News

22nd August 2005

Childcare gets glowing report from Ofsted

Almost half of England’s estimated 105,000 childcare providers have achieved the highest possible grade of ‘good’ from education watchdog Ofsted.

The Office for Standards in Education have released report, Early years: Firm foundations, based on evidence from inspections carried out over the last two years.

The report is accompanied by the launch of Local Authority Early Years Profiles which examine the amount and quality of childcare in every local authority compared with the average across England. The profiles cover the same time period as Firm Foundations’ and are accompanied by a summary table.

Chief Inspector of schools, David Bell, said, "There is some truly inspirational work going on in nurseries and the homes of childminders. We have tried to capture a small picture of it in today’s report."

The report shows that 48 per cent of childcarers, nurseries and crèches received the top grade on overall childcare, which includes safety, catering and teaching good behaviour.

And 68 per cent were given the highest score of 'good' when it comes to managing children’s behaviour and promoting good behaviour.

However, several thousand were judged to be unsatisfactory at ensuring the protection of children in their care.

David bell said, "Parents can be assured that the vast majority of childcare providers in this country are doing a good job in keeping children safe and preparing them for life at their ‘big school'.

"As I’ve said before, the first four or five years of a child’s life are very important in preparing them for school, for work and for life, so it’s of paramount importance that we have a healthy childcare sector.

"There is, of course, still work to be done but I am very impressed by the results in this report. I would like to see good practice become common practice in all childcare settings."

Ofsted inspect all daycare providers against the government set National Standards for Daycare and have recently begun to publish the results online.

From April 2005, they introduced a new grading system which will now be used for all inspections.

David Bell concluded, "Each local authority has received their early years’ profile and will be aware of how the quality of childcare in their area compares with the rest of England.

"Some will have further to go than others and will need to work with nurseries, childminders and those who run school clubs to achieve better results.

"The standards achieved by those childcare providers highlighted in Firm Foundations should be the benchmark that all providers, with the support of their local authority, work towards."

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