Unpicking Ofsted Reports, part 9: Partnerships

I usually share inspection issues that trend from my analysis of Ofsted reports. In this article, I’d like to share an area of practice that is creeping up the rankings each term. The issue is the effectiveness of our working relationships with another provider when we share children.

Here’s what Ofsted says providers need to do:

• Develop systems for sharing information with other providers to offer a more consistent learning experience.
• Strengthen partnership working with other providers, and sharing information to support complementary learning experiences.
• Obtain more information about what children are learning from other settings.
• As more and more parents get used to the idea of having 30 hours to use, they are thinking about the ways they can balance their childcare needs. I’ve recently seen scores of threads on social media about settings ‘sharing’ children with schools and other settings.

Partnership working can be difficult; some providers may be competing against each other for the same children, or settings in a local area may have never really seen eye to eye (schools included). The bottom line is this: if a child within our care also accesses another setting, there is an expectation that the two settings will work together to ensure that the child’s learning experiences are complementary.

This means three things:

1. There needs to be a regular exchange of information to understand what knowledge and skills children demonstrate while at the other setting.
2. We need to know what next steps have been identified for the child in the other setting.
3. We need to find ways of sharing important information (any significant events that have happened in the child’s time with us and important information from parents).

If you are struggling, Childcare Works is experienced in helping providers overcome the challenges of partnership working and you can find a number of useful resources and presentations at www.childcareworks.co.uk/resources.

One thing I am sure of is that it helps to have something written down. This isn’t about having a formal agreement in place but working together to produce a clear set of expectations that everyone has signed up to. This is something that can be reviewed to see how things are working out, where there have been hiccups and to have honest conversations about the manageability of the system. Semi-regular reviews of this document will help to iron out difficulties and any misunderstandings before things escalate into a disagreement.

You may be reading this and thinking there is absolutely no need for this, we have really great relationships with our local settings. However, relationships are dependent on people getting along and wanting to work together. A change of manager or teacher may have a significant impact on daily/weekly transition arrangements if there is a different view of how things should be done or if that person doesn’t value working in partnership with you.

I’m also often asked, ‘What can we do if a setting doesn’t want to work with us?’ In this situation, all you can do is hold on to any evidence you have that shows that you have tried to work in partnership with others: copies of letters or emails inviting staff from other settings to special events you’ve held or requests to meet up; anything that shows that a genuine attempt has been made to work in partnership.

This type of transition is often complex because of the logistics of sharing information frequently with another setting, but unfortunately many leaders and managers find the transition to Reception a much greater challenge.

One of the biggest sources of tension is that many Reception teachers dispute what children know, understand and can do when they arrive at school. The automatic assumption is that our professional judgement is inaccurate, which often has an impact on how we are viewed as professionals and on partnership working.

There are several reasons why some children won’t demonstrate the skills and knowledge that they have in nursery/pre-school.

1. For many children, moving to school is huge, as they suddenly find themselves in a bigger building where nothing is familiar. There are more rooms, more children and the environment will look and feel very different.

2. It’s unlikely that the children will have had the opportunity to build secure relationships with Reception staff before moving to school. It is therefore going to take time for some children to develop trust in adults and to form secure attachments.

3. The routine is different – and therefore some children may feel less safe because they don’t know what is going to happen next.

4. Small numbers of children might not move with their friends, so there is the added stress of not knowing anyone in their class.

5. Some children will have spent the summer holidays with family and friends rather than with us, therefore some of the skills that they have had the opportunity to practise daily or weekly will have become a dim and distant memory. For some children, just remembering what they had for breakfast is a challenge, therefore the chances of them remembering how to do this or that after a six-week break is unlikely.

It might be worth slipping these points into future conversations if you ever find yourself having to justify your professional judgements.

Pennie Akehurst is managing director of Early Years Fundamentals, www.eyfundamentals.org

• Next month’s focus is on monitoring and evaluation: consistent practice