Cheryl Hadland – 'It should not be Ofsted against the nursery providers, we should be working together'

I was utterly floored, and did resign from OBC, but I’ve stepped back up again, resilient as ever, on the basis that I’m more likely to be listened to from the front line, as pointed out by a retired nursery group provider.  

I’m still extremely unhappy with Ofsted, particularly the ineffective complaints system, which means that when you do have a bad experience, either at inspection or after a notification or complaint, your complaint goes back to the same inspector, and if they say they are right, which they obviously do, there is nothing you can do. 

Unfortunately, they are sometimes absolutely wrong. Sometimes it could be a learning point for both sides, but there’s just no debate possible, therefore no learning possible. So an inspector can carry on being awful at least from a provider perspective, as we don’t know what happens internally within Ofsted of course.

We can’t even access their inspector notes made during an inspection under FOI to query their evidence on their judgement, completely shut out, unless it goes to Court.

Our recent issues have been: 

• An inspector with no experience of working with the under-twos saying our expectations are too high, and then calling it lucky when the under two performed just as the manager predicted.  Inspector was rude, and poor body language (in their faces). 
• Downgraded an Outstanding nursery to Good on the basis of over expectations of twos, and objecting to a child not taking part in circle time, he wanted to play with something else – which is perfectly fine for two-to- three-year-olds!
• An inspector with no understanding of business insurance, calling the manager a liar, this is normally called defamation of character in the outside world, when he confirmed the business insurance was valid for taking a child to hospital in a staff car (which it is – fact).
• An inspector appearing to have no understanding of first aid when a child trips at ground level – threw the book at us because they were picked up to comfort, and moved a few times before any problem was identified, and then taken to hospital in a private car rather than waiting for an ambulance (which would have been several hours mid ambulance strike) - and then at me for supporting the manager (as a first aid trainer with decades of experience) in his perfectly good decisions. Inspector wanted me to remove the manager for poor decision making – totally unacceptable and inappropriate, a very good, longstanding manager actually.
• An inspector giving an inadequate overall, despite good teaching and learning, because a staff member took a personal phone on a trip (approved by the manager as she was long standing, well qualified, trusted member of staff, and a work phone was not available, decided they felt safer taking a personal phone rather than no phone).  They could have cancelled the trip of course, so a bit grey, but surely not inadequate? Childminders take their own phones all the time – don’t they, how can an inadequate be justified on that basis?
  
  

PHOTO Tops Day Nurseries

We have, though, had several good, often longstanding inspectors too, who gave the judgements we expected. One recently was ex-local authority, from when they did the inspections!

We don’t think an inspection grading should be as black and white as they are currently, with gradings of inadequate handed out, for example, the last one above. This was a difference of opinion, not a fundamental risk, and the results of an inadequate are devastating to staff, to funding, and to the children and parents too from the backlash. 

Inadequate should only be given out when children are put at risk, for example children able to leave the setting, people on site without any DBS checks and unsupervised, children hungry, thirsty, unchanged, uncared for, not able to learn because of the environment or staff available for them, non-compliance with the spirit of the EYFS, stop being pedantic.

On the other hand, not being able to get Outstanding if the inspector can find a single thing wrong is inappropriate – what is the point of an inspector that can’t make any suggestions for improvement? No provision is perfect all the time, so inspectors don’t want to give Outstanding currently, as they look bad themselves for not finding anything.

I don’t think closing Ofsted and replacing them with another organisation will be any help at all – it’s the complaints and appeals process, and the inspector CPD and standardisation that needs sorting. 

Also, they need to be open and honest – which they aren’t being in terms of their prior experience/qualifications nor their evidence behind the judgements when challenged. 

It should not be Ofsted against the nursery providers, we should be working together, to provide better opportunities for children, but at the moment, some inspectors come in like tigers and attack us – and no one performs well under attack – they freeze, fly, and fight instead, which is no good for children, or staff.

I think there is an issue over grading when you have lots of agency or casual staff on site temporarily, if that is the staffing situation on the Ofsted inspection. Obviously, quality is impacted, but it’s not the sector’s fault that we are short staffed currently, that is the Government’s fault for underfunding nurseries and parents, so we can’t pay a good salary to recruit and retain staff currently.

The DfE haven’t acknowledged that early years should be on the staff shortage immigration list, which means that staff from abroad take longer and are more expensive to recruit while we aren’t on the list. An RI or Inadequate Ofsted result will make it even harder to recruit, as good staff often don’t want to work for a poorly graded setting, and that makes the Ofsted inspection another kick when you are down – which helps no one, and then being short staffed puts the staff left under even more pressure, and before you know it, some of them resign too and you end up closing the nursery altogether.