A list of recommendations from Ofsted that nurseries have received during an Ofsted inspection
Ofsted will give nurseries recommendations to help improve either their environment, practice or management and leadership skills. It is up to nurseries to act on these as Ofsted will evaluate these recommendations on the next inspection, they will be looking to see how they have been actioned and implemented. Below is a list of recommendations that nurseries have been given recently by Ofsted.
Safeguarding
- Attend a child protection training course to gain an up-to-date knowledge of safeguarding issues, in order to be able to identify signs of possible abuse and neglect at the earliest opportunity, and to respond in a timely and appropriate way;
- Maintain a daily record of children’s hours of attendance;
- Implement effective systems for the recruitment and vetting of all assistants to ensure that people working with the children are suitable to do so;
- Ensure that written permission from parents is always obtained prior to administering medication to children;
- Ensure that Ofsted are informed of changes of circumstances as soon as they occur, with particular regard to changes in people living and working on the premises;
- Ensure all required documentation, including staff recruitment information, is organised and available for inspection;
- Ensure that a Disclosure and Barring Service check is obtained for all persons living on the premises who are aged 16 years and over.
Performance Management and Quality
- Maintain the superb targeted programme of professional development to further enhance the already first-rate practice;
- Reflect and build on staff’s excellent practice, for example, by providing even more opportunities to observe best practice and consider the impact that this has on children’s experiences;
- Explore ways to maintain and build on good practice, for example, by focusing professional development on opportunities to further enhance teaching skills;
- Sharpen the focus of the evaluation of the setting, for example, by looking more closely at the impact of the quality of teaching during planned activities, to further raise the standards and help children achieve at the highest level;
- Develop further the evaluation of the setting, for example, by focusing more acutely on the impact of quality of teaching on different groups of children, to raise all children’s attainment to the highest level;
- Build further on professional development plans by devising different ways to continually update and increase knowledge, in order to raise the overall quality of practice to an even higher level;
- Help staff to recognise where and how they can improve, for example, by providing better opportunities for them to discuss their performance with the manager and to learn good practice from one another;
- Check the effectiveness of teaching more precisely and act more swiftly to further raise the consistency and quality of staff’s practice;
- Identify opportunities for training and professional development, to increase knowledge and raise the overall quality of practice;
- Ensure that appropriate training, skills and knowledge are maintained, in order to consistently provide good quality teaching and learning opportunities for all children;
- Review the organisation of adult-directed activities so that all children are highly challenged and extremely well supported to make the best possible progress.
Health and Independence
- Make the most of all opportunities to develop children’s independence skills even further;
- Provide even more activities and experiences that help raise children’s awareness of the benefits of a healthy diet, for example, plan and provide more activities that involve food;
- Provide even more activities and experiences that help raise children’s awareness of the benefits of a healthy diet;
- Make the most of all opportunities to further develop older children’s understanding of taking responsibility for their environment, for example, by encouraging them to carry out small tasks, such as tidying away after they have finished playing or eating;
- Make the most of all opportunities to teach children about adopting excellent hygiene practices to further develop their understanding of keeping themselves healthy;
- Develop additional ways to inform children of the resources available to them in order to help children express their preferences and make more independent choices about their play;
- Maximise opportunities for children to develop their independence. For example, by enabling young children to develop self-care skills during their hand washing and making sure that the older children are able to serve and prepare their own snacks;
- Encourage all children to make informed decisions in their play, for example, by providing a list of resources that they can choose from;
- Make the most all opportunities to promote children’s understanding of good hygiene, in particular, during outdoor activities.
Partnership working
- Strengthen the positive links with other settings in order to ensure that all children receive equally high-quality support during times of change;
- Strengthen the partnerships with other providers, so that information about children’s development is shared from the outset to further consolidate their learning;
- Strengthen the arrangements for gathering information with the host school and other early years provisions, in order to maximise support for children’s all-round learning and development;
- Use the current plans for change to raise and drive forward improvement by fully involving all staff, children and parents;
- Enhance systems for communicating with parents to include more specific next steps in learning, to support children’s learning at home more effectively;
- Strengthen arrangements for exchanging information with other settings that children attend; use this shared information more effectively to plan learning experiences that complement and reinforce the learning these children receive elsewhere;
- Support parents more effectively to share information about their child’s learning at home.
Communities
- Increase opportunities for children to develop a deeper understanding of similarities and differences between themselves and others, and among families, communities and traditions;
- Raise the quality of children’s learning even further by providing more opportunities for them to find out about different people, events and places of interest;
- Enhance the speaking, listening and understanding skills of children who speak English as an additional language by raising staff’s and parents’ awareness of the importance of maintaining and developing children’s use of their home languages, alongside English (see below also);
- Build on the use of children’s home languages in the nursery, by making the most of opportunities to better promote the different languages of the children attending (see below also)
Communication, Language and Thinking Skills
- Help children to maintain a high level of thinking, by giving them extra time to consider what if and other possible answers when asking questions;
- Make the most of all opportunities to help children develop confidence and to extend their range of vocabulary by giving them enough time to process and repeat what they hear;
- Enhance the quality of teaching to supports children to make more progress in developing their thinking and problem solving skills;
- Enhance children’s thinking and problem solving skills, for example, by making the most of opportunities to ask questions and allow them time to respond;
- Develop children’s communication and critical thinking skills even further by making effective use of questions that encourage them to think and engage in conversations;
- Ensure all staff allow children enough thinking time so that they can form answers to questions, in order to extend children’s language skills;
- Challenge children to develop their communication and critical-thinking skills even further by promoting staff’s use of effective questioning to encourage children to describe, share thoughts, and give explanations.
General
- Make better use of the space available in the garden to provide children with resources that further challenge and extend their emerging physical skills in climbing and balancing;
- Encourage children to explore and investigate even more, using all their senses, for example, by extending the range of natural objects, and resources made of different materials, such as wood and metal;
- Extend the range of opportunities for children to explore and investigate a rich and broad variety of sensory materials, such as mud, ice, cereals, pasta, flour and foam;
- Enhance outdoor provision so that children can develop a wide range of skills as they play, explore and continue their learning outside;
- Provide opportunities for children to learn more about growth, decay and change over time;
- Maximise the use of the outdoor spaces so that children can investigate the natural world and benefit more from being outside during different seasons;
- Review the organisation of activities between sessions or routines so that there are opportunities for continual learning throughout these times;
- Provide further opportunities during sensory play to promote children’s mathematical development and their understanding of shape, size and volume;
- Extend opportunities for children to explore information and communication technology further;
- Make the most of all opportunities to promote children’s numeracy skills, for example, by consistently incorporating counting into play, activities and routines