At a 'PACEY Local' peer to peer support meeting on Tuesday, coincidently, we also spent a lot of time talking about Ofsted and how subjective their inspections seem to be.
The stories you hear about different providers' experiences, it's no wonder we're all confused! I genuinely don't want to sound like I'm undermining Ofsted Inspectors' judgements because I am sure they are all very well trained in what they are looking for and that their overall judgement can be trusted....but even Ofsted cannot deny that their opinions seem so inconsistent!
One provider being told that the sole reason they got a good grading and not an outstanding was because they didn't have a sandpit. So is that a requirement now then, that no-one without a sandpit could ever possibly get an outstanding grade? I am guessing not and that it was just that inspector's opinion - shame for that provider.
Then another story of an inspector who said that he felt he could never give an outstanding grade in the area of safeguarding because if something happened to a child next week then his grading of outstanding would be questioned - what? That is ludicrous, isn't it and would surely mean that if all Ofsted Inspectors took the same view no-one would ever get outstanding!
Then there's the stories of of those inspectors who say they would never give outstanding on a first inspection. I know that it is possible and some obviously do but I'm sure many don't.
It's all very well doing the very best that you can do but sometimes that doesn't seem good enough, even though it's good enough for other providers. We should all, including Ofsted, be giving providers the encouragement and support to achieve better grades not making them play a guessing game. To quote Jennie "setting high standards and expectations, recognition of a job well done and a bit of carrot is a far better way to get people to perform"
Then there's the stories of of those inspectors who say they would never give outstanding on a first inspection. I know that it is possible and some obviously do but I'm sure many don't.
It's all very well doing the very best that you can do but sometimes that doesn't seem good enough, even though it's good enough for other providers. We should all, including Ofsted, be giving providers the encouragement and support to achieve better grades not making them play a guessing game. To quote Jennie "setting high standards and expectations, recognition of a job well done and a bit of carrot is a far better way to get people to perform"
I know that complaints about Oftsed inspections aren't anything new and I notice that Nursery World published an article on it back in May http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/article/1182705/nursery-complaints-ofsted-inspection-rise Obviously my fellow childminders and I are not alone in our feelings as nurseries also seem to be frustrated by the inconsistencies in inspections.
Although I don't really know whether a tick list kind of inspection would really work in practice, it would surely help us all out in knowing what Ofsted's opinions of best practice are. Perhaps your grading should reflect the explicit minimum standards that you need to meet in each category this would demonstrate a certain level of quality to parents. Those minimum standards could be as demanding as Ofsted likes, the higher the better in my opinion. Those going over and above the minimum standards in each category could get recognition for that in the form of the narrative that the inspector writes which describes the positive things they are doing to exceed the standards but that would not directly affect the grading per se. It would then be down to parents to read the narratives to get a feeling for how that provider exceeds the minimum standards.
So do I believe that what we need to do to get a certain grading should be so prescriptive? Well why not? We do it when we set minimum statutory requirements. It's all very well wanting the sector to raise the bar and I have absolutely no problem with it being more difficult to achieve an outstanding grade but please give us some non-moveable goal posts. I wouldn't dream of expecting anyone to achieve goals without making them SMART and yet there seems to be nothing specific about Ofsted's gradings, it is pretty vague.
So would this take away a providers' empowerment to do what they wanted in their setting? Well no not really, no-one is saying that you can't go over and above and most would because we do what we do for the children not for a grading. Would this mean that providers would do the bare minimum to get a certain grading and no more? No I certainly don't think so.
So would this take away a providers' empowerment to do what they wanted in their setting? Well no not really, no-one is saying that you can't go over and above and most would because we do what we do for the children not for a grading. Would this mean that providers would do the bare minimum to get a certain grading and no more? No I certainly don't think so.
