Early Years Research from Ofsted

Ofsted have recently published several guides, research, and information regarding Early Years Providers.

The research entitled ‘How Early Years multiple providers work’  explores the roles and responsibilities that providers have in determining the quality and standards of provision across those that providers that run two or more individual childcare settings. 

Researchers found that multiple providers influence practice through:

• setting the curriculum intent and influencing its implementation and impact
• developing, reviewing and controlling policies
• regular visits to nurseries to monitor and inspect practice and the implementation of policies
• monitoring and oversight of ongoing incidents in individual nurseries
• deploying staff between nurseries to observe perceived good practice.

The report recommends that Ofsted’s oversight of multiple providers should evolve in a similar way to that of multi-academy trusts (MATs) in the schools sector, where summary evaluations look at the extent to which a MAT overall is delivering high-quality education and improving outcomes for pupils.