Ofsted Inspections In Cc's

[Guest]

Hi all, hope you are enjoying the holiday if you are off.

 

OFSTED website at the moment has an online consultation form with regard to inspecting cc's. It takes about 5 mins to complete and I did it as it may be only chance we who actually work in them get to have any say.

 

I have used the comments section to voice my concerns that under latest ofsted inspections in schools from sept 2009- section 8's I think they are now-schools and teachers will now be back to having more individual lesson observations. My concern is that if cc's are inspected in same way, I really don't think it's appropriate to observe and grade practitioners interacting with children through child initiated activities, using a criteria that is designed for a teacher delivering a lesson to a class of children. I also worry that many ofsted inspectors are so primary trained, experienced and orientated that cc settings could really lose out unless we can be assured that we will be inspected by people who know what they are talking about.

 

Rant over! I got to the questionnaire by putting "inspecting children's centres" into the OFSTED home page search.

[HappyMaz]

Thanks for sharing this, mozart - hopefully everyone who teaches in a Children's Centre will take a look and have their say!

 

Didn't Wolfie have an issue around an Ofsted inspection at her CC which resulted in her telling them to go away? I didn't understand all the finer technical details, but I'll go and check!

 

Well I did check, and the thread is here!

 

Here's the link to the page on the Ofsted site where you can either go to the online consultation document, or download it in word or as a pdf.

 

Maz

[Guest]

I just hope they take on board what is collected via the consultation and not just use it as a paper exercise. My worry is due to the diverse nature of children's centres and their area how can they have one inspection fits all, yes we all have a core offer to provide but each centre has different priorities. Will these be taken into consideration?

 

Paula

[JacquieL]

Thanks for that link Maz that is very interesting. I certainly hope they come up with one framework but that they listen to what people have to say. As the pre-school part of our CC is a maintained setting we were inspected under the school regulations but we did have an excellent inspector who is an Early Years Specialist. We are soon due for our care inspection across the whole centre. We will be glad to have one framework, as at present we have to do two SEFS, one for each arm of OFSTED.

[mundia]

Welcome Paula, good to see you here and thanks for your first post.

It appears from the consultation information that the main point of the CC inspection process will be to see how well each CC knows its community, and how well it matches its services to its community. I think is hopefully a good thing, and should take account of that fact that they are all so different. My concern would be abut who these inspectors are going to be, are they going to be the same people who inspect schools, or inspect early years for example? And what sort of training will they get?

 

Mozart, I coudnt find anything in the consultation that indicates that practitioners would be observed any more that they are now within an early years inspection. I'm not even sure that would form part of the CC inspection anyway as the childcare would still be inspected separately (although that hasn't been made very clear I don't think)

 

It is important that any members here who have an interest in CCs, not just teachers, have their chance to contribute before the consultation closes on 18th September.