Gill Jones in Under 5, June 2018

Under 5, June 2018

The job at hand

Gill Jones, deputy director of early education at Ofsted

Gill Jones, deputy director of early education at Ofsted, shares her thoughts on the early years sector

These are good times to be working in the early years sector. The quality of provision is very high. The most recent Ofsted statistics showthat more than nine out of 10 nurseries,childminders and others on the early yearsregister were judged good or outstandingat their last inspection.

The statistics also show that the overalleffectiveness of early years providers attheir first inspection has risen over time.In August 2012, 74% of them were goodor better. Fast forward to today and thatproportion is now 94%. The credit forthis improvement clearly has to go to themanagers and staff in nurseries and preschools.But I believe the accountabilitysystem also improves standards for youngchildren: Ofsted has helped to make theirearly education better.

Knowledge base

Today, anyone working in the early yearssector is able to benefit from a wealth ofresearch about children’s development.When I started to work as a teacher inprimary schools – not that long ago –staffroom discussions about neuroscienceand cognitive psychology were notcommon. We now know so much moreabout how young children develop. I urgeearly years staff and managers to use thatknowledge base.

Of course, a lot of research confirmswhat early years staff already know – thatthe way a young child develops in thefirst five or so years of life has a profoundeffect on the rest of their life. It’s not anexaggeration to say that these first fewyears determine, to a large extent, a child’slife chances as an adult.

The word gap

I’m sure you’ll agree, intuition tells us thatpoor language skills will limit learning.So, in April I was dismayed to read that

the Oxford University Press had foundthat four out of 10 children had such alimited vocabulary that it was affecting theirlearning. Most of those surveyed – 86% ofprimary teachers and 80% of secondaryteachers – responded that they thoughtit was very or extremely challenging forchildren with a limited vocabulary to readnational test papers, and will therefore doless well in exams.

Researchers at Oxford University Pressblamed this ‘word gap’ on too little readingfor pleasure. So it’s really important thatchildren develop a love of reading early in life.And we cannot assume that all parents arereading to their child at home every night.

This is where early years practitionerscome in. It’s up to you, I believe, to instil alove of stories and reading among youngchildren. The reality is that the work you dohas long-lasting effects.

So this is not just about school readiness.Rather, it’s about encouraging childrento enjoy language in a way that will servethem well at school and beyond. Of courseyoung children need to be in a safe andhappy environment before they can learn thebasics of literacy and numeracy. That is whyinspectors will always ask about disclosureand barring service documentation as soonas they visit childminders, nurseries andother types of early years settings.

Reducing regulations

That said, at Ofsted we are keen to keepregulations to a minimum. Just recently,we had a meeting with United for All Agesabout inter-generational care. Afterwards,we wrote guidance for inspectors to makeclear in what circumstances we wouldregister and inspect facilities that care forolder people and young children, withoutimposing unnecessary burdens, while stillalso meeting our legal responsibilities.

Earlier this year, we abolished the selfevaluationform, which some early years

providers has used to prepare for our inspectors. I do hope that the removal of this form has given early years managers a little more time to focus on the day-to-day job of looking after young children.

We are also currently working on improving the online registration service for childminders. The existing system can be confusing and does not work well on some devices and browsers. In designing the new registration service, we have carried out many hours of testing with childminders. And we’ve have a good response.

Rather than phoning us, which I know can be time-consuming, childminders will be able to use the new online system to pay their annual registration fee and keep us up-to-date. We are working hard on the new service, which will go live later this autumn. I expect that the current service will be switched off by this time next year.

This project is part of Ofsted’s commitment to making your lives easier and allowing you to focus more on the job at hand. We will also be looking at what lessons can be learned to build similar online services for the nurseries and pre-schools run by Alliance members.