Ofsted: best practice guide - Monitoring and Evaluation
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
In the first of a series presenting models of best practice for inspection, we look at monitoring and evaluation processes at Poppy and Jack’s. By Hannah Crown
Last year in our unpicking Ofsted reports series, consultant Pennie Akehurst identified key areas where settings underperform in Ofsted inspections. This year, we have teamed up with early years consultancy Hopscotch, which employs ex-Ofsted inspectors, to identify settings which have models of best practice worthy of dissemination. In this article we focus on tracking systems.
Cohort and group tracking
According to the most recent Ofsted report for Poppy and Jacks Warrington, ‘The management team tracks the progress of individual children and different groups extremely well. This enables them to identify any gaps rapidly and provide exceptionally good support for children to catch up quickly and continue to make outstanding progress in their learning and development.’
Like many settings, Poppy and Jack’s uses Development Matters to assess children according to age and stage.
This is done for every child each term. The manager and key worker would discuss a child to see if they are in the appropriate age bracket in every section of Development Matters.
These assessments plus key worker and parent observations are fed into a software system. The manager aims to act as the ‘control’ to ensure that all assessments are carried out using an equal interpretation of the criteria. This is done termly as part of a supervision of the key worker. Manager and deputy manager also approve all key worker observations daily.
They then run the cohort tracker, which flags up whether each child in a particular year group is developing, confident or behind in each area of the EYFS.
The integrity of data is assessed.
The data is not taken at face value but assessed alongside the staff’s individual knowledge of the child. CEO Sarah Bellamy says, ‘We make sure staff are confident in all data for all children. We wouldn’t do any work or track children as behind until we were sure there is a gap.
‘If it is something the key worker has just not seen, we would try to get the observation – usually by asking parents.
‘We would then run the assessment again once the additional observations have been achieved and we are confident that the assessment is a true reflection of the child.
‘The manager and key worker would then come up with a plan for next steps for that child.’
The key worker goes away with a ‘key worker tracker’ – a list of all children’s next steps matched to the Development Matters goals. This has the name of the child, next steps, and action to be taken with a suggested timescale depending on the type of next step to be taken.
Every child also has one ‘golden next step’ – for more complex challenges or development – such as forming relationships. This is displayed on the wall.
The tracker is also run by groups of key worker children, to see if any support is needed for particular members of staff. The manager would meet with staff whose key children are tracking behind, prioritising prime areas and those with SEND. This isn’t about just support, it is also to look at opportunities and trends, which is easier in smaller chunks of data.
Data is sliced in different ways. Reports are also run looking at all children by age and stage, and the number of observations in particular areas of the EYFS. Learning journals are assessed to see if the data fits with staff’s observations and knowledge. Specific groups are focused on, e.g. EAL, by sex, summer-borns. Work is also done looking at progress from starting points.
The idea is to make sure the child is properly reflected in the data, the next steps are relevant, progress is being made, and the online learning journals reflect this.
Gap analysis – the manager will use the information she has discussed with the key workers to inform where she thinks overarching changes need to be made. This might involve training, or changing the environment. For example, ‘shape, space and measure’ came up as an area where children were not doing as well as expected, so a group-wide training programme for staff was introduced on the subject.
It might also be that staff have simply neglected an area, not because there is a weakness in it. This is usually because there has been a real focus in another area.
Data is analysed at different levels across the organisation – a manager is assessing the data at nursery level, the area manager is assessing the data at area level, and Ms Bellamy assesses the data at group level.
Nursery Overview
Name Poppy and Jack’s
Number of settings 8
Established 2011
Chief executive Sarah Bellamy
Hopscotch early years consultancy comment ‘The process is very thorough. They really interrogate their data to make sure it is robust and then reflect on what this means for their children, the environment and their training needs.’
Further information
See Pennie Akehurst’s series, www.nurseryworld.co.uk/inspecting-ofsted-reports
Hopscotch, www.hopscotchconsultancy.com
