I just had a phone call from my Ofsted inspector saying she's not supposed to tell me when she's coming, but.... she's coming on the 21st! Thank goodness I have a date! :clapping:

Well actually she is supposed to tell you exactly when she is coming!

The inspector will be from a company called Tribal or Prospects and Ofsted have told them (Ofsted employ them to do inspections for them but control how they are done) both quite clearly that they have to make a time and day specific appointment for all Childminder inspections that fits around the childminders day..

So for once, an inspector has done exactly what Ofsted expect of them which is good to hear. :thumbsup:

Well actually she is supposed to tell you exactly when she is coming!

The inspector will be from a company called Tribal or Prospects and Ofsted have told them (Ofsted employ them to do inspections for them but control how they are done) both quite clearly that they have to make a time and day specific appointment for all Childminder inspections that fits around the childminders day..

So for once, an inspector has done exactly what Ofsted expect of them which is good to hear. :thumbsup:

Ah right! That's not what she said! She's from Prospects and when she originally phoned me a couple of weeks ago we agreed that a thursday would be the best day for her to come, but she wasn't allowed to tell me which thursday. Then she phoned this morning to see if I was minding on fri 21st as she was going to come on thurs 20th but can't now. She said she wasn't supposed to tell me but she would anyway!

I was inspected on 1 Sept.

Propects first phoned me and this was just the office, and asked me to stay in for two weeks and they would come and inspect me sometime in that 2 weeks!!!! I refused to stay in for that long saying it was not on to expect me or the children to stay in for that long and I would discuss it with the inspector when they called me. I was then told that inspectors no longer called childminders and hadn't done since Prospects and tribal had taken over!!! Strange because all my friends in the last 6 months have had a call from their inspectors?

Anyhow I tied them down to 2 days which I was happy about but the inspector did not phone me. She turned up on the second of the 2 days with a second person with her, a trainee!! They should have rung and asked if I minded this. I grilled them on the doorstep and examined the inspectors ID which was OK. Then the trainee who only had a letter saying she was a trainee, no photo ID. I made it clear that I was not happy about an extra person just arriving, that they did not have good enough ID but I would let her in because I knew she would never be alone with the children in my care.

The inspection carried on and at the end I asked for a simple Variation to be granted. I was shocked the inspector said a resounding no I can't do that I'm only a Free Lance Inspector, phone OFSTED. I was shocked by her reaction and I phoned Osted as soon as she left.

It was during the conversation with Ofsted, who were not impressed about the Variation and had given it to me and emailed my new cert within 2 hrs, that they told me about the day and time specific appointment when I told them I had been asked to stay in for 2 weeks.

I am currently waiting for both Prospects and Ofsted respond to the 5 page Complaint I lodged regarding the way my inspection was conducted.

When you have had your inspection you will have a call from Prospects after a few days asking if you want your report emailed to you or posted to you so you can check it for factual inaccuracies.

You have 24 hours to do this which is not long but please do check everything including spelling and grammar, they have to correct all of that for you and your report reflects on you as a professional so there should be no mistakes.

Mine was full of them and it took 2 goes to get them all corrected but they did correct them.