Nursery World - Cheryl Hadland – 'It should not be Ofsted against the nursery providers, we should be working together'

Cheryl Hadland, chair of the South West Ofsted Big Conversation, recently quit the group due to negative experiences with Ofsted, but has now stepped back into the role. As the managing director of Tops Day Nurseries, which operates 33 nurseries, she shares her views on the current inspection regime and what needs to change.

Cheryl Hadland, managing director of Tops Day Nurseries

I was utterly floored, and did resign from OBC, but I’ve stepped back up again, resilient as ever, on the basis that I’m more likely to be listened to from the front line, as pointed out by a retired nursery group provider.

I’m still extremely unhappy with Ofsted, particularly the ineffective complaints system, which means that when you do have a bad experience, either at inspection or after a notification or complaint, your complaint goes back to the same inspector, and if they say they are right, which they obviously do, there is nothing you can do.

Unfortunately, they are sometimes absolutely wrong. Sometimes it could be a learning point for both sides, but there’s just no debate possible, therefore no learning possible. So an inspector can carry on being awful at least from a provider perspective, as we don’t know what happens internally within Ofsted of course.

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