Nursery World - Ofsted clampdown sees early years grades fall

The latest statistics for early years inspections show that Ofsted is being tougher on childminders and nurseries with more being judged inadequate and fewer given an outstanding grade.

The figures, which cover inspections carried out by the inspectorate between 1 September 2012 and 31 October 2013, show that of the 17,434 settings inspected during this period, 8 per cent were judged inadequate. Some 9 per cent of nurseries were judged inadequate while 7 per cent of childminders were judged inadequate.

This is a four-fold increase on the 2 per cent of the total number of 66,525 early years providers judged inadequate at their most recent inspection up to 31 October 2013.

The latest figures, which cover a 14-month period for the new early years inspection framework before the latest revisions. On 4 November 2013, Ofsted replaced the ‘satisfactory’ judgement with ‘requires improvement’.

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