Ofsted
Good morning, its great to be with you here in Manchester and to be talking to people from across the sector on my visits to childrens homes, local authorities and schools.
What is clear from those conversations, and from everything we have seen through the year, is that this is still a challenging time for education and social care.
So, I also want to take the time to say thank you and your teams for the hard work you do, whether in education, social care or wider childrens and adults services.
There are more than a few pinch points in our sectors including workforce shortages, capacity pressures, and places for children with the most complex needs. There are also the big external factors such as an increase in asylum seeking unaccompanied children and your work supporting Ukrainian and other refugee families.
But despite this, we do know that you are un-deterred in your ambitions for children.
And I want to reassure you that we are too.
Our strategy
So, what are we at Ofsted doing?
Like you, we have continued with our work while adjusting to big changes in context. But we have also been looking to the future. We recently published a new five-year strategy taking us to 2027. This is a strategy that reflects on the last 5 years, especially the pressures the pandemic put on our sectors, but it does also look forward to recovery and beyond.
The strategy has been designed to understand and meet the challenges I mentioned. It will also support your sectors while maintaining our distinct role and perspective.
We have set ourselves 8 strategic priorities and I want to talk about 5 of them:
- inspections that raise standards
- delivering right touch regulation
- keeping children safe
- keeping pace with sector changes
- and making sure children get the best start in life
The best start in life
I am sure that these will resonate with you, and I will talk through each of them, but I want to begin with the best start in life.
Children only get one childhood. Each of us has a role in making sure we are getting it right from the start. We make no apology for prioritising the early years.
Over the last year we have published reports highlighting the serious impact the pandemic has had on some of the youngest children. We, like you, have been very concerned about the harm to them.
There are clear concerns about the impact on childrens social and wider development. Many have gaps in communication and language skills and are behind where they should be in personal, social, emotional, and physical development.
There is also a challenging backdrop as the early years sector adapts to the post-pandemic landscape. Parents are struggling to find childcare that is flexible to their needs and at a price they can afford. Alongside this, many workers are leaving the sector and those who stay are often struggling on low wages, exacerbated by significant rises in the cost of living. Making childcare affordable, while attracting well trained and motivated staff is incredibly difficult. We are very aware of this.
In the past, there has been a well-intentioned policy aim to treat childminders and nurseries alike. But part of what we are trying to do is to respect their different natures while maintaining high standards, wherever care is happening.
A young childs development and learning, wherever they are, is crucial. It is why Ofsted is emphasising the importance of early years curriculum; what children are learning.
We are also going to extend specialist training for our early years inspectors; and we are continuing our early years research programme allowing us to share our insights quickly.
Inspections that raise standards
Which brings me on to our next strategic priority inspections that raise standards.
Coming out of the pandemic, schools and nurseries told us they wanted stability and continuity, including in the inspection model. That is why we are allowing the Education Inspection Framework (EIF) to embed properly rather than change it to focus on pandemic recovery.
However, we have clarified how the EIF works for childminders. We updated the early years inspection handbook in September to include specific guidance for childminder inspections. It includes information on the practical process, how our inspectors gather and evaluate evidence, and how they come to a judgement.
Inspection judgements are important because they inform parents, commissioners, and government about the standards being achieved. Our reports highlight good practice and areas for improvement.
The inspection process itself is designed around professional dialogue. Good leaders are the main drivers of improvement in their services. Professional dialogue helps them to improve and us to recognise and report good practice.
Joint Targeted Area Inspections (JTAIs)
We also want our inspections to encourage cross-sector working.
We have recently published our new guidance for Joint Targeted Area Inspections (JTAIs). We will look at how childrens social care, education, health, and the police, work together to reduce risks and harm to children and to give early help.
We know that getting the right help at the right time can prevent longer-term intervention. All these agencies must contribute to this.
Our JTAIs will also look at how early help works and how children move between the categories of early help and children in need.
We hope that this work will make sure everyone in local areas thinks about their role in early support for families. We also expect that it will help the government as it considers childrens social care reform.
Right touch regulation
We know that our right touch regulation strategic priority is so important to the sector right now.
Proportionate and risk-based regulation is critical to ensuring good outcomes for children.
The principles of good regulation are straightforward: * proportionality* accountability* consistency* transparency * and targeting
There have been several recent reviews and reports with recommendations for Ofsted and for the sectors we work with. We welcome these contributions and the ongoing discussions that they bring. Well continue to support improvement based on the recommendations we and you have been making for a number of years to deliver the best possible outcomes for children.
Where there are lessons for Ofsted to learn, we will take that on board. We constantly strive to improve and change where we can see it will help.
We will continue to use our regulatory powers with careful thought and only where we have serious concerns. But, when we find care that is simply not good enough, it is right that we continue to act.
We know this can contribute to pressures on supply, but we cannot and will not accept sub-standard care for children. We know that there is increased demand, but the solution to that is not lower standards. It is increased supply.
But we are making changes that we believe will help you.
I want to give you 3 examples of where we are doing this.
Multi-building registration
The first is multi-building registration.
We recognised a need for more flexible and responsive provision for children, and an increasing demand for solo and specialised placements. Late last year we introduced the multi-building registration of childrens homes.
It means that a provider can now apply to register a single home where the care and accommodation is provided in more than one building. This reflects the changing ways in which services for children are being delivered and should help increase system capacity. We know some providers are already benefitting from this.
But I am worried about the growth in single child homes. They can isolate children, be very expensive, and create additional safeguarding risks. They can be right for some children but is not a trend we should uncritically welcome.
Streamlining the application process
The second example is our streamlining the application process for childcare to make it simpler and quicker.
We are simplifying our GP health checks and making sure we have all the evidence we need to make informed decisions. We are also working on changes to the registration process to do more parts in parallel and get to registration visits sooner.
All of this will help childminders and nurseries get registered more quickly.