Nursery World - Common Inspection Framework: Part 4

How are key areas such as safeguarding going to be inspected under
the new framework? In the final part of this series, the Pre-School
Learning Alliance's Michael Freeston breaks it down.

Ofsted has reassured the sector that the way it inspects and the evidence it looks for 'will not change significantly', and that 'good practice remains good practice'. However, there are additional criteria, some more subtle than others, that require consideration. Most significant are the assessment of safeguarding arrangements and the quality of teaching, learning and assessment.

Safeguarding

Ofsted's aim has always been to ensure safe and secure provision for children. This commitment is reaffirmed within the new framework. Both the Inspecting Safeguarding in Early Years, Education and Skills Settings guidance, which is aimed at inspectors, and the Early Years Inspection Handbook shows that one of the key things inspectors will look for is children being protected and feeling safe.

Inspectors will consider how well leaders and managers have created 'a culture of vigilance' where children's welfare is promoted and where 'timely and appropriate safeguarding action is taken'. A 'culture of vigilance' is just one of several terms, prompted by the new 'Prevent' duty, which pepper the safeguarding guidance and may be unfamiliar to practitioners. Practitioners should seek to reach a shared understanding of what these terms mean.

Ofsted reiterates that safeguarding is not just about 'protecting' children. It relates to broader aspects of care and education already covered within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). This means providers can be confident that if their practice was 'good' prior to the Common Inspection Framework (CIF), it will be good now. What is new is the inclusion of the ever-widening range of issues associated with online safety, specifically: access to nefarious websites, online bullying and 'grooming' and behavioural issues attributed to too much time looking at a screen.

The inspector will look for evidence that staff know when to make referrals for safeguarding concerns. This includes not just sexual exploitation, but also radicalisation and extremism. This can be a challenge for practitioners who sometimes struggle to rationalise how these particular areas are relevant in a setting. Practitioners are also tasked with following up unexplained absences and making appropriate checks when children stop attending with little or no notification, as this may indicate a safeguarding concern. Accurate record-keeping will be important as the inspector may ask to see documentation, including logs that record accidents, exclusions, children taken off roll and incidents of poor behaviour and discrimination.

'British values' and the Prevent duty

This came into force on 1 July 2015 and places duties on schools and registered early years providers to keep children safe and promote their welfare. Providers are required to 'have due regard to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism'. Providers already focus on children's personal, social and emotional development, but it is vital they understand this is an additional risk of serious harm.

There are specific legal duties that must be met including the need for 'British values' to be promoted to help everyone to live in safe and welcoming communities. British values are defined as:

democracy
the rule of law
individual liberty and mutual respect
mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.

The EYFS already supports practitioners to ensure that 'children learn right from wrong, mix and share with other children, value others' views, know about similarities and differences between themselves and others, and challenge negative attitudes and stereotypes'. Practitioners working to the EYFS will be familiar with this, but still need to consider how they in turn relate to the 'values' and should be able to explain to an inspector if asked.

Overall, Prevent is consistent with providers' existing safeguarding responsibilities, so should not be burdensome. Advice produced by the Department for Education focuses on four themes which can be summarised as:

Risk assessment: identifying the risk of children being drawn into terrorism within a local context, remembering Prevent does not call for unnecessary intrusion into family life but requires action to be taken where there are behaviour concerns.
Working in partnership: building on existing local arrangements with Local Safeguarding Children Boards responsible for co-ordinating the actions of local agencies for safeguarding purposes. Providers must be aware of local protocols.
Staff training, to help children at risk of being drawn into terrorism be identified and to challenge extremist ideas that may be used to legitimise terrorism. Prevent training for staff will be key to this. The Government recognises that it can be difficult for some childcare providers to attend training and is 'considering other ways in which they can increase awareness.'
IT policies that protect children when they are online with appropriate levels of adult supervision filtering.

While the guidance is helpful, it does contain such phrases as 'schools and childcare providers should be aware of the increased risk of online radicalisation, as terrorist organisations such as ISIL seek to radicalise young people through the use of social media and the internet'. The fact it does not always reflect the early years context has been raised by the Pre-School Learning Alliance. In higher-risk areas, local counter-terrorism police are delivering the Workshop to Raise Awareness of Prevent. Providers must review and revise existing policies and procedures to take account of the points mentioned here.

Teaching, learning and assessment

The CIF places great emphasis on the importance of effective teaching, learning and assessment. This contributes centrally to the four graded judgements of leadership and management, teaching and learning, children's outcomes and overall effectiveness grades, so practitioners should ensure they can demonstrate they have effective procedures to track children's progress. An increasing focus is being placed on the progress of groups of learners, for example, how children from disadvantaged backgrounds progress compared to their peers, which should be clearly demonstrated at inspection. This is particularly the case where it is necessary to evidence the effective use of additional funding, in particular the Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP).

There has been no specific guidance on the use of the EYPP. It can be used across the setting, but must have the overall aim of improving outcomes for eligible children. The inspector will ask whether the setting provides any funded places and/or receives EYPP funding during the inspection notification call. It is therefore important that this and other information stipulated in the inspection handbook is readily available to whoever may take the call in the manager's absence.

How effectively leaders use additional funding, including the EYPP, and measure its impact on narrowing gaps in outcomes, is a source of evidence for the leadership and management judgement. The inspector's tracking of selected children also provides evidence for the teaching and learning judgment and EYPP-supported children must be included in the sample observed. The evidence collected will take account of progress relative to each child's starting point, the quality of the practitioner's assessment knowledge of each child, and the impact of the EYPP on their progress. Evidence of impact of the EYPP can also be included in the setting's self-evaluation form.

Reviewing how the setting can demonstrate effective use of additional funding has a wider benefit for preparing for inspection, as getting systems right for EYPP children means they will be right for all the children.

While much has changed as a result of the new framework, as outlined in this series of articles, the principles of effective provision for young children within the EYFS have not. Adapting the focus of evidence in line with the CIF is an essential task, but the provision that it represents still remains the same

KEY FOCUS POINTS OF THE CIF

Leadership and management