Inspection - The early years handbook

‘Quality of education’ is a key judgment and contains teaching, learning and assessment and outcomes

Under the above comes ‘intent, implementation, impact’ – curriculum content (intent), planning and delivery (implementation) and assessing outcomes for children (impact)

Part 1 of the Early years inspection handbook

The inspection process remains largely unchanged. Judgments will continue to be made against the four categories used in the previous framework and the vast majority of providers will continue to receive notice prior to their inspection unless the setting previously received an inadequate grade or there are significant concerns about the quality of provision and/or safeguarding.

The key headings proposed in the consultation will remain:

• Teaching, Learning and Assessment, and Outcomes for Children will be merged to create Quality of Education
• Personal Development, Behaviour and Welfare will be separated into Personal Development, and Behaviour and Attitudes
• There will be no change to the key headings of Leadership and Management and Overall Effectiveness.

Historically many providers have concerned themselves with the second part of the Early years inspection handbook, which contains the grade descriptors, but there is a real need to refer to the document as a whole and not just the bits that we think matter the most.

Although part 1 describes the inspection process, it also provides information about the types of documents that your inspector is likely to want to see, the territory to be covered during discussions, the possible focus of observations and the evidence that needs to be gathered. This is of critical importance because if we’re not looking at the same things during our monitoring activities, Ofsted may find something that we didn’t know about, which may cast doubt on how accurate our view of quality is. This could impact on the judgments made. To be clear – this is not about ‘doing things for Ofsted’. It’s about the effectiveness of our monitoring systems and the accuracy of self-evaluation.

Becoming familiar with part 1 is also important because it is now the only place where we will get a sense of what inspectors will be looking at and for in detail. The previous framework used to provide a ‘sources of evidence’ list before the majority of the grade descriptors, but this has gone, I suspect, to reduce what could have been interpreted as prescription.

Without looking at part 1, you may miss little gems like this…

‘Inspectors will complete a learning walk around the premises with the provider or their representative at the start of the inspection. This provides an opportunity for leaders to explain how they organise the early years provision, including the aims and rationale for their EYFS curriculum… Inspectors must discuss with leaders and practitioners what they intend children to learn, know and do as a result of the EYFS curriculum they offer.’

Previously a tour of our premises was necessary to help inspectors to become familiar with our setting. Naturally, conversations would take place during the tour, but ‘learning walks’ will require us to talk about why we do what we do and the approach we’ve taken, which will start to set the scene for the ‘quality of education’ judgment.

Intent, Implementation and Impact

Some of the anxiety felt by many leaders, managers and practitioners will be down to the new language used in the inspection framework.

Intent – Many providers will already have a sound rationale for what they do and why they do it, but this isn’t something that we’ve routinely been asked to talk about during inspections. Staff teams need to spend some time together to make sure that everyone understands what we are here to do and how that translates to the body of knowledge, skills, experiences and opportunities that we currently offer to the children in our care.

Settings won’t be given an Outstanding rating unless ‘the provider’s curriculum intent and implementation are embedded securely and consistently across the provision. It is evident from what practitioners do that they have a firm and common understanding of the provider’s curriculum intent and what it means for their practice. Across all parts of the provision, practitioners’ interactions with children are of a high quality and contribute well to delivering the curriculum intent.’

Implementation – Once we’ve checked that we’re all on the same page, we need to ensure that there is a consistent approach to the delivery of that body of knowledge, skills, opportunities and experiences. Does practice align with our setting’s vision? Are children able to build on what they already know, understand and can do in a meaningful way? Is there an appropriate level of challenge for all children? And do our resources, environments and planned activities enable children to revisit and practice what they have already learned, ensuring that knowledge and skills are secure?

Impact – This is about the difference that we make. How do we know that what we are doing is helping all children to make the progress that they are capable of? What do our monitoring activities tell us about the effectiveness of our teaching strategies, the breadth and balance of our curriculum and our ability to meet the needs of all children?

Cultural capital

The term ‘cultural capital’ is also worrying a great many providers – but it isn’t something that needs to be feared as it’s highly likely that what we do already makes a massive contribution to each child’s cultural capital.

During their time with us, children will be offered a great many opportunities and experiences that will broaden their view and understanding of the world around them. This is built on what we know about each child and the communities in which they live.

If we are offering a broad and balanced curriculum that covers all seven areas of learning and supporting children to develop the Characteristics of Effective Learning, we will be providing children with essential knowledge and skills that will help them to bounce back from adversity and to make the most of opportunities as and when they are presented.

Performance management

The new inspection framework creates an onus on leaders to take a good look at their performance management systems. Inspectors will want to consider how well ‘leaders focus on improving practitioners’ knowledge of the areas of learning and understanding of how children learn to enhance the teaching of the curriculum and appropriate use of assessment’ – and to see how ‘the practice and subject knowledge of practitioners build and improve over time’.

That means our monitoring activities need to provide us with a view of what staff know, understand and can do, and that we effectively target weaker areas of practice through coaching, shadowing, mentoring, action research projects and professional development events.

The major challenge with this inspection framework is our interpretation of it – it needs careful consideration, which should involve our staff, to ensure they aren’t phased by terminology and that they are able to share and celebrate what they do.