First graded tomorrow

[benandjerrys]

Wow that's fantastic! I never knew you could get outstanding on first graded? Looking forward to reading your feedback x

[pat75]

Well done!!!

[shortstuff]

That is brill news x well done x big party at yours this weekend x

[lisbet]

Oh wow!

Hope you are enjoying your well earned celebration!! x

[CLL]

So here goes I will try to give practical examples of what I did and how I prepared and what she liked.

DO YOUR SEF - I can not stress this enough, she then knows before she arrives that you have started to reflect. Don't just waffle on about what you would do in theory give concrete examples. Ie. I track progress of all children for example .....

My background and qualifications enabled me to be confident that I offer an outstanding service and I have experience of teaching and tracking lots of children's progress. She did stress however that although she noted all my qualifications they are not what got me the outstanding grade. I could have easily got a much lower grade and she based her judgement solely on my practice that she saw when she was here. So don't worry if you don't have any formal qualifications your actions speak for themselves.

Practical things which need to be on place:

Fire evacuation plan on wall
Door locked and key put up high
Check her Id
Have a visitors book get her to sign in
Introduce her to children

I controlled the day and what she saw when. I asked her if she would like to observe practice straight away as it would soon be nap time. I had planned it this way so I knew what she would observe and when.

Observation

Circle time - she loved this
Hello song
Visual sign in board
Days of the week
Weather today
Song time with puppets

Planned musical activity
Story time

Nap time

She watched me put him to sleep and wanted to observe nappy changing. Make sure you follow your own policies.

She then looked around my home. Things I had in place which she liked

Menu on wall
Routines of the day
Individual planning on wall
Weekly attendance on wall
Print rich environment - such as home corner, discovery zone etc written in English and Polish (get parents to help you)
Laminated photo book for each child so we can talk about mummy and daddy etc
Accessible continuous provision. I have a lot of wicker baskets with things in.
Multicultural and gender resources such as books, toys, musical instruments from around the world
Treasure basket

Outside
Print rich environment. I have painted wooden signs labelling everything
What was outside
Climbing frame
Sand pit
Water tray
Tuff spots
Weaving wall
Sensory garden
Play house
Balls, hoops, bean bags
Vegetable patch
Magic fairy garden
I also have all weather suits hanging inside the back door and Wellies.

Files and paperwork

Risk assessment file - about 40 RA written
Sleep log file - I record and log when each child sleeps and check every 10 min.
Fire audit file
Daily checks file
Visitor sign in file
Accident and medical file
Safeguarding book
Physical intervention book
Comments and complaint book
Record of sickness book
Attendance register book
Copy of EYFS
Setting file with policies, certificates, insurances etc

Children's individual files - what was inside
Info from home
Observations
Tracking linked to dm
My own colour coded tracking highlighting areas of l&d and which are emerging, achieving or exceeding. (she loved this).
RA for child linked to stages of development (loved this).
Focused learning priorities (loved this).
Links with home - all about me, questionnaire, parent review meeting notes. How I work with parents to promote learning at home (loved this).
She quizzed me on how my obs and next steps linked. She wanted to see if I had wrote next steps then where was obs as evidence I had done it. She wanted to link all of them together ( had a mild panic here as there were some I had just done but not observed again).
Individual planning with inside and outside activity for each day with a reflection box to evaluate what I had done.

Reflexive praxis file
She was mostly impressed with this
I had shown a need, identified what specific child it related to, researched the topic both academically and with action research, carried out strategies, evaluated them and then imbedded my reflexive praxis notes.
She was Impressed that I had managed to show continuous improvement and self development in the 2 months.

She asked about my multicultural resources
Liked I had water available in cups for babies
Impressed with me learning polish
Cook and provide balanced meals and snacks
Listen to parents wishes
Take children on outings and to groups.
Parents also wrote me references for her to read on the day, they were sealed so I had no idea what they had said until afterwards.

To be honnest I had loads of paperwork which she just glanced at (the stuff that takes weeks to write) but I know if I didn't have it she would have questioned that it was lacking.

Overal the 'stuff' I had just backed up my practice. She was very clear that she was observing my practice, how child responded to me, did I know him well, did we have a great relationship, could I tailor activities to his needs. Without clear visual evidence of this all the files in he world will get you nowhere.

So for all of you with an upcoming inspection. Buy Sarah's ebooks on doing you SEF, risk assessments and preparing for your inspection. Do all the paperwork you can ,yes it is boring and tedious but the more you show the less she asks.
Above all plan a simple activity, engage with the children and show you know and understand them.

Hope this helps and good luck. X

[FussyElmo]

Thank you for the feedback

[CLL]

Oh and she struggled to find an area for improvement. I told her that in the past I had set up a home-setting toy library. She suggested I provide story sacks to share with home to continue good links with learning. It was something I was going to do anyway but ran out of time.

[CLL]

Can I also just say a big thank you to all you folks who have posted feedback from your own Ofsted inspections. Whether you had a good or bad experience reading your posts helped me to focus on what they were looking for at the moment. I would also like to thank Sarah for her very detailed and excellent ebooks which helped me to organise my thoughts and get my paperwork in top form.