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Finally!


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For the last year I have waking up thinking "will they come today?" And today ofsted came.

The inspector was very nice and it was a good inspection. At first I felt nervous but after the initial five minutes it was absolutely fine.

The children were wonderful as were my wonderful staff.

I feel able to relax a bit in the half term now. I'm taking the staff out for a celebratory meal next week. Really looking forward to it.

 

V

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Wonderful news - well done - I feel your relief

 

AND

 

After 6 years, 5 months and 12 days (not that we were counting at all xD ) Ofsted came to my setting yesterday. Having endured horrendous previous Ofsted inspections / inspectors undertaken by less than professional and knowledgeable inspectors (we were obviously scarred somewhat :wacko: ) I am pleased to report that this time round our inspector was excellent.

 

Our inspector has her own early years setting and is therefore still in practice. She also had a good grip on what it is to run an early years setting and (hallelujah) an understanding of early years children and how they learn and develop and excellent observational skills to observe the staff and the children without making everyone feel that they were lab rats.

 

For information the hot potatoes during our inspection (and I know it is very much down to which inspector you get) were

 

  • Safeguarding including safer recruitment, e-safety and safeguarding policy and practice
  • Practitioners knowing their children - able to talk about them, their family circumstances, any additional needs, their personalities and their development
  • Ascertaining children's developmental levels on entry, knowing with certainty what their current developmental levels are, strategies in place to support children not meeting their developmental milestones and being able to use that information if needed to improve practice - We use PRAMS and just being able to whip out our data sheets as evidence was brilliant - if you aren't currently using it I would suggest you might want to give it a try
  • Showing that you self assess your setting and supervise and observe setting practitioners - although a tip here - have a print out of your latest SEF - Our inspector had pulled ours off the portal and somehow she had our 2013 copy - thankfully I was able to give her our latest copy - fully rewritten in September 2014 and updated in February 2015 (date stamped to prove it) - She is going to be checking the Ofsted portal to see what happened there!
  • Systems in place for managing underperformance of staff including what CPD you put in place to support underperforming staff before you rush off to fire them xD

 

It was very evident that she was "triangulating" her evidence so a "well oiled" team singing to the same hymn sheet who know their stuff is a must - your setting will only ever be judged as good as your weakest staff member!!!!

 

Whilst our inspector looked at some of our paperwork (in previous inspections we have had to virtually empty our filing cabinets to prove that what we were saying was true) this time round any paperwork that she did look at was secondary to listening to what we were saying to her and what she was seeing.

 

We have been told to keep our result confidential until the report is issued but if it comes back as per the feedback we shall be very happy. My team who have been waiting now for the knock for nearly three years were fabulous and the children could not have been better - it is a lovely feeling to have that "weight" lifted. We shall certainly be enjoying our half term next week and it will lovely to be able to enjoy the last half term of this school year without the added pressures of waiting for the knock!!

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Oh Sue J now you have got me worried...Fabulous news for you and your team and I am so pleased to hear you had a positive inspection, however, I think you were the only setting that's been waiting longer than me,......oh goodness I bet we are getting ever closer to the knock on the door....I can't bear it.

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we have two sites with two ofsteds - one was done November last year (the one previous to that was July 2009 just about 5 years) the second site was last done December 2010 so waiting on this site .When was your last ofsted eyfs 1966?

July 2009, so nearly 6 years ago now....I can't bear it!!

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Well our judgement is official.

 

We got a Good :1b

 

During the inspection our inspector said that to get an Outstanding was now virtually impossible (maybe that's just from her :rolleyes: ) and that a Good under the new framework is "the new Outstanding" so well done everyone who has achieved the "impossible".

 

I must admit we are very pleased with our Good - especially as our new provider contracts have been given out and in our area the LA will now be withdrawing providers early education funding and moving children to other settings if you get an Inadequate or if you get Requires Improvement in consecutive judgements - which will pretty much mean closing settings down - interesting times ahead methinks :wacko:

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Well our judgement is official.

 

We got a Good :1b

 

During the inspection our inspector said that to get an Outstanding was now virtually impossible (maybe that's just from her :rolleyes: ) and that a Good under the new framework is "the new Outstanding" so well done everyone who has achieved the "impossible".

 

I must admit we are very pleased with our Good - especially as our new provider contracts have been given out and in our area the LA will now be withdrawing providers early education funding and moving children to other settings if you get an Inadequate or if you get Requires Improvement in consecutive judgements - which will pretty much mean closing settings down - interesting times ahead methinks :wacko:

 

Our LEA have said that for a few years Sue, however I know of a local group who have had Requires Improvement 3 times in a row and haven't had their funding pulled - I think it's beacuse there is a lack of 2 year old provision in our area ... at the moment!

 

Congratulations on your good, enjoy the last 1/2 term stress free :1b

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This was in the last LA statutory guidance that inadequate settings would have funding withdrawn. Requires improvement settings can only keep their 2 year funding if there isn't sufficiency in the area. Settings getting 2 RI inspections should move to inadequate at the 3rd, if there is no improvement, but I don't know how much that has happened in practice as the RI grading hasn't been in place that long yet. This does not include settings that got the 'old' satisfactory grading.

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Our LEA have said that for a few years Sue, however I know of a local group who have had Requires Improvement 3 times in a row and haven't had their funding pulled - I think it's beacuse there is a lack of 2 year old provision in our area ... at the moment!

 

Congratulations on your good, enjoy the last 1/2 term stress free :1b

 

Apparently sufficiency will out and trump quality every time - I queried some of the wording in our new provider contract about ongoing RI/Satisfactory judgements and the wording is deliberately obtuse as if they (the LA) start withdrawing funded children from these settings they (the LA) won't meet sufficiency %s. :mellow:

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  • 2 weeks later...

yay, well done to Sue.

 

Our last inspection was June 2009! But we had to re-register in Oct 2014 as we went to a Ltd company so could be 27 months (used to be 7) from that date. Aghhhhhhhhhhhhh!

 

The pressure and stress is actually really getting to me, you can bet your life they will come when I am away in July :-(. Also launching a new breakfast and after school club in September (off site) so more Ofsted headaches.

 

Can't imagine why I drink so much wine (after hours of course, not drinking it at the desk)

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