Changes to Ofsted for Early Years 2024
Ofsted’s mission in the early years sector is to ensure that every child, especially those who are most disadvantaged and vulnerable, receives the best possible start in life. A strong early years education can be transformative, and Ofsted is committed to ensuring this happens across all settings.
In its recent press release, “Building a Better Ofsted: The Response to the Big Listen“, Ofsted outlined key changes designed to strengthen its relationship with the sectors it inspects and regulates while maintaining high standards for children and learners.
Here’s a breakdown of the key updates:
1. New inspection framework coming in 2025
A new inspection framework for schools, early years, and further education is on the horizon, focusing more on pupil outcomes to drive improved standards. This new framework will also aim to reduce anxiety for providers undergoing inspection. Ofsted plans to start consultations on these changes in early 2025, allowing the sector to provide feedback.
2. Emphasis on communication, language, and numeracy
Ofsted will be placing more emphasis on the development of communication, language, and numeracy skills, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Inspectors will be looking closely at whether all children have access to a wide range of rich texts, promoting a love of reading and expanding their communication and language abilities. This focus also helps to build a broader understanding of the world.
3. The removal of single-word judgements
Ofsted plans to remove the single-word overall effectiveness grade in favour of more detailed report cards. These new report cards will offer more insight into each provider’s strengths, giving parents, carers, and providers a clearer picture of the quality of education and care.
4. Streamlined registration process for early years providers
To support the growing demand for childcare places, Ofsted will streamline the registration process for early years providers. This will enable more providers to open their doors and meet the needs of families.
5. Reviewing how multiple providers are regulated
To ensure the sector continues to meet increasing demand, Ofsted will review how it registers, inspects, and regulates multiple providers. This review aims to support the longer-term growth of early years settings, ensuring high standards are maintained as the sector expands.
What does this mean for early years providers?
Many early years providers are embracing the recent change to remove single-word judgements (such as Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, and Inadequate). This shift is already in effect for early years provision in state schools and academies catering to children aged two and above, including maintained nursery schools.
For the time being, all other early years settings will continue to receive these headline grades. However, Ofsted has committed to phasing out these grades for all early years settings in the future, with careful monitoring to ensure a smooth transition.
In their press release, Ofsted acknowledged that single-word grades do not accurately reflect overall school performance across various areas, a view shared by many parents and professionals. In fact, around 49% of parents opposed the single-word grading system, with 29% expressing strong opposition.
For inspections taking place this academic year, parents will receive four separate grades covering key areas: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management. By September 2025, Ofsted plans to introduce school report cards, offering a more comprehensive assessment of nursery performance. These changes aim to improve the inspection process and drive ongoing improvement.
While it’s unclear how this will affect all early years providers, change is coming. For now, private nurseries will still receive single-word grades, so it’s important to stay informed by following Ofsted’s updates.
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Content Marketing Executive at Connect Childcare