Show Notes
Did you know Ofsted inspects out of school care for children under the age of 8? This can include activity-based clubs, wraparound care and holiday activities. Find out more about how we inspect in this podcast with guests Craig Jones from the School-Aged Childcare Association and Dan Super from Super Team Sports. Cait Mellow: Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. This time we're talking about school-age childcare. Did you know we inspect and regulate out-of-school care? I'm here with Wendy Ratcliff, HMI, the Principal Officer for Early Education at Ofsted. Caroline Hearn, the Specialist Advisor for Early Years at Ofsted. Craig Jones from School Age Child Care Association and Dan Super from Super Team Sports. What type of setting does this cover? After school, holiday clubs, wraparound sports? Caroline, talk us through that.
Caroline Hearn: I absolutely can. But before I start, I just want to say we are recording this July 2026. So, we're heading into the summer holidays. And just I think Wendy and I and all at Ofsted would want to say a big thank you to all the wraparound providers who, unlike a lot of sectors who are winding down potentially in schools for the summer, we know the wraparound providers are gearing up to what is very hot summer it's turning out to be. So huge thanks for all the work they do to keep children safe, happy and well educated over the summer. I think that's just a huge importance for us to say that. And then of course I can answer the question. So after school clubs, it's funny, it really depends on the register you're on rather than the type of provision. So the way the Department of Education set up the legislation, you've got the early years register, which is for children from birth to the 31st of August after their 5th birthday. And then you've got the later years registers for 5 to 8 and then the voluntary for older children. So it really depends on the ages of the children that you want to be caring for. And often we find those that offer that the around holiday clubs, breakfast clubs, all of those, that type of care provision, do also register on the early years register because we've got those children who go into school who are before the 31st of August, before their 5th birthday. So they are captured in that age group. And then within that, there's all the different provider types that we have that I've just mentioned. So really, I want to now just ask Wendy, I'm just really interested, and Dan and Craig, just looking at what Ofsted does in our inspection work, how have you found inspections? I've talked about all that wide range of provision that gets inspected. So I'm going to hand over to Wendy and Dan and Craig to talk a bit more about that. Wendy Ratcliff: Shall I just talk a little bit about the changes we've made to how we inspect registered early years, if you're on the early years register as out of school providers, then maybe Dan and Craig, you can tell us a little bit about what you're finding? So if you are a provider that is registered on the early years register but only provide care exclusively to children at the beginning of or and end of the school day or during school holidays, you only need to meet the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the DFE's early years foundation stage. Therefore, our inspectors, when they come to do your inspection, they're not going to grade particular evaluation areas, curriculum and teaching or achievement, because you don't have to meet the learning and development requirements. And that's the same for before and after school settings and holiday provision with children younger than reception age. If you have one of these settings, you must have regard to, but you do not have to meet those learning and development requirements of the EYFS. Inspectors do evaluate though, your safeguarding and welfare arrangements. They will confirm that your setting meets the requirements of the early years r
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On this podcast, we have Helen Davis, who's Head of National and Joint Inspection from HMI Probation, Lucy Hart, the Deputy Director and Multi-Agency Operations from CQC, Simon Alexander, the Associate Inspector from HMICFRS and Paul DInverno, Ofsted's HMI Specialist Advisor. We’re also joined by Sarah Jones and Tanya Fulcher from Norfolk County Council. Cait Mellow I'd like to welcome everybody to another episode of Ofsted Talks and this time we are talking about the JTAI, the Joint Targeted Area Inspection. This is a complex inspection where different agencies such as the Care Quality Commission, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation, Ofsted, and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue all arrive in a local area at the same time and work together to inspect lots of different services that are supporting children. The Joint Targeted Area Inspections, JTAIs as we call them, we’ve been holding these for ten years. So do we all do all inspections that are done under this banner or is it sometimes us and CQC or HMICFRS. How does it work? Paul, do you want to talk us through that? Paul DInverno Yeah, so we've been undertaking joint target area inspections now for 10 years, so it's a good chance for reflection. In terms of, we do two types now. We do thematic inspections, which is Ofsted, of both children’s social care and education and HMI Probation, the Care Quality Commission and HMICFRS. So we all join together for the thematic inspections and they give a very unique insight into multi-agency working.And we also do an inspection of initial need and risk, sometimes known as the ‘front door’. And that's just CQC, HMICFRS and Ofsted to undertake those inspections. Cait Mellow So when you say the front door, what does that mean? Paul DInverno Well, we're looking at the initial response when need or risk is first identified for children. And we look at that through the window of individual agencies response. So some aspects of health, the police response and also children's Social Care and what is often referred to as the MASH multi-agency safeguarding hub where that exists and it's about the assessment of risk and need, the appropriate decision making and ultimately whether children and families get the right help at the right time. Cait Mellow Okay, so Simon, what do you think? Why do they work well? What are they adding in terms of value?
We want to make sure that Ofsted plays its part in ensuring children and young people in our social care system are happy, safe and able to reach their full potential. Take part by giving us your views: Improving the way Ofsted inspects children’s social care - GOV.UK Transcript: Tracey Metcalfe My name is Tracey Metcalfe and I'm the Assistant Regional Director for Social Care and Regulation in the North East Yorkshire and Humber. We're consulting on reforms to our two main social care inspection frameworks, the Inspection of Local Authority Children's Services or ILACS for short, and the Social Care Inspection Framework, or SCIFF for short. So I'm here today with my colleagues, Dominic Stevens and Matthew Brazier. I'm going to ask colleagues to introduce themselves. Dominic. Dominic Stevens Hi. So I'm Dominic Stevens. I'm the programme lead for the ILACS Inspection Framework. Matthew Brazier Thanks, Tracy. Yeah, I'm Matthew Brazier and I do a similar job as Dominic, but I'm the programme director for the social care common inspection framework, which I'll explain a little bit more in a minute about what that means. Tracey Metcalfe Thanks so much, Matthew. Thanks both for joining me today. So we're consulting on reforms to our two main social care inspection frameworks. So could you both just briefly explain what these two inspection programmes are for and how they work for children? So I'm going to come to you first, Dominic. Dominic Stevens Thanks. So the ILACS framework, and as you've said, stands for Inspecting Local Authority Children's Services, is the framework we use when Ofsted acts as the inspectorate for all local authority children's services around the country. And we'll say a little bit more in a minute about what that means and how it might develop a little bit in the future. Matthew Brazier Social care common inspection framework, which is a bit of a mouthful, but that's a framework that looks at mainly regulated services. So things like children's homes, fostering services, residential family centres. And I think I probably should say a little bit about what regulated means. In other words, services that must meet certain standards of quality and safety that the organisations that provide these services have to register with Ofsted and follow certain guidelines and procedures. Tracey Metcalfe That's really helpful. And I wonder, Matthew, could we explore what's changing and why we're consultants? So, for example, can you tell me a little bit more about the vision for our revised frameworks in the SCIF, for example? Matthew Brazier We want our inspections to continue to act as a force for good. We want them to encourage the highest quality of practice and provision to ensure the best outcomes for children and their families. We've been working a lot with the government. We're ensuring that our frameworks reflect the reform agenda and to make sure that they align with changes to statutory guidance. We want to strengthen the way that ILACS and SCIFF talks to each other, to encourage providers and commissioners to work together, for example, to secure the right homes for children in the right places and ensure they meet the needs of all children, including especially those with complex lives. And to do this, we'll make the best use of our insights promptly and effectively, and we really need to reflect the shared responsibilities that local authorities and providers have for, after all, are the same children. And enduring relationships with the heart of inspection. And finally, and most importantly, we want to make sure we do all we can to hear the voices of children and their families, to help them participate in inspections. We really want to improve the way we feedback our findings to children and families. We've made some specific proposals in this consultation, but we also have set out an ambition for both the frameworks, what we want our inspections to do. One is that we want to make sure that t
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