Nursery World - Ofsted clamps down on 'satisfactory' nurseries

In future, early years settings will have four years to reach a good grade or face being closed down by Ofsted.

From September, the satisfactory grade will be replaced by ‘requires improvement’ for all early years providers to bring them in line with the inspection regime in schools and colleges.

The proposals are set out in Ofsted’s consultation, ‘Good early years provision for all,’ published today.

Nurseries and pre-schools that are graded as ‘requiring improvement’ will have more frequent inspections, and Ofsted will impose a four-year time limit for them to reach a good grade.

Those settings that fail to achieve ‘a good’ after two consecutive inspections are likely to have their registration cancelled.

The inspectorate will also focus more on reporting on the qualifications held by early years staff, because of the clear correlation between the level of qualifications and quality of provision.

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