Ofsted

What is Ofsted?

Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. Ofsted inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people, and education provisions for learners of all ages.

Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI)

The ISI inspects and monitors the educational, boarding care, and early years provision of association independent schools. The monitoring is conducted against standards set by the government. Like Ofsted, they also use the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) as the benchmark by which to evaluate early year’s provision. Some early years settings are inspected by the ISI.

Most settings in Harrow are currently inspected under the Common Inspection Framework.

See links to key documents and information for both parents, carers, and Early Years Providers. 

Training and Ofsted briefings

Harrow Early Years runs termly training for settings scheduled for inspections. This usually includes opportunities to hear from settings that have recently been through a successful inspection.

Useful links and documents

Below are some highlighted areas which may be of interest to parents, carers and Early Years Providers.

For parents/carers

• Find an Inspection Report
• Parent View - Parent View gives you the chance to tell Ofsted what you think about your child’s school.
• Inspecting registered childcare providers: information for parents -   How Ofsted regulates childcare and what parents should do if they have concerns about their provider.

For Early Years Providers

• Common inspection framework: education, skills and early years from September 2015 - How Ofsted inspects maintained schools and academies, non-association independent schools, further education and skills provision and early years settings.
• Inspecting registered early years providers: guidance for inspectors - Ofsted inspectors use this handbook when inspecting early years providers.
• Inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills - Guidance for Ofsted inspectors to use when inspecting safeguarding under the common inspection framework.
• Childcare inspections: providers judged inadequate or not meeting requirements -  What happens when Ofsted judges a childcare provider to be inadequate or not meeting registration requirements.
• Inspection of services on Childcare Register - Guidance on how Ofsted inspects childcare services that are only on the Childcare Register.
• Regulation of services on Childcare Register: framework -  How Ofsted regulates applicants and childcare services that are only on the Childcare Register.
• Early years provider non-compliance: action by Ofsted -  What Ofsted does when a childminder or childcare provider does not comply with regulations.