However, the inspectorate attributed the increase to the fact that the most recent inspection cycle on which the figures are based had prioritised satisfactory providers for inspections, rather than those that were already good.
The move reflects Ofsted’s drive to focus upon improving satisfactory and inadequate nurseries in the coming year.
A spokesperson also confirmed that the new Early Years inspection framework, introduced in September, had ‘toughened up’, so that it would be harder in future for providers to achieve outstanding grades.
All inspections between 1 September and 31 December were conducted under the new framework.
Ofsted carried out 4,909 inspections of childcare provision during this period, and compared the results to those of the previous reporting period that took place between 1 September 2011 and 31 August 2012.
A lower number of providers were judged good or outstanding during the most recent inspection cycle than the previous one – 67 per cent of inspections for providers on the Early Years Register were found to be good or outstanding, compared to 74 per cent of providers in the previous period.
Twenty-five per cent were judged satisfactory, and eight per cent inadequate.
This contrasts with figures for the overall effectiveness of all active early years providers – 67,049 providers - that shows that at their most recent inspection 12 per cent of nurseries and childminders were judged outstanding, 64 per cent good , 24 per cent satisfactory and 1 per cent inadequate.
Almost half of inspections carried out between September and December 2012 were of weaker providers which had previously been inspected.
Some centres were judged to have improved during this period, and their original grade was replaced with a higher one. The remaining half of inspections were of providers that had not been inspected before.
The Pre-School Learning Alliance called for Ofsted to clarify what the previous inspection grades were for the settings inspected in this cohort in order to clear up any uncertainty about what these figures really mean.
Chief executive Neil Leitch said, ‘We are concerned that these statistics appear to suggest that the sector is set on a path where previously good settings may be judged as satisfactory. This would also have worrying implications for Government policy, given that it wants to place disadvantaged two-year-olds in good or outstanding settings from this September.
‘It is difficult to understand why performance levels have diminished so dramatically other than that the nature of the new inspection framework has changed or that this targeted approach has produced a warped dataset.
‘While we understand why Ofsted has focused on settings "who are not yet good", it is critical that Ofsted clarifies the weighting of these statistics and their impact on a like-for-like comparison. Unless Ofsted does so, these results will further unsettle the sector, given that providers have already been receiving messages that it be harder to achieve good or outstanding ratings under the new regulatory framework.’
