First Inspection Tips

[LittleVoice]

Finally had my first inspection this morning and it went well.
For anyone with their inspection looming here is what my inspector was assessing.

She spent a lot of the time looking at paperwork, (childrens records, risk assessments, fire drill logs, smoke alarm tests, daily checklists etc)I would definately recommend doing a SEF as she spent a lot of tim referring to it and taking examples I'd put in it. She commented on how orgaanised I was and how that reflected in the learning and development of the children. However her main area of interest was on childrens learning journeys and planning for childrens next steps, she also wanted to see evidence of the next steps being carried out. She asked a lot of questions about childrens starting points and how I use this to plan exciting opportunities to extend their learning and development. She asked what stage each child was at and what my plans for their future learning was, especially children who will be starting school in September and how I will encourage them to be ready for school.

Partnership with parents is hot on the agenda, she liked seeing that I got parents involved in assessing the childrens starting points and how parents contribute observations to childrens file. Another thing she spent a lot of time doing was looking at how I track childrens progress and how I make those judgements.

She asked a LOT about how I keep children safe? What would I do if 1 child wanted to play indoors and 1 outdoors? And how children can manage their own risk within the setting.

We did a joint observation in which she wanted to know exactly what the learning outcomes where and why, and how I involve children of different ages in activities.

She commented on how I record childrens exact arrival and depature times, I.e arrives 07:52 leaves 16.41. (I have a digital clock next to register)
A big thing she picked up on with me was the way I communicated with the children, how I asked lots of open questions and how I repeated the same question but in a different way to see if the child understood. Right on cue, (with no prompting whatsoever) one child I was doing an activity with said I love coming to Hailees house to which she said awww that's lovely!! (I could have kissed him!!)
Another thing she was really into was the outdoor natural world. She wanted to see children growing their own vegetable and learning about how they grow and how we use them.

Hope that helps anyone waiting for their inspection. Obviously grading is not official for a couple of weeks I did ok. She said the only reason I didn't get the highest grade was my indoor and outdoor area didn't compliment each other, she told me that my indoor area as an outstanding area that captivates childrens imaginativity but my outside area was only good and I needed to make the outdoor to the same high standard as the indoors. I explained (tried to blagg) that the outdoor area was a natural enviroment that enables children to explore at their own free will but she said it could still be enhanced. Oo another things she mentioned was allowing children to play with real life objects in their play such as real wooden spoons and metal pans whisks as this allows them to experience the real world. I do normally do this and told her that but she said she can only go on what she has observed today!

The biggest thing I'd say is to be natural, do what you normally do and be confident in doing it. And just keep talking so they don't get chance to ask you many questions! X I was really nervous but actually I really enjoyed the whole experience. x

[shortstuff]

Thanks for the info. Im sure we will all find something in that to learn from x

[chriss]

so are we to know each childs starting points in our heads (I will forget ) and their exact age/stage of development ? How specific do they want us to be...my mind will go blank lol. or do they rely on paperwork to see where the children are ? Yikes I am scared !!

How long did they stay ?

Can you tell i am scared haha

[LittleVoice]

so are we to know each childs starting points in our heads (I will forget ) and their exact age/stage of development ? How specific do they want us to be...my mind will go blank lol. or do they rely on paperwork to see where the children are ? Yikes I am scared !! How long did they stay ? Can you tell i am scared haha

I didn't mean to scare you at all. To be honest I was really nervous about it but the whole experience was actually really positive. They aren't there to catch us out doing something wrong, nor do they want us to get a poor mark. All they are doing is making sure that the children are receiving the best possible care they can, and isn't that why we do this job in the first place?

As for knowing the children's exact staring points, she didn't expect me to know them exactly, just have an idea of where they started and where they are now. She wanted to know how I collected my I observations to assess where they were at and then how I planned to move their learning on. She did expect me to know where the children were at with their current learning and what our focus was in regards to their learning and development. She was specifically interested in my planning for children who we're starting school this year, she said a lot of focus is on getting children ready for school. This simply includes building on number work, enabling them time to sit and read booms quietly and have books read to the , (especially boys who generally want to be outside pretty much most of the time)

She did spend a lot of time looking at paperwork, especially learning journeys. She wanted to know how children had made progress and how I tracked this to ensure they were making good progress.

I live in York and there was a tragic accident At a nursery in which a young girl died on her first day in nursery and I'm wondering if that's why she was hot on health and safety as she asked a lot of questions about how I keep children safe, what would I do if 1 child wanted to play outside and others didn't, would I let that 1 child go out alone?

As for how long she stayed, she told me she could be here between 2 and 4 hours depending on if she got what she needed in that time. My inspector was here 2 hours 15 mins, she arrived at 9.15 and left at 11.30. A friend recently had her inspection and her inspector was thee from 9.20-13.00. So I guess it depends on your inspector. I laid out everything that I wanted her too see on the kitchen table and made a list of everything I wanted to tell her as I honestly thought my mind would go blank but during the whole inspection I didn't refer to my piece of paper once as the whole inspection was such much more relaxed than I anticipated. She told me that she didn't want to make me feel uncomfortable in my own home and not at one point did I feel that way. I asked her lots of questions about things which she was really helpful about and gave me some really good advice.

At the end of the day just keep doing what you do everyday. Our practice shouldn't change just because ofsted are there, as I said earlier, they are there to help us, not fail us.

Hope that helps ease your worries a little.

[munch149]

Sounds like a much more positive one that mine. My inspector was nice enough but I later found out that he only ever gives satisfactory to newbies regardless so nothing I was going to say would have changed that. This was almost three years ago tho so hopefully this one will be better and I will get at least the good I'm sure I deserve

[LittleVoice]

Sounds like a much more positive one that mine. My inspector was nice enough but I later found out that he only ever gives satisfactory to newbies regardless so nothing I was going to say would have changed that. This was almost three years ago tho so hopefully this one will be better and I will get at least the good I'm sure I deserve

I have to say it was a very positive and enjoyable experience.

That's shocking about only getting satisfactory as it's your first inspection. Although I have heard the same about giving Outstanding in a first inspection. I did ask my inspector if that was true and she said not exactly, getting outstanding is about reflecting on what you've done and building on children's learning, how you adapt to that overtime and generally in first inspections the childminder hasn't been childminding long enough to show evidence of that so that's why it is very hard to get outstanding. It it's not impossible.

Fingers crossed you get the grade you want next time round. :-)

[hectors house]

Pleased to read about the pots and pans suggestion in your first post - mine have been playing with the treasure basket today which includes wooden spoons and the 12 month old was banging the spoon on another toy, so I found 4 metal cake tins and they have been banging on their drums to their hearts content - I may need ear defenders later - just going to write it up as a risk assessment for keeping childminder safe and sanity intact!

Well done on your very positive first inspection and thanks for posting such useful feedback.

[loocyloo]

Well done and very interesting. Thank you x

[Simona]

Sounds like a much more positive one that mine. My inspector was nice enough but I later found out that he only ever gives satisfactory to newbies regardless so nothing I was going to say would have changed that. This was almost three years ago tho so hopefully this one will be better and I will get at least the good I'm sure I deserve

Hopefully that practice has stopped and we get the grade we deserve
Do bear in mind though that whatever grade the inspector tells you she is awarding has to be confirmed by Ofsted Quality Assurance team when they see the inspector's report about her judgement...that is why we are asked not to say anything until we get the final decision

We have heard of providers being given a grade that was subsequently lowered by the QA...it is something I hope our OBC will sort out because the inspectors are trained to judge practice so the QA changing the grades causes worry!