Ofsted agrees regional meetings with childcare sector

The regional meetings plan has been committed to by Sue Gregory, director of early childhood at Ofsted, in response to criticism levelled by early years professionals at the regulator over its tougher approach to inspections.

The concerns prompted a series of Big Conversation events in September attended by more than 600 practitioners, parents and providers.

The agreement on the regional events came out of a recent meeting between Gregory, Dee Gasson, principal officer of development in early years at Ofsted, and June O’Sullivan, chief executive of the London Early Years Foundation. It is undecided who will host and chair meetings, but O’Sullivan has volunteered to do the first in London.

Writing on her blog, O’Sullivan said: “These regional meetings would be the place where Ofsted consults with the sector on potential changes to the system, such as the revised framework, applying and implementing new policies and inspection practice, and also consider our views with regards to future commissioning and contractors. These are all part of their improvement agenda.”

She added that the meetings could act as a forum for Ofsted to test out ideas on planned reforms and for the sector to “flag up” emerging issues. 

“In this way, improvement driven by Ofsted would actually be in the form of action-research with the sector as partners in the process,” she added.

Many early years providers have complained over the last year that they have had settings downgraded by Ofsted, some as a result of complaints that later proved to be unfounded.

O’Sullivan said that Gregory and Gasson had agreed to clarify how compliant-driven inspections would be “managed” under the new inspection framework. 

CYP Now understands that Ofsted’s development of a regional structure for managing its inspection work has prompted its decision to establish regular meetings with the sector.