Interview – Wendy Ratcliff, Ofsted's Principal Officer for Early Education 

The report does highlight the growing workforce crisis and the impact on quality. Is that something that you’re seeing in practice in inspections, with the rise in unqualified staff?

We’re keeping a close eye on that because when we look at the overall figures on inspection outcomes it is still 96 per cent Good or better. But we know that since the introduction of the Education Inspection Framework the proportion of providers that are Good has increased, but there has been a slight fall in the number Outstanding.

It is fair to say that the sector is struggling with recruitment and retention, but actually one point that I do think is really important that we get across is, it's really important to recognise that work that the sector are doing. And, you know, celebrate that because they're facing challenges, but they carry on and they are doing their best to provide that high quality education and care for our youngest children. And I think that's something that we really should emphasise, we appreciate the work that they do.

It's interesting that Amanda Spielman mentions it, about the fact that Ofsted doesn't make policy and sometimes people don't understand the role of Ofsted properly. But is there anything that Ofsted itself you think can do to help with the workforce crisis?

We’ve got a specific strategic priority for the next five years that it is Best Start in Life.

That is a priority because we think that this is the bit of work that we can make the most difference in terms of thinking and really emphasising the importance that a child's early education lasts a lifetime. And we need to get it right in the early years. And that's why we've been doing the Best Start in Life review series. Part three is due out in December, and that will bring that series to a conclusion. We’re wanting to help those in the sector make sure they are providing that high quality early education, and that research review is there to help them. There's nothing new in it. But we're hoping that it reassures people that we're not looking for anything different.

Are you seeking to highlight that in the sector, what is good practice?

We will move on to look at that in time. We're doing our curriculum roadshows, we've been doing [them] since summer 2022 through to this summer. We’re having a break at the moment, but will go back to them. We've had some extremely positive feedback from the sector about those and the impact that they've had in helping shape, and I guess confirm, the importance of a child's early education and how communication and language is so key. Particularly when we're still seeing the impact of the pandemic on young children.

The report also highlights the impact of the pandemic, on behaviour in schools, as well as in early years, and on vocabulary.

Yes, it is [on] the communication and language and we're aware that lockdowns have had that big impact on the youngest children. Particularly in terms of communication and social skills. But we know that there's been a great deal of work to help children catch up with that lost learning and settle back into their routines. I think that some of the worst fears about the impact on early education are beginning to wane. And our inspection findings show that most children are getting that good early education and I think that's the key message from the annual report. You know, amongst all those challenges – whether it's the impact of the pandemic or whether it's the issues around workforce – that actually our inspection results show that most children are getting good early education, and that's a reason to be optimistic about the future.

The report found that 8 per cent of early years settings that were previously rated outstanding fell to requires improvement or inadequate. Why do you think that might be? Is it because of the workforce crisis?

Usually when we look at the impact of that, that there's a number of factors that come into play, and it can usually be linked back to leadership or management.

Each inspection is unique, so no two inspections are the same. But the sector is facing those challenges. They're facing those challenges with workforce. And they're facing those challenges to make sure they continue to provide high quality early education.

You also mentioned in the report about multiple providers. It’s been suggested for a while that you might inspect them differently. But it's not really clear about where you might go with that, does that need a policy change or is that something that Ofsted could just go ahead and decide to do?

What we're seeing is the number of nurseries and pre-schools that are part of multiple providers is growing. And I think it's fair to say that we've been considering how we might be able to inspect and regulate these providers. Currently, each individual setting has to register. We inspect those individual settings that those providers then manage, but we know it's important for us to hold those providers to account for the quality of provision across all their settings. So, I think it's fair to say we're currently in the early scoping stages of that work. There will be some things that are within our gift, and some things that potentially might need legislative change.

The statistics came out last week showing the fall in the number of places is really dramatic, 17,800 places in the last year. How can Ofsted influence Government to counter this, when the expansion plans for childcare are in motion? There’s such a lot of concern in the sector.

We're continuing to work with the Department of Education on various initiatives on the childcare reforms and to support the recruitment and retention of childminders, for example. On the DfE’s childcare reforms they want to increase places and we're continuing to work with them on those initiatives.

For children with special educational needs, the report says there are more under-fives that now have EHCPs [Education Health and Care Plans]. Is that because there's a greater recognition of need with younger children? Is it because nurseries are able to identify needs earlier?

I think that potentially there's a couple of things there. We've got the impact of a pandemic. There's less access to say speech and language therapy, and some other resources as well. But I think one of the other things that's important to remember is making sure that when we're talking about special educational needs and disabilities, that we don't always jump too quickly to say that a child has special educational needs, just because they haven't learned to do something yet.

With the Best Start in Life reviews, what will the third one cover?

Part three will report on the specific areas of learning and then there'll be a conclusion to bring that review to together. From our perspective, one of the things that we said for that strategic priority is that we want to make sure that there's the same evidence base there for early years. It builds on our Education Inspection Framework. So it doesn't cover everything, but it supports that, and brings it in line with the subject reports that have happened for schools, so settings can use that for their continued professional development of their staff. And looking at various different ways of us being able to make those messages accessible, through speaking engagements, curriculum roadshows, webinars. We also have recordings of the curriculum roadshows on our YouTube channel.

It’s so well reported – and our own survey highlighted this – the anxiety and stress that providers feel before inspections. What is Ofsted doing to support providers with that?

It’s an area of work where we're doing a lot. We want to put some of those misconceptions right. So, there's been a number of things that we're doing with regard to that. The handbook information is there, there's no secret guidance. We talk a lot with providers about ‘what do I need to do to prepare for my inspection?’ Don’t do anything because you think it's what we want you to say, have the confidence to do what you do every day. If you're doing the right thing for your children. You're doing the right thing for Ofsted.

We’ve produced a number of resources to help the sector with that – whether that's the short YouTube videos that one of the inspectors in my team features in, ‘what do I expect from the learning walk?’, for example, which we're getting some really positive feedback about, or whether it's our frequently asked questions. There's one for childminders, one for group settings and one for early years in schools, and parent guides. We’re continuing to engage with the sector and reflect and provide those reassurances, and making sure our inspectors have those messages too, and of course, checking the quality of inspection work.

There’s been a lot of debate about the one-word judgement. Is Ofsted going to revisit that any point do you know?

That's a wider issue. In terms of early years, we already go back quite quickly when we've just judged somewhere inadequate, so there is no change to the timing of inspection. We’re continually reflecting on our inspection policy, how our education inspection framework is working. We've recently done some evaluation of the implementation of it. And again, those findings will come out shortly, before Christmas.

A lack of trust with the complaints system is another thing that has been mentioned recently. Can you say anything about that? Our readers do feel that Ofsted could do better on that.

We consulted on our complaints process earlier in the year and we're due to provide a response to that consultation in due course, this side of Christmas.

Is there anything else that you would particularly like to highlight from the report?

I think it's the positive message about what the early years sector are doing. We really want to recognise the important work that practitioners are doing out there – day in, day out – to provide that high quality early education for the youngest children in some challenging times.