Ofsted talk about curriculum – what we want children to learn during their time with us and pedagogy – how we are going to teach the curriculum, so all children learn. The focus is on knowledge, presented in an age-appropriate way. We know this when we read the inspection handbook, which talks about the 3 Is – intent (curriculum), implementation (teaching) and impact (assessment). The handbook also usefully contains a definition of teaching (point 175 – 01.2023) as to model, explain, show, guide plan and engage children in a range of quality activities and experiences –
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-inspection-handbook-eif.
However, activities and experiences are not enough in and of themselves. We need to build a curriculum for our early years children by starting with the 7 areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS, 2021) as the statutory skeleton. Ofsted say we then need to ‘put the meat on the bones’ and ‘flesh it out’ (Phil Mimms, Ofsted, 2023).
There is support to help you build your curriculum including the Development Matters guidance (2021) and the Birth to 5 Matters guidance from the Early Years Coalition (2021) – both are non-statutory and there to help you. the Dept for Education has also produced a series of guidance pages on the ‘Help for early years providers’ website.
When Ofsted say ‘activities are not enough’ what do they actually mean? In blogs and training sessions, they talk about ‘knowledge and skills to be gained at each stage’, so we know that we need to sequence what we are doing. That’s pretty obvious really –
**Babies can’t run before they have stood, bounced, taken those first tottering steps, practiced their skills and walked confidently.
**Toddlers can’t talk until they have heard lots of words and sentences from the adults and other children around them.
**Young children can’t use the toilet independently until they have developed the cognitive ability to recognise what they are doing and learned the new skills they will need.
**Pre-school children can’t write until they have played with the sand and water and playdough etc to strengthen their core and developed strong, healthy, well balanced bodies.
I thought it might be helpful to look at a few ’activities are not enough’ scenarios, some used by Ofsted and others from my practice:
Scenario 1 – the tray
An Ofsted inspector walks into a childminding setting. They see a big tray beautifully set up with resources -it looks like a Pinterest masterpiece. The inspector asks the practitioner, ‘Why have you put these in here?’ The childminder says, ‘I don’t really know but it looked good online – I thought Ofsted wanted to see a group activity’.
Scenario 2 – the post office
An Ofsted inspector walks into a baby room in a nursery and sees a post office role play set up, with printed stamps, post office books, tabards and pictures of the local post person. The inspector asks, ‘What are the children getting out of this? The baby room staff member says, ‘Well they mostly eat it all, but the room leader said we need to do themes.’
Scenario 3 – the mud kitchen
In a childminding setting, there’s a lovely mud kitchen in the garden. The mud kitchen is clean and tidy and there are shiny pots and pans set out. During the inspection, the children do not appear interested in playing with the mud kitchen and, when asked, they tell the inspector that it’s boring because the childminder only lets them use rice and grass – she apparently doesn’t like mud and wants to keep it clean. When later questioned, the childminder admits that she doesn’t like mess and goes on to say, ‘My Local Authority advisor told me to get a mud kitchen because she said that Ofsted want to see one in the garden’.
Scenario 4 – scissors
In a pre-school setting, an inspector watches some children cutting with scissors – the staff expectation is that they make a snowflake and there is an example which staff have placed in the middle of the table. The children’s hands and arms are flailing everywhere and they are struggling to keep the paper steady. The inspector asks staff what the children are learning and the staff look a bit confused – they say ‘to use scissors and make a snowflake’, but the inspector notes that they haven’t given the children any modelling or scaffolding or helped them in any way. The inspector also thinks there are too many children round the table and they are not being supervised well enough by staff, which is a hazard – as well as the obvious problems with lack of teaching.
These are not extreme examples - they do happen in early years settings. I have seen and discussed a few of these scenarios in my time as an early years consultant.
We need to bring this back to Ofsted’s 3 Is – especially intent. Intent is about your curriculum – what you want the children to learn and be able to do. Ofsted have given us a definition of curriculum in their recent Early Years Curriculum Review report.
‘Our working definition of curriculum is that it is a framework for setting out the aims of a programme of education, including the knowledge and skills to be gained at each stage (intent); for translating that framework over time into a structure and narrative, within an institutional context (implementation); and for evaluating what knowledge and understanding children have gained against expectations (impact). The curriculum lies at the heart of education. It determines what learners will know and be able to go on to do by the time they have finished that stage of their education.’
Scenario 1 – the tray
You need to know why… why you have set up the activity and what you want each child to get from it. Without knowing why, you cannot talk about the impact of the activity – you cannot assess what each child has learned from the activity at the end.
For example, the practitioner might say that child A is learning about colours, so we will talk about them while we play with the coloured rice; child B is practicing his fine motor scooping and pouring skills, so I’ve added some spoons and jugs.
Another important point is that the tray is not a one-off creation for inspection – the inspector can clearly see that the children know how to use the tools and are excited to see what the practitioner has set out in the tray. She can see the practitioner helping the children to practice and build on the skills they have previously learned – Ofsted talk about the importance of, ‘practicing so children can remember’.
Scenario 2 – the post office
Your activities need to be carefully planned and age appropriate. Babies don’t need themes or topics and won’t learn from adult-led activities if there are inappropriate resources set out and left for them to explore. Babies need individual learning opportunities, based on their care needs, home learning (what parents say they are doing and experiencing at home) and current interests.
Staff in the pre-school room – not babies – were using the non-statutory Development Matters 2021 as a guide for their curriculum. They noted in the 3–4-year-olds section for understanding the world that there was a suggestion that children will be learning to ‘show an interest in different occupations’ (page 105).
They were guided by the suggestions in the ‘examples of how to support this’ section which states that they might, ‘Invite different people to visit from a range of occupations, such as a plumber, a farmer, a vet, a member of the emergency services or an author. Plan and introduce new vocabulary related to the occupation and encourage children to use it in their speech and play. Consider opportunities to challenge gender and other stereotypes.’
They decided to start with post office. They organised a visit from a postal worker, put resources together including books and games, made a word list for less confident staff to help them repeat new language, printed photos of both male and female postal workers and planned to walk to the local post box to post some cards to the children’s families. They decided to add role play with boxes, weighing scales, brown paper and tape for wrapping parcels etc.
Scenario 3 – the mud kitchen
There is a mud kitchen in the garden of the setting visited by Ofsted. It is muddy – covered in mud, flower petals, bottles for making potions and a range of scoops. There are muddy aprons hanging next to the kitchen and the children self-select, asking for help when needed. The children are motivated to play because the early years practitioner has already modelled their learning and during their play she sensitively scaffolds as they engage in their games.The Ofsted inspector can see the impact – confident children who are experimenting with a range of different resources independently.
Ofsted point out it’s not the mud kitchen that is doing the teaching – it’s the key person who is playing with the children, scaffolding and extending their learning. The key person is making the impact.
Scenario 4 – scissors
The children in the toddler room are given trainer scissors to use, one to one with a staff member; the children in the 2 – 3 year room practice snipping with scissors and a piece of card and there is always a staff member with them to remind them what they already know and build their skills, patiently showing them how to keep their arm close to their body and move the paper with their other hand.
As the children’s skills develop, they are given sharper scissors and pieces of paper which they skilfully move in different directions to make patterns. There is no expectation that they make a snowflake – just that they enjoy making shapes while manipulating the scissors. Some of the newer (less practiced) children excitedly show the inspector the smiley face on their thumbs which reminds them how to hold the scissors safely and all the children can tell the inspector that scissors are sharp.
During their training sessions, Ofsted remind us not to overcomplicate activities – children learn from high quality interactions with staff, not big trays full of complicated resources which they don’t know how to use. This scenario explains what Ofsted mean when they talk about a well sequenced curriculum – defined as ‘Breaking it down into achievable chunks’ (Phil Mimms, Ofsted, 2023).
How do we do this effectively in our settings?
Ofsted tell us that play is essential – practitioners need to think about how they are leading play and guiding play. They say that when play is purposeful, children can explore different things that are new to them – if children are simply following their individual interests, they might not be learning new things and their curriculum will be narrow. Cultural capital is about us knowing what children already know and can do and then filling children’s lives with new activities and experiences, offering them lots of play and helping them to remember and use the skills they have already experienced, so they get better at them.
Practitioners also need to –
**Recognise children’s interests and develop them in other areas.
**Know what each child knows and can do.
**Explain – show – model what to do next.
**Help children to learn new things.
**Model lots of new vocabulary and sentences.
**Read, sing and play through the day.
Wendy Ratcliffe (Ofsted, 01.2023) asks you to think about, ‘Is your curriculum helping children to learn what you want them to learn?’
Chat soon, Sarah
Slide (c) Ofsted, 2023.
Useful links
Development Matters (DfE) 2021 -
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/development-matters--2
Birth to 5 Matters (EYC) 2021 -
https://birthto5matters.org.uk/
DfE Help for early years providers -
https://help-for-early-years-providers.education.gov.uk/.
Ofsted early years insepction review report -
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/best-start-in-life-a-research-review-for-early-years