Staffordshire Early Years Conference 2016: web version without photosJulian Grenierwww.juliangrenier.blogspot.co.uk@juliangrenier

Achieving success in your Ofsted Early Years

InspectionDr Julian Grenier

Headteacher, Sheringham Nursery SchoolEast London Partnership - www.eleysp.co.uk

This session will cover•Teaching, learning and assessment in the EYFS, with reference to Ofsted’s Common Inspection Framework•Developing a self-improving early years system: seizing leadership opportunities

and I will argue that …We should not use the Ofsted monster to motivate or to coerce our teams.

We should be leading the pedagogy and enabling growth in our teams.

The importance of values and principles

True or false?• Ofsted expect to see certain types of teaching.• You will need to provide your inspector with lots of

data about the children on roll• You will be graded as outstanding, good or

requires improvement if you are observed by an inspector.

What do Ofsted say about Early Years Teaching?• Teaching should not be

taken to imply a ‘top down’ or formal way of working. It is a broad term that covers the many different ways in which adults help young children learn. • Ofsted, 2015

• It includes their interactions with children during planned and child-initiated play and activities: communicating and modelling language, showing, explaining, demonstrating, exploring ideas, encouraging, questioning, recalling, providing a narrative for what they are doing, facilitating and setting challenges. • It takes account of the equipment adults provide and

the attention given to the physical environment, as well as the structure and routines of the day that establish expectations.

• Integral to teaching is how practitioners assess what children know, understand and can do, as well as taking account of their interests and dispositions to learn (characteristics of effective learning), and how practitioners use this information to plan children’s next steps in learning and monitor their progress.

Assessment – chore or celebration?

• There are still poor examples of early years classes collecting multiple and mundane observations about children. • Poor assessments often

repeat the wording of EYFS Development Matters/Early Years Outcomes e.g. “Fatima shows interest in shapes in the environment”

• Some ICT-based systems generate vast amounts of data and claim that they can do the practitioner’s job for her, or him.

• And some practitioners collate and stick down too many pictures and too much information about children.• It’s more like a

biography than a working document for an early years practitioner.

What Ofsted are checking

The Characteristics of Effective Learning • These come first in Development Matters for a reason• Research suggests that how children develop their

curiosity, disposition to learn, and capacity to persevere with difficulty is critically important and can have a life-long, positive impact• Remember that Ofsted’s description of what they are

looking for includes “children’s participation, willingness to make choices and decisions, active and inquisitive learners who are creative and think critically”.

Playing with what you know• Tafari: “Brother, take a shower”• Josiah: “Ok, where’s the bathroom? Ok, I had a shower”• Tafari: “Have you creamed yourself? Because you’re dry”• Josiah: “Oh yeah, like this, let me do it. Ok finished”. • Noor: “We need to brush our teeth too!”• Tafari: “Yeah you’ve got to do it like this. Here’s the

toothbrush.” • Noor gives Josiah and Tafari an imaginary toothbrush and

they pretend to brush their teeth together.

Being willing to have a go• Hello Harmeye, it was lovely getting to know you this

week. You took me around the garden and showed me all the brilliant climbing and balancing you can do. First you walked along a plank holding my hand, but it wasn’t long before you pushed my hand away, you didn’t need anyone to help you, you could do it all on your own! Then you showed me all the other things you could do. You climbed a ladder, rocked a seesaw, jumped off a really high box, and zoomed down a slide. With each new turn I could see your confidence group. I think you experimented with every possible way of going down that slide. You went face up, face down, head first and toes first. Well done Harmeye, you were really skilful, and really brave!

Choosing ways to do things• Jacob, you were playing in the sandpit, you were using a watering can

to pour water down a pipe into the sand pit. You said “Look, I made a super flood. I need to try it from the other side”. You found a piece of pipe. Then you poured water down the pipe and watched it flow into the second pipe. You had to readjust the position of the guttering a few times until the water flowed straight into it. Then you found a piece of guttering and added that onto the pipe and tested whether the water would flow into the guttering as well, it did and you were pleased, saying “Look, look”.

Choosing ways to do things• Next you found a piece of pipe and put this at the end of the guttering

leaning up against the edge of the sand pit. Then you poured the water down the pipe and watched it flow along the pipe, gutter and then up the pipe leaning against the side of the sand pit. We both watched it flow back down again. Then you collected some sand and put it in the guttering – I asked you what you thought might happen, you told me “It will block the water, maybe make another flood”. You watched the water flowing down and saw it backing up behind the sand and flowing over. You let other children help with putting water down the pipes.

A self-improving early years system• A post-local authority world – where Local Authorities no longer have

statutory duties, or funding, around improving quality for the early years except where settings are less than good• Cross-sector – where early years settings, schools and childminders

are expected to work collaboratively

Systemic change

• If a group of practitioners can combine their efforts to focus on an area of practice, read the research, and develop new approaches together, that will be more powerful than a few people in small settings, in isolation from each other

An example• Developing shared assessment and transition

protocols• Can we move beyond the concept of transition?

And avoid ...

I wonder if…• Born4Life Project is an international practitioner-led

research initiative developed by International Early Years www.ieytoday.co.uk in collaboration with the Early Years Excellence Learning Alliance• After identifying an area for improvement, practitioners

outline a statement to summarise what they are working together on.

I wonder if…• For example: practitioners found that toddlers entering

their provision were experiencing high levels of distress during the settling-in period.• They posed this question: ‘I wonder what would happen

if we offered home visits before children started?’.

I wonder if…

Children Parents Setting

By having a little familiarity with their key person on the first day of settling in, children might develop a special relationship and turn to their key person both for play, and for comfort.

Parents would know one person amongst the ‘sea of faces’, so they would be more confident about their child’s first days.

The setting will benefit from calmer and happier children in the longer run, and key people will find their roles more fulfilling if they have a special relationship with their key children and their parents.

Getting it right first timeThis report from Ofsted (2013) celebrates leadership showing:

• a passion for the phase;• in-depth specialist knowledge; • a commitment to staff development and professionalism;• an openness to working with others and being challenged.

Final thoughts• Will you approach Ofsted as a leader, and a future

leader?• Leading yourself• Confidently articulating your pedagogy• Engaging in dialogue with your inspector and seeing the

inspection as an opportunity to learn• Seeing Ofsted as a route for validation, and critical challenge,

of your practice?

Don’t let the tail wag the dog!

Los Angeles | London | New Delhi | Singapore | Washington DC

Successful Early Years Ofsted InspectionsThriving Children, Confident Staff

Julian Grenier• November 2016• £22.99• ISBN: 9781473938410• More details online

This book provides navigational tools which help leaders and managers of early childhood practice, working in a range of settings, to find their way through the complexities of the work they do, and to deepen their sense of fulfilment in working with the children, families and staff as well as the challenges they deal with daily. - Tina Bruce, CBE