Thea, a registered child minder has requested this post.

Having an Ofsted inspection is a nerve racking time for any setting; but as child minders often work alone, it can be more worrying if you are the only person that the inspector will see/ask questions ( nurseries and pre-schools will have several members of staff to do this).

During my time as a registered child minder working alone from my home, I had several inspections: In the early days someone from the early years department at social services would visit to do the inspection. I didn’t find this too stressful as I had met the ladies on numerous occasions when attending training courses.

Once Ofsted early years took over the child minders inspections everything seemed to go up a few gears!

My tip is to gather all your paperwork together so that you can hand it over to the inspector to look at as they please during the visit: You need to show your daily register of the children coming and going, your accident/incident book and any policies and procedures that you follow.

Additional policies that helped me to achieve an outstanding Ofsted grade here

Your accounts records ( this isn’t so that the inspector can go through them to check that you are not being deceitful to the tax revenue- it’s just so they can see that your accounts are being done in a professional way

Balancing your accounts here

I also showed my inspector the comments that parents had written in my comments book( this is a useful book to have for parents to write good ( and not so good comments about your setting) and a few thank you cards that parents had given me on various occasions. The inspector will also want to see your first aid box and look at the contents.

My inspector also took some of my paperwork away with her to study in more detail, which she gave back later.

During the inspection you will be judged on the way you interact with the children and them with you. I usually had the children sat up to the table doing an activity such as playing with play dough while the inspection was taking place.

Of course you will be asked lots of questions, such as, what would happen if you had an accident or were suddenly ill and unable to take care of the children ( I had an emergency contact local child minder who would help out if this ever happened, luckily it never did).

The inspector will also speak to the children asking things like what they like to do while they are with you and other similar questions.

I was fortunate that at my last inspection I was caring for a very bright littele boy, who when asked what he liked to do he told her “Read the Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson!

I was asked about my experience of looking after special needs children here https://thenextbestthingtomummy.com/?s=special+needs+children

And how I made the children aware of disability, special needs and multi-cultral wareness here

Another question I was asked was how I ensure the children get enough physical excercise to build gross motor skills here

A more personal question was about my premises; she asked if my garden path became slippy when the autumn leaves were falling: I told her, truthfully that my husband swept them on a daily basis.

My inspections were several years ago, so the format may well have changed during recent times; especially now we have the threat of the corona virus.

Don’t panic about having an Ofsted inspection; see it as I did: As a way to show off how good you are!

Hopefully this has helped to put your mind at ease, Thea!

As always questions and comments are welcome.

Until next time.

Karen

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