was extremely out of order. I'm sure she made comments regarding this in my report. What if someone had a personal issue with me????

Makes me so angry that all inspectors do not sing off the same hymn sheet. How on earth can you have a seperate bowl for each child??? Do school nurseries have to do this???

I have walked around our local school and picked out at least 10 things that we would be pulled up on as childminders yet they got outstanding. :angry:

Sorry rant over :blush:

I am in Wales and the inspector can turn up any time within three months - mine appeared just days before the end of the 3 months, so we are often out and she rings to get us back. She can inspect in the garden but needs access to all my paperwork. Mine came with me to collect a child but sat outside the house.

OFSTED inspections are slightly different as you know to within few days when they will appear so they do expect you in.

I saw a childminder who had gone on her school run and her inspector came with her. Someone else locally had the call from Ofsted and she gave them the days/times she was available and the inspector didn't turn up on any of those days and turned up just as the minder was loading her kids into the car to go to childminding group . ... so the inspector went to the group with her. There were a lot of shocked childminders that day!!!