Ofsted to carry out joint inspections of children's centres

Ofsted said it was changing the way that centres are inspected in line with Government proposals for children's centres and the way that many local authorities are now managing children's centre services.

From April 2013, this will mean that a group of centres sharing leadership and management will be inspected together and will receive a joint report ‘that brings out the strengths and areas for improvement of the group as a whole.’

This is one of a range of Ofsted’s proposals to change the way that children’s centres are inspected, which were put out for consultation yesterday.

Ofsted has already been granted approval from the Department for Education to change the way it inspects children’s centres, expected to start in April next year, subject to the results of the consultation and parliamentary approval.

In local authorities where children’s centres continue to work as individual centres, Ofsted will continue inspect and report on each centre separately.

However, whether centres are operating individually or as groups, Ofsted is proposing to carry out inspections simultaneously in local authority areas by deploying a larger team of inspectors at the same time.

The number of inspection judgements for children’s centres will also be reduced from 20 to three:

• access to services for young children and their families;
• the quality and impact of practice and services;
• the effectiveness of leadership, governance and management.
• Centres will also be given a judgement for overall effectiveness.

The satisfactory grade will be replaced by ‘requires improvement’ and there will be a four-point scale for each of the inspection judgements – outstanding, good, requires improvement, inadequate.

The revised framework will explain what the ‘good’ grade means in the evaluation schedule, so that centres, local authorities, inspectors and centres users ‘know what needs to be achieved in order to be at least good.’

The new framework will include a focus on how well children’s centres identify families in their area with young children most in need of early intervention and support, how centres decide on families’ needs and the types of services and activities available, the appropriateness and quality of targeted services, and how centres encourage families who are most in need but least likely to access services, to go to children’s centres.

Ofsted will trial its proposals through pilots in children’s centres during the autumn.

National director, education, Susan Gregory said, ‘The best children’s centres help families access the services they need to help young children make a good start in life. It is vital that inspection focuses on what makes the greatest difference to those families most in need of support and assures the quality of services for all young children and families who use children’s centres.

‘We hope that all those who have an interest in children’s centres will take part in the consultation as these views will help to shape the new framework.’

• The consultation closes on 11 January 2013