Nursery World - On close inspection

The new national standards for the regulation and inspection of childcare are meant to make a level playing field of a locally bumpy area. We asked childcare provider organisations how they see it. Providers across the early years sector should have in their postbag by now a set of the national care standards that relate to their type of provision, and the accompanying guidance.

Providers across the early years sector should have in their postbag by now a set of the national care standards that relate to their type of provision, and the accompanying guidance.

The National Standards for Under-Eights Day Care and Childminding are the set of standards that providers should aim to achieve and on which Ofsted will carry out its inspections from September. The guidance aims to help providers meet those standards, and includes a set of regulations that providers must meet and examples of good practice.

So, do providers face months of unravelling overly-complicated guidance, or have they been presented with a set of accessible guidelines? Will the guidance mean that inspections can run smoothly, or will only time reveal whether inspectors' and providers' interpretations of the guidance concur? Nursery World asked the main childcare associations to comment on what the national standards and guidance means for their members and what may lie ahead under the new inspection regime.

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