Commentary on HMCIs Early Years Report 2012-13 (published April 2014)

The report develops arguments which were set out in HMCIs letter to inspectors of 17 March 2014 (both the letter and the report are on our website). In that letter he noted that too many early years reports focus on describing provision a view which MSA would agree with. HMCI states that a good start is especially important for children from poor backgrounds and that children as young as two can learn and be taught a range of things. So far, so good. His letter lists things such as learning new vocabulary, nursery rhymes and songs, listening to stories and looking at picture books, building small towers (I like the small) while counting bricks, making shapes from play dough and beginning to make marks on paper (an interesting linkage between the two), climbing stairs and begin to play with a ball (who put those two together?), start to get dressed and undressed. Despite the odd juxtapositioning of some of these points, there is nothing too much to concern Montessori practitioners. He then sets out what an inspector should observe to judge how well adults help children to learn, listen to instructions and be attentive, to socialise, to develop independence and initiative, to speculate, to provide good models of language, to develop childrens ability to express ideas and use their imagination, to extend vocabulary, and to teach children the early stages of mathematics and reading. He next s tates what inspectors must evaluate and report on do staff sufficiently focus on childrens learning, spend enough time on engaging in purposeful dialogue with children, give children sufficient time to practise and reinforce what is being taught. Also do staff assess childrens skills, knowledge and abilities accurately and use this to plan for progress, do staff have expertise to teach basic skills and is there a well-organised PDP programme to improve the quality of teaching. He ends inspectors should report on what makes teaching and assessment effective rather than its style. There are several issues here. Many of the inspection issues are highly subjective: they ignore safeguarding and welfare requirements and training. What is a purposeful dialogue with children? You can no doubt think of other points yourselves. However HMCI does have a point in that too few reports m ake links between the quality of teaching and its impact on childrens progress. He does not want a setting to be criticised for not conforming to a particular ideological view. That is fine.. but bear in mind that an inspector will be in the setting for one day, and much of the time will be spent looking at safeguarding and welfare requirements. It is up to the provider to make sure that the inspector sees how well the setting meets the inspection demands regarding learning and progress.

The report on early years (www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/130237) is the first free-standing review of this sector by Ofsted. It sees itself as one of a series of documents about raising standards, but the foreword by Nick Hudson, National Director of Early Education at Ofsted, adopts a view that not enough is being done to support and encourage parents or to address differences between children with different economic backgrounds. The report is a mix of good and not so good news. It notes that quality in early years has been rising 78% of providers ion the EY register are good or outstanding the highest proportion ever (Nick claims that this is in part due to Ofsteds rigour, although the evidence for this is limited). Just over 1/3 of children from low income backgrounds reach a good level of development. Nursery schools are praised (despite many being closed), but childminders are seen as less likely to be good or outstanding in deprived areas. There are several concerns about such an analysis, not least that the areas of deprivation debate does not really apply to many parts of the country. The issues of the most deprived being in small pockets rather than an area is ignored and rural deprivation , where deprivation relates to access to services as much as to factors more common in urban areas, makes such blanket statements problematic. Schools are seen as important providers of early education and childcare. (Again I wonder about rural areas and provision for under fours in schools). Comparisons between schools and other EY providers are difficult. The absence of a standardised assessment of school readiness is lamented. Parents are said to be confused about different forms of provision. Childrens Centres are characterised by turbulence and volatility reductions in numbers and changing structures and organisation, as well as a debate about their purpose. In my view this has been the case for many since they were set up. The report focuses on children who have not yet started in YR. It notes that the government has three aims for high quality affordable childcare: Helping to improve childrens outcomes; Enabling parents to work; Getting children into EY provision at an early age so as to intervene earlier in potential problems.

94% of children benefit from preschool education before starting primary school, but for most, provision up to the age of four is not in a formal setting. Provision has improved in quality according to Ofsteds inspections (despite HMCIs reservations about what inspectors have been looking at, as noted above). The report notes one anomaly: EY settings are inspected to a different framework to schools, making comparison between the two impossible. Schools receive an overall grade, without a separate one for the early years. However the report does not go on to say that school inspections particularly of independent schools - use different criteria for their

inspections than are used for EYFS settings. Some requirements, such as complaints procedures, are totally different. In September 2012, Ofsted introduced much tougher arrangements for inspections (I like the word arrangements it was not such, instead it was tougher requirements). In part this has led to a fall in childminder applications from 8,300 in 2012 to 6,200 in 2013. This reduction in provision is termed raising expectations in the report. The evidence for improvement relies heavily on the Early Years Profile. Despite Ofsted saying that their report focuses on the years before YR, the Profile, of course, is completed in YR and includes the work done during that year. Ofsted argues for a baseline assessment in YR to link, in part, the level of childrens development by the end of YR with the place where they received their early education. Research comparisons between Ofsted judgements and the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scales are good where the setting is of high quality. For lower quality settings the results are less likely to agree, and there is little agreement about quality for settings for children aged between birth and 30 months. Could this be because Ofsted is focusing on learning and development rather than care? The report notes health and development checks. It states that we have commented previously on our concerns about the reliability of assessments at Key Stage 1 and implicitly criticises infant schools for inflating their assessments. The reports discussion of primary schools entry assessments illustrate the issue of schools possibly under -assessing childrens performance in order to show greater value added progress by the time they leave school illustrates the problems with the current arrangements. Parents are seen as ultimately accountable for a childs development and the system could more to help them to meet their responsibilities. The two year old progress check is regarded as being central to this process. At times the report is banal: Children will only experience childcare or early education if their parents choose to send them. Sources of information are seen to be variable in their value and many parents do not know where to look. There are six frameworks for inspecting the different forms of provision and the report rightly notes that a school with a childrens centre with childcare for under threes will have one building, one governing body, one set of children and staff and yet have three inspections to three different frameworks. The EPPE project is cited as showing that deprived areas need high quality provision. However deprived areas have the poorest quality provision, judged by Ofsted inspection outcomes. Variations between local authority areas are also significant, but similar areas do not always show the same outcomes for children. Much the same has been said about schools and it might be surprising if areas with similar characteristics such as size, family incomes, housing and so on were not subject to variations in the quality of provision when

factors such as availability of premises, accessibility and staff training are taken into account. Childrens Centres have their own chapter in the report. They have been subject to closures and mergers and there is no clear view of the situation or practices within centres. The Education Select Committee recently concluded that their core purpose was unclear. Again variations will occur when there is no centrally defined and enforced model. As Childrens Centres have been running for over a decade, perhaps Ofsted might have identified this sooner, unless it has changed from a laissez-faire approach to their purpose to a more rigorous view. The report makes several recommendations: Terminology should be simplified to improve clarity regarding the titles given to provision. This appears to be a good example of a bureaucracy trying to simplify something which it finds difficulty dealing with. We have had the change from playgroup to pre-school, but what much of the report has problems with are the various legal terms about domestic settings, non-domestic settings, local authority-maintained, academies, free schools and so on. This is largely the result of government legislation, not common custom and usage. The need to coordinate national and local providers of online information about provision. Whilst some local authorities have undoubtedly used their power to restrict information about availability of places, especially at childminders (I well recall trying to find a local childminder for my daughter in the late 1970s and being told that we dont give out lists, but recommend certain people) , the cost of providing such information led to funding issues when money for three and four year old funded places was alleged to be top sliced to provide staff who could identify where places were available. Childminder inspection reports should include contact details to enable the public to easily find and use the reports a useful way of saying that Ofsted want to give your address and phone number, email etc. Is this acceptable? It is not done for privately run independent schools. Make reports more easily comparable across different forms of provision. This sounds well and good, if not laudable. However it follows Ofsted practice for the last 16 or so years in assuming that provision is comparable. Services vary in their balance between care and education: some provide more of one and others more of the other. This is not recognised by the Ofsted view and especially in its focus on learning and development.

Ofsted seeks clear accountability for outcomes and the means to hold providers to account for their performance, particularly where they are in receipt of public money. This is linked to a common baseline assessment at the start of YR, and that this, along with Key Stage 1 assessment should be externally marked. The baseline assessment should have a direct

read across from the forthcoming integrated two year old progress check but that would remove from providers the chance to devise their own format for the two year old check and is another move to uniformity. The data (not information) from the two year old check and baseline assessment should include information about setting(s) the child has attended, especially where the place has been publicly funded. Information from health records on the outcome of the two year old check should be transferred to integrated education records at the start of YR. These points are directed towards a uniform system which assumes that all provision is aimed towards the same ends. It also follows Ofsteds desire to make inspections data-led, as has become the case for school inspections. Many of the points sound good, but closer scrutiny suggests that they would change current practice significantly. The two year old check is intended to be developmental, the proposals would make it much more of a check on skills and learning, especially if comparisons with a baseline assessment are to be made. In turn, that baseline would again have to be able to show what the child can do a summary of achievement. MSA has expressed concerns about summer born children, especially boys, who are less likely to perform well in comparison with autumn born children who are up to 11 months older at the start of YR. the danger is one of labelling children as under-performing when the issue is really one of developmental progress. The amalgamation of health and education records sounds fine, but the issue is what use will be made of them? Are teachers qualified to use the information appropriately? What about confidentiality, and what information might be considered valid. Already some settings ask for information which seems of either doubtful value or whose interpretation requires care such as details of the pregnancy or birth. The report also recommends that the inspection and regulation system should include how far school leaders voluntarily and effectively make themselves accountable for raising attainment on entry by engaging with the local early years sector. Putting aside issues about the range and number of providers schools would have to engage with, what about providers who send children to several different schools. The proposal does not really take account of the varying expectations of different schools, nor of provision which is not serving a closely defined community. Also how many head teachers have a clear understanding of what is appropriate for two year olds? The report also states that the school inspection framework should extend down to age two and at the earliest opportunity should go down to birth, so removing the need for schools to have separate registration, regulation and inspection for under threes. It is sections like this that give cause for concerns. Ofsted already acts as the regulator and with the removal of quality assessment functions from local authorities, is to become the sole arbiter of quality. This becomes an issue when welfare considerations appear to be placed second to childrens learning and development, thereby undermining much of the EYFS approach and philosophy. Much of early years thinking for the past twenty to thirty years has sought to resist the downward pressure from the National Curriculum approach to learning. Ofsted appears to favour that downward pressure and to seek more measurable outcomes.

The report says that Childrens Centres should reflect Ofsteds views by basing their effectiveness on raising childrens attainment rather than other services and they should not be inspected as a separate form of provision. Again, a move towards uniformity. The report argues that more should be done to stop children from low income families from falling behind. Several means of achieving this are suggested, including extending the pupil premium for 3 and 4 year olds to two year olds, with funding for two year olds only going to providers who have the capability raising the attainment of identified children, local authorities should consider providing incentives for school to extend on-site or linked provision for two year olds where there are too few places and they should be held to account by government for doing this. Funded two year olds should have priority for admission into schools. Conclusions: Ofsted clearly does not like the present diversity of provision. The report does not appear to recognise that different parents might want different things for their children and there is an assumption that low achievement at primary schools is due to a mixture of family-based factors mainly low income and provision which does not promote effective learning for under-fives. The Ofsted focus on data, or at least, quantifiable information, is linked to its view that early education is primarily about acquiring knowledge and skills for later learning, rather than a broader developmental approach. Variety in provision is regarded as a weakness rather than a strength which helps to meet different needs. The pre-eminence of Ofsted as the determiner of what quality consists of, of what successful provision might provide and of how provision should be judged, puts considerable power into the hands of a small group of people who appear to have an agenda all of their own and which is not always shared by others. This is especially apparent in the contrast with the EYFS approach. Ofsteds re-defining terminology for inspection judgements requires improvement and inadequate may work somewhat uneasily with the maintained school sector, but it is much more problematic where private providers are concerned and where continued operation as a business may lead to challenges to those judgements. It seems likely that at some point a provider will challenge Ofsteds judgements, and hence its whole basis for evaluating provision, especially where factors such as continued parental support or the absence of alternative provision might arise. Throughout the report and Ofsteds current approach, there is a sense of this being a juggernaut mowing down opposition to its views. That is most disturbing.

Martin Bradley 9 April 2014