Hoolahoney Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 Ok first off reading all this has officially given me nightmares!! We are very much a child led setting and don't have planned activities very often because so much comes from the childrens interests it is quite spontaneous. We track where our keychildren are progress wise with a tick sheet and give a general overview of their next steps we will work on with them, not in each area, but a general 3 or 4 areas to focus on. I know all my keychilds needs but with 60 children in total, I am not Derren Brown with jedi mind powers, how am I supposed to know all childrens next steps off by heart??? The reason why was because we were told to not use the dev statements as next steps or be too specific but to put an area to work on because you may plan for johnny to meet his next steps through an activity but actually johnny develops another area entirely through it that you hadn't planned on at all. Just had our EYA in and she thought our paperwork was fine but now I am questioning it. We don't do these peer obs, just give feedback on good practice when seen, so that is going to be a bit of an eye opener. We teach through play, I don't always plan what is going to be taught as the children may not give a scooby about what I plan to teach and have their own ideas which is more likely to be of interest to them! AAArrrrrggggghhhh Mrs O if you read this give us a break, we all do our upmost and beyond for these children in our care for monkey buttons wages and still you feel the need to pressure us to be mini teachers, no I am a preschool playleader, I teach through play. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnyday Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 Very well said Hoolahoney! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mundia Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 On a more positive note, all of the settings that I support that have been inspected since September, have all commented how much more relaxed their inspections have been, and how much less they (OFSTED) have bothered with the paperwork. Yes they all did the joint observations, and yes they tracked some children, and wanted to know their next steps, and the best fit age bands the children were developing in. It seems from reading what some of you are experiencing, its the inconsistency that seems bothersome isn't it? I wonder what moderation of judgements take place for inspectors these days? It's been quite some time since any settings in my LA had a more senior inspector alongside them. Perhaps someone with greater knowledge could shed some light on this? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnyday Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 That's good to read mundia :1b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hali Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 i agree Mundia we have only had a few inspections but they have been positive less paperwork more chatting to children and keypeople and joint obs very worthwhile Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catma Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 P'raps they should be more like school inspections then with a team who moderate each other? It does strike me as a bit out of sync that there's only one inspector for sometimes quite large establishments and a small nursery school gets a team. Cx 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finleysmaid Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 P'raps they should be more like school inspections then with a team who moderate each other? It does strike me as a bit out of sync that there's only one inspector for sometimes quite large establishments and a small nursery school gets a team. Cx In the inspection we had redone we had two inspectors for two days in a setting with 18 children!!!!....where as the reception class one i was involved in lasted 5 minutes and the only person they asked a question to was me....i was only there to support some of our children on transition! :rolleyes: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catma Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 Would that be because they were QA-ing your re inspection...? Time in school inspections will really depend on where the Inspector wants to focus. If EYFS is fine for example they won't waste time inspecting what is already established. Speaking from experience you can be in a room for quite short times and still get a good feel for what's going on. They will have also spent time looking at the HTs judgements and QA-ing their accuracy, so if the HT says EYFS is fine and the Inspector agrees with their general accuracy again they don't need to be in there. Cx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sn0wdr0p Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 At my first inspection 5 years ago the inspector told me she was not able to give an overall outstanding as we were a new setting. We were assessed as outstanding in 5 areas but felt that she would have given more if allowed. During my inspection in October I was pretty put out because we had no 2 year progress checks to show the inspector ( the EYFS had only been going for a month and we hadn't needed to do one at that point) and was told we could not get an outstanding because of it. Even more galling was that we had planned to do two the following week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finleysmaid Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 Would that be because they were QA-ing your re inspection...? Cx No the first one had two inspectors because one was training...this meant that two inspectors questioned two of us while the remaining one looked after all the children!!! the re-inspection was done with a senior inspector who was much more professional ...but it has to be the hardest inspection i have ever been through...she went through everything... and i mean everything! We were also told that we would not get an outstanding on a first inspection....but we did across the board! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 28, 2013 Share Posted March 28, 2013 Just to add to the 'new setting/outstanding' I've heard of a new setting that got outstanding but only had babies in (because of their newness - and only had a handful of children!) Dot, your inspection terrifies me...I'm with hula honey, child led and play based all the way but now not sure how this will sit with the big O!! Wine anyone?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoebe123 Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 Ofsted came last week and spent a long time asking about transitions, in all three age groups, home visits, baseline assessment etc. She also asked searching questions about a particular child in my room and asked to see some LJs. Very pleasant - probably the nicest one I have ever met Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnyday Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 Ofsted came last week and spent a long time asking about transitions, in all three age groups, home visits, baseline assessment etc. She also asked searching questions about a particular child in my room and asked to see some LJs. Very pleasant - probably the nicest one I have ever met Thanks Phoebe123 - i could 'cope' with that! :1b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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