Question –
Q – “Is it common practice within nurseries to be ask a number of “on the spot” questions about a topic/subject without any warning and the results to be recorded? Can they use this information/results against you?”
Answers –
A – “This is what Ofsted would do, so staff need to be ready for this, but it shouldn’t be negative, regular questions should be a natural occurrence, and staff should not be intimidated.”
A – “We would have a printout with each staff member on & a series of ‘on the spot Q’s’ at the top and over the week / month (however you want to do it) the question asked would have a tick next to the staff members name if a correct answer was given – if not, you can then revisit that staff member or it may identify a training need. Questions could be on anything: safeguarding, including “what is the prevent duty?”, “if you had a concern about a child, what would you do?” (Are all staff aware who their DO / SG team are and where this info is displayed?) areas of abuse, signs & symptoms of abuse etc, “What are the British Values?”, “How might you see BV’s within your setting/room?”, “Tell me about the settings development plan?” (All staff should be aware of where you are going as a setting and what the goals are – has the setting’s dev.plan been shared with the staff team?) “How do you challenge children to extend their learning? Can you give an example?”, “What are the CoEL?” “How would you see this is practice?” Basically, questions on EVERYTHING practitioners should know & from experience, the more staff are used to this daily on the spot questioning, the more confident they will be when you have visitors in the setting. Hope this helps”
A – “One nursery I worked at as supply staff was doing this they asked for the baby room staff about safety when having water play and the dangers not one said about drowning. I was shocked and thought that would be the 1st thing they would say. They weren’t advised about it either.”
A – “We have practice ofsted inspections, where either the nursery owners or area managers will come to one of the nurseries and ask you questions that you would expect from ofsted”
A – “Yes common practice. Very good learning curve towards Inspection”
A – “Yes, shows understanding of learning opportunities, where children are in their learning & next steps along with CoEL”
A – “Good practice I’d say”