Ofsted had considered changing the ‘satisfactory’ to ‘requires improvement’, and ‘inadequate’ to ‘requires significant improvement and/ or enforcement’.
This would have brought judgements for early years settings in line with changes to school inspections.
The inspectorate said that the decision was made to keep the current grades of ‘satisfactory’ and ‘inadequate’ in response to comments by providers to Ofsted’s consultation on the regulation of providers on the Early Years register.
Ofsted said the issue would be reviewed at a later stage.
Ofsted has published a report on responses to the consultation, which includes the views of early years providers, member organisations, and local authorities.
Ofsted also consulted parents through its parents’ panel and a survey carried out by the National Foundation for Educational Research.
The report said, ‘In the light of comments received , we intend to retain the current judgements of "satisfactory" and "inadequate" for the time being. We intend to consider this issue further at a later stage.’
Ofsted will publish the revised early years regulation and inspection framework at the end of next month, in advance of the implementation of the revised EYFS from September.
There was a mixed response to Ofsted’s proposal to introduce a short summary report for ‘small-scale providers’.
Parents were much more in favour of this proposal than early years providers, with 71 per cent of the parents’ panel and 69 per cent of those surveyed in favour.
However, 38 per cent of respondents to the online consultation strongly disagreed or disagreed with the plan.
As only 3 per cent of those taking part in the online consultation said that they were parents, this suggests that early years providers are largely against the change.
Four of the main childcare member organisations also disagreed or strongly disagreed with the proposal.
Providers who disagreed with the plan were concerned that all providers in the EYFS should be treated the same.
Some providers also felt that a summary report would not contain sufficient information for parents to help them assess the quality of childcare.
The report said, ‘Comments suggested that what people would really like is to have a short summary report, easily accessible to them, but with further detail available if they wish to read it.’
In light of this in future, Ofsted said that, ‘Every report will carry a short summary about the provider’s main strengths and weaknesses, but that for all reports additional material is available; the amount of additional material will be based on the size and organisation of the setting and not on the type of provider.’
Notice periods
The report found that the majority of respondents (72 per cent) agreed or strongly agreed to keep the current little or no-notice periods for inspection.
Five of the six main childcare organisations agreed or strongly agreed with this proposal.
There was even more support for this among parents.
The report said, ‘Given the positive responses we believe it is right to retain the current notice periods.’
‘Minor concerns’
Most respondents were in favour of Ofsted’s proposal that providers should look into minor issues themselves.
Eighty-five per cent of respondents were in favour but felt that Ofsted should provide guidance.
In view of this, Ofsted said it would provide further guidance for providers and parents on what constitutes ‘a minor concern’, with some examples.
This will also set out what providers need to do about recording and sharing information about these issues to show the Ofsted inspector at their inspection.
