I talked about this change to Ofsted inspection in my recent ‘Learning from recent Ofsted inspections’ webinar and received a lot of confused ‘chat’ messages, so I thought I would clarify for everyone...
Ofsted have previously inspected in 4 year cycles. The last 4 year cycle ran from Aug 2016 to Aug 2020 BUT it was interrupted in April 2020 due to coronavirus lockdown when all inspections stopped. This left a percentage of early years providers who had not been inspected within the current cycle.
If you have not been inspected during the current cycle, you are due inspection when Ofsted re-start their routine inspections. They have said the planned January re-start date is flexible, depending on Govt decisions about lockdown, so I’m not holding my breath for a January re-start date ... we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
**Updated 03.12.2020 - Ofsted have now confirmed they will not re-start routine inspections until Easter 2021. Instead, they will carry out 'assurance visits' from January 2021. You will find more information here but we are waiting for more detail -
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ofsted-phased-return-to-inspections
So, if you haven’t had an inspection in the last cycle, it is likely that you will receive a phone call for an 'assurance visit' from January – along with new providers who are over the 30 month initial start-up period.
Once they have finished off the 2016 - 2020 cycle, Ofsted will move all early years providers into a 6 year window. At this point, all early years providers will go into the same inspection pot and will be ‘due’ at some point in the next 6 years.
However, we know that Ofsted will always prioritise providers who are graded less than 'good', to support improvement and try to get everyone up to a good grade. This means that if you had a 'visit' from Ofsted because you have a 'requires improvement' or 'inadequate' grade, Ofsted will re-visit 'requires improvement' settings within a year and 'inadequate' settings within six months of re-starting inspections.
Note: if you have a 'requires improvement' or 'inadequate' grade, I presented a ‘Getting to Good’ webinar recently which is available for Childcare.co.uk gold members to watch again here – www.childcare.co.uk/webinarplayer.
We also know that Ofsted will always drop everything and go out to visit settings if significant safeguarding concerns are raised, so nobody can rest on their laurels and say they are not ‘due’ and they can coast for a while... you never know when Ofsted will knock on the door.
I hope this helps to clarify. Sarah
**Correct information 02.12.2020