Nursery World - Fear of inspection

The inspection system should deliver support not anxiety, argues Michael Pettavel

Lately I’ve been thinking about the inspection system, which I have seen change radically in the time I have been working. I’ve seen the swing from support to wholehearted accountability; and with the premise that I do believe that standards need to be high and we are absolutely accountable, for me this means to children and their families, rather than to a framework or lists of expectations.

As both a head teacher and a practitioner, I know the greatest test is keeping things good, i.e. maintenance. The challenge of balancing competing elements such as variable staffing, changing curriculums and the unexpected (such as dropping budgets) with constant quality is no small thing. Improvement comes from systemic change and this takes time, depends on the experience of you and your team and how much money you have in the bank. Continuous improvement is vital, but I worry that the accountability stakes push too many schools and settings into just using the inspection framework to judge their performance.

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