Nursery World - Experts press MPs not to isolate childminders in Ofsted revamp

A group of childminding experts, many of them at the forefront of professionalising the sector, have written to the chair of the Education Select Committee to protest at its proposal to split childminding from all other areas of early years provision under plans to re-organise Ofsted.

A report by MPs in April recommended that two new bodies should be set up to replace Ofsted - an Education Inspectorate and a Care Inspectorate, with childminders falling under the remit of care (News, 21 April and Analysis, 12 May).

A letter sent to committee chair Graham Stuart has been signed by, among others, psychologist and child development expert Penelope Leach, a former president of the National Childminding Association; Gill Haynes, former NCMA chief executive; Sue Owen of the National Children's Bureau; and Charlie Rice, now of the Fatherhood Institute and former director of training at the NCMA.

Sue Griffin, former national training and quality assurance manager at the NCMA, told Nursery World, 'Many of us worked hard to achieve recognition for childminding as part of early years education in the 1990s and 2000s, when the status of childminding was put on an equal footing with other early years providers.

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