Speaking at the Nursery World Business Summit in London, Amanda Spielman said that the welfare and safety of children was ‘at the very core’ of early years provision.
‘First and foremost, parents want to be sure that you can keep their child safe from harm,' she said.
'And of course, you must be able to assure them of that. But my concern is that in doing so, and through the best of intentions, we are creating overly risk-free environments. Young children do need to have the opportunity to explore the world around them, to develop their physical skills or even sometimes just to run around until they are exhausted.
‘I am acutely aware that Ofsted hasn’t haven’t always got this right in the past. I want to be sure that our inspections and our inspectors aren’t driving any of the risk-averse behaviour.'
She said Ofsted expected settings ‘to take risk seriously and supervise young children properly. But we don’t expect you to take away the climbing frame in case someone falls or avoid journeys to the park for fear of crossing the road. It goes without saying that children need physical exercise to develop their muscular strength and dexterity, but it is also important that their natural instincts to discover and explore aren’t stifled. This is, after all, one of the ways they learn.’
She added that inspectors would be doing some refresher training on safeguarding, and that she expected that ‘future inspection frameworks to be more explicit about the balance between risk and safety, always keeping in mind the requirements of the EYFS.’
Ms Spielman also announced that Ofsted would be publishing the results of a Reception survey in two weeks’ time.
‘Myth-busters’ - snacks
Ofsted will also be continuing its early years myth-busting campaign launched earlier this year.
In this vein, Ms Spielman said that ‘on her travels’ she had heard a lot of discussions about snack time and what Ofsted expects to see, including ‘rolling snacks’, ‘self-serve snacks’, ‘free-flow snacks’, ‘continuous snacks’, and ‘communal snacks’.
‘At first, I was perplexed,’ she told the audience. ‘Why should the way a nursery organises its snack time be so important to Ofsted? Then I discovered that advice from various sources recommends the sort of snack that Ofsted prefers. That might have been born of a well-intended comment from one inspector to a single setting at some point, but it seems to have escalated into an enormous and pervasive myth.
‘So, I will say here, inspectors do not expect to see any particular way of organising snacks. Communal snacks may be a useful way to introduce children to good table manners and help them to learn courtesy words, such as please and thank you.
‘But it is really a decision for you as providers to make. If children have other opportunities to pour water in play time, then self-service pouring is less important, and vice-versa. Ofsted is more interested in why you choose activities and the effect that they have on children’s development.
Inspection framework
The chief inspector also confirmed that there would be no major changes to the Common Inspection Framework before 2019, ’so that you can have certainty about what is coming and when. When I say “major”, I don’t mean to sound weasely, but simply need to acknowledge that sometimes changes are needed to make sure things are clear or because of new legislation.’
During a question and answer session, Gill Jones, early education deputy director of Ofsted, gave an update on bringing early years inspections in-house in April. 'The feedback I've had from the sector has been very positive. We've continued to deliver the same volume of inspections and we've continued to have a lower volume of complaints about Ofsted inspections and from our perspective it's gone well so far,' she said.
At the moment inspectors are in one delivery unit, managed as a group, and will be transitioning into a regional structure in a few months’ time, building on what Ofsted had learnt from schools inspections.
Asked about the time lag between new registrations and a provider’s first inspection, which can take place up to 30 months after registration, Ms Jones said, ‘We do have very detailed information on every single provision that has an EY number. So sometimes, when a nursery is part of a multiple provider we will already know the history of that setting quite well. For us, if we have information about a setting and we know the provider that’s taken it over quite well, then it’s less important for us to go out and inspect that setting than it is for us to go out and inspect a setting or provider who we know nothing about.’
