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You put an exceptional amount of time and effort into making your nursery setting the best it can be. External Ofsted judgements that influence reputation and parental choice understandably can heighten feelings of stress and worry.
This needn’t be the case! Ensure you and your team are confident and prepared in advance to allow the visit to give you opportunities to showcase what you do for your children and families day in, day out.
There are a number of metaphorical ducks you will need to get into rows to be prepared before and on the day of your inspection. Check out our article on everything you need to know when preparing your staff, parents and children prior to a visit from Ofsted. How many times have you thought of vital points to include after an interview or important conversation has passed? This ‘brain-fog’ is one of the main areas of concern often mentioned by early years practitioners, when it comes to inspections.
We have created 15 of the top Ofsted questions you and your team may be asked during your inspection to help you prepare for those brain fog moments. In creating these EYFS Ofsted questions, we consulted additional industry experts, The Early Years Inspection Handbook, the 2021 EYFS Framework, and spoke to nurseries who have celebrated successful Ofsted inspections in 2022.
These questions are not designed to be exhaustive or to allow for prescriptive answers. Remember that the best inspection conversations are those detailing how your learning is tailored to the needs of your children and families, and therefore there can’t be a carbon copy answer format. From this article, you and your team will gain access to potential question topics and styles for inspections, which we hope will remove the panic when answering and give you the confidence to show how you shine.
Before anything else, preparation is the key to success
What is Ofsted’s role?
Since the introduction of school inspections in 1992, Ofsted has been charged with the responsibility to monitor the quality of teaching and learning in all educational settings across England. The EYFS Framework is the statutory document that all maintained and non-maintained schools, as well as nurseries and childminders either from the local authority or privately owned, must follow. This is because the framework:
Sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well
Ensures children are kept healthy and safe
Ensures that children have the knowledge and skills they need to start school
Settings will be inspected within a 6-year timescale, and if a setting is newly established the inspection will be within 30 months of their registration date. To ensure rapid improvement to the provision, any group setting will be re-visited within 6 months if deemed to be inadequate, with a childminder or preschool nursery having a 1 month revisit time if inadequate. Read more about the Ofsted judgements and what this looks like in a nursery setting here.
What will happen on the inspection day?
The usual working day before the inspection will take place, during which your setting will be contacted by midday via a phone call. The Ofsted representative will speak to the manager of the setting and if they are unavailable, they will ask to speak to the next available senior member of the team. During the phone call, Ofsted will confirm logistical and organisational details, as well as timetables for the following day. They will also expect to collect additional documents and information to assist with their visit.
You can expect the inspector/s to be in the setting for between 4-6 hours on the visit days. Spending their time observing children and staff, undertaking joint learning walks, meeting with parents, viewing relevant policies and information, as well as discussing in-depth questions will be their mission for the day. More information on what to do before and on the inspection day can be found here.
What questions will Ofsted ask me and my team?
These non-exhaustive questions have been sectioned into Curriculum (Quality of Education); Behaviour and Attitudes; Personal Development; Leadership and Management; and Safeguarding. To give you some ideas, we have included a few easy examples of demonstrating evidence.
Curriculum
Following the 3 I’s for quality of education, these questions are sectioned into Intent, Implementation and Impact.
Intent
1) What do you intend your children to know because of your EYFS curriculum?
- Example of long-term plans showing the learning building across their time at the provision.
- Evidence your curriculum is tailored to meet the needs of the children.
- Know-hows aimed to have met by the end of each year: toileting, scissor use.
- Evidence of a broad and balanced curriculum across all 7 Areas of Learning and Development.
2) How do you make sure your curriculum meets the needs of all children?
- Evidence of striving towards inclusive practice within the curriculum intent.
- Special Educational Needs and Disability data mirroring your provision available- if children are presenting with poor speech and language skills, how can you evidence the steps towards a language-rich environment?
- How diverse is your nursery register? Evidence of how your curriculum celebrates what makes them, them.
Implementation
3) How do you ensure your staff has quality subject knowledge to deliver activities?
- A robust record of staff qualifications.
- Continued Professional Development record and projected plan based on developing needs.
- An open and supportive culture around progression.
- Use of evidence-based research from Education Endowment Foundation, National Literacy Trust, ICAN and Early Intervention Foundation.
4) How are Literacy and Language promoted through your setting?
- Evidence you are a language-rich nursery through plans, regular storytime and back and forth interaction observations.
- Evidence and observations across all 7 Areas of Learning and Development.
- The 'why' explained, audit evidence of story choices, the continual provision choices and resource choice.
Impact
5) How do you monitor progress across your setting?
- An easy-to-use system where all important monitoring information is in one central place.
- Evidence of feedback from parents, pupils and observations.
- Regular pupil progress meetings with clear focuses for each meeting.
Get in touch with the Blossom team to discuss our award-winning nursery software.
6) How is independence increased across your setting?
- An explanation as to areas you aim to increase independence in first across the 7 Areas of Learning and Development.
- Feedback from parents via strong communication links.
- Choice of resources available, chosen to encourage independent, free play.
Behaviour and Attitudes
7) What are your expectations of behaviour in your setting?
- Explanation of realistic expectations for age range, consistent nursery wide.
- Promotion of self-regulatory behaviours and understanding of self from an early age.
- Behaviour logged on the central system for all to recognise and unpick, understanding that all behaviour stems from a reason.
8) How is self-regulation promoted throughout the nursery?
- Evidence of encouragement for the development of mentally healthy habits from a young age.
- Common recognition of signs when a child is under or overstimulated, strategies regularly promoted to develop a balance.
- Evidence of continued communication with parents for developing strategies at home.
9) How effective are the home-nursery links for attendance and behaviour?
- Evidence of post-pandemic attendance and efforts made to keep high levels of engagement.
- Explain strong links through the home-nursery communication portal your nursery uses.
- Strong relationships with families, knowing where they need additional support.
Personal Development
10) How do you teach children to respect and celebrate people and their differences?
- Regular visit evidence and timetable of visits from different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences.
- Evidence of a wide range of representation in literary texts is visible as well as shown around the nursery displays.
11) How does your level of support for your children change throughout the year?
- Timetable or plan for the potentially challenging times of the year for your children (festive holidays, settling in, moving on).
- Recognition that children may need support at different times in the year with the key social challenges: making and maintaining friendships, keeping healthy, moving on.
Leadership and Management
12) How is your provision organised?
- Policy evidence and choice behind the policies, to fit the needs of your setting.
- Aims and rationale are apparent throughout practice and are individual to meet the needs of your children and families.
- Recruitment and retention are a priority.
- Staff are encouraged for professional contribution and a culture of support and progression promoted.
13) What are the main stresses of your team and how do you support them?
- Knowledge and awareness of current industry strain within your nursery and nationally (maintaining ratio with isolations and the recruitment of apprentices as examples).
- An active approach to reducing the workload to avoid staff being away from interaction with the children.
Safeguarding
14) What safeguarding procedures are in place?
- Training (including first aid), DBS records, and policies up to date in an easy-to-find system.
- Culture of communication and sharing of information with others.
- Evidence of referrals and their outcomes on a central system.
- Evidence of all staff exploring Keeping Children Safe in Education (Part 1).
15) What is your visitor procedure?
- An in-depth check of the visitor’s credentials (you can contact Ofsted for them to confirm the inspector’s information as well).
- A robust sign in and out system is in use with all visitors identified clearly with lanyard or badge.
- Nursery wide knowledge of the close supervision of any visitor without a full DBS check.
Your children attend your setting for a nurturing, supportive and engaging start to their educational careers. Try using the tools mentioned above to showcase all you do to make this happen, and give your children the best start.
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