to feel very sorry for my CM (Ofsted related)

[ScatteredMama82]

My CM is a lady nearing 60. She's been a CM for 30 years. I think, due to ever-increasing paperwork requirements over the last few years she's been struggling with her Ofsted inspections. She got 'needs improvement' end of last year so they came back in the spring and she got 'inadequate'. I'm shocked and think it was very harsh. She's got another inspection this week and she says if it doesn't go well she's giving up. I'm gutted (for her and for my kids - they adore her). She's like their Granny, she does loads of stuff with them and provides excellent, nurturing care. I've written a letter to support her, but having seen her report I'm not sure she's addressed all the things she should have. It's not safety-related, it's more things like 'not assessing learning needs and documenting outcomes and next steps'. That's not what I send my kids there for. I send them there because it's like a home from home where they get cuddles if they need them, she made potty training a breeze as she's done it about a thousand times, she dealt with separation anxiety amazingly well. She just isn't very good at the paperwork side of things! I really hope she gets through the inspection ok.

scatteredmama82

It really depends on what she needs to improve on, the inspections are split into areas, so if it was something like safeguarding that let her down, they may say she can no longer childmind. Or they may give her a time frame with strict instructions on how to improve and then come back again. As they have already done this once though it seems unlikely to me they will give her another opportunity.
I’m really sorry for you and your CM.

She should call her mentor/co-ordinator/LEA (whatever they are called in your area) for advice.

As the government have started to offer funding for early years and childcare, through several options, it is right that the childcare used to pay that money is regulated and inspected for quality. It’s tax payers money that is part funding a lot of childcare places. I am a childminder and have 8 dc on my register. 7 of them have some kind of tax credits/tax free childcare/vouchers/funded places to help fund them and the eighth child doesn’t because the parent can’t be bothered to set it up.

If I didn’t offer these methods of payment, the families would go somewhere else where they could save money on their childcare bill. So if childminders want the business, they need to be registered, which I completely agree with. The tax payer should not be paying out for unregistered care and if you want to be registered, you need to be able to prove that you are improving a child’s life chances and providing them with good quality childcare.
I know several childminders who are near or over 60 and without exception, they all go on about the ‘good old days’ before ofsted and argue that they shouldn’t need to be inspected. But they are all quite happy to take the money from the government so should in return be happy to prove to ofsted how they are improving the chances of the children they look after (please remember that not all children come from homes where books are plentiful, food is nutritious and there are plenty of resources and toys).

If the childcare is already good, the experiences of the children shouldn't change just because the CM is recording her practice correctly.

You can evidence a huge amount of learning just from a conversation around the dining table over lunch. An Ofsted inspector recorded me covering a whole list of requirements by observing one lunch. The conversation range across numeracy, literacy, knowledge and understanding of the world, celebrating diversity, nutrition, hygiene and lots of other things I can't remember because it was years ago.

The education part isn't about sitting down learning to write. It's about that time you spend with babies, repeating their babbles and trips to the post office with toddlers looking how tall the trees are. Care and education of small children is exactly the good quality interactions described in the OP.

The issue isn't that Ofsted want the care and education to change. It's that they want good quality care and education to be evidenced.

OP, I really hope she has a good inspector who actively looks for the evidence and supports her to find a way to record it that she can manage. She sounds like a wonderful CM and her ceasing her registration would be a huge loss.

Totally agree, Timandra and Maryann. A huge amount of public money gets pumped into the early years sector (even if the hourly rates for the free entitlement are still not high enough) and the 'big picture' is ultimately about outcomes for children.

OP, I am not too sure what happens now if she is still regarded as inadequate. If she were judged inadequate on a welfare matter, then Ofsted could move to a compliance action such as suspending her registration, but I don't think this happens for a non-welfare matter. I think it is generally assumed that someone would have engaged with support and improved their practice between the first and second inadequate inspection. However, I am sure that the Ofsted inspector will set out the options pretty clearly.

I hope that it isn't as bad as you think and perhaps her nerves meant that she thought it went worse than it actually did?

So it seems like they have given her ‘inadequate’ again and she isn’t clear on what that means for the next steps. I don’t know exactly what all the issues were, the report isn’t published yet. She got pulled up for a variety of things. In the past they have been very positive about her garden and the kids having free access to it. The childminding takes place in the kitchen/family room and conservatory and she can see the garden from all of those. When the inspector arrived she was indoors putting a baby down for a nap (in the conservatory, could clearly see the garden and saw the inspector arrive, even motioned to the inspector to go to the door at the side and she met her there. Inspector said she had just walked in unseen and could be anybody, children shouldn’t be unattended outside.

While childminder went to the door to meet the inspector, she asked her granddaughter (age 8) to just rock the pram for a minute while she let the lady in so the baby would nod off ok. She was pulled up for having the child provide assistance with the baby. Baby didn’t nap because of the interruption, so she put her in a highchair at the table with the bigger ones so that she could focus on showing the inspector the activities she had planned. The activity was too old for the baby so she got pulled up for that (if the inspector hadn’t made such a bloody fuss about the pram rocking the baby would have had her nap at the right time and the activity would have gone perfectly well!)

There was a bit of a scrap between 2 of the bigger kids, one hit the other. She dealt with it, and one of the kids wasn’t looking at her when she was telling them that hitting isn’t acceptable. She put her finger under little girls chin to tilt her head up and said she should look at her when she’s talking to her. That was apparently intimidating and totally inappropriate. As was telling a little boy ‘don’t be silly’.

Honestly, these are all things I would entirely do in my own home. Am I a terrible parent? Is she a terrible CM?

The trouble is, by the end she was in such a state that I don’t think she knows what the next steps will be – she’s waiting to receive her report. I don't know whether I can enquire with Ofsted myself and find out what's happening - if they are going to shut her down then we need a plan b!

It sounds as if she might have been graded inadequate on the basis of welfare and, to be honest, what you describe isn’t good. I can’t write much now but I imagine that there might be some form of enforcement action taken.

It would probably be advisable to start thinking about a plan B.

@MaybeDoctor thank you for your quick reply. That's what I thought, but I hoped not. I know you can't say much but any idea how quickly any action could be taken?

So. She has an unsecured back garden, she uses her own children to look after the younger ones and she man-handled a child during the visit.

If this is how she feels it’s appropriate to behave when she’s already had two inadequate inspections then I would be wondering what she did when there was no-one there to see it.

This is one of the reasons I would never employ a childminder because I have seen so many of these types of practices first-hand, when parents aren’t there to witness. But one who openly tells a parent about what happened is IMO not a good childminder at all and I’d be pulling my child out now before she’s shut down.

I agree that any amount of paperwork is a nightmare, but IMO this goes beyond paperwork, and I can see why she’s got inadequate.

@HoneyBeeHappy she didn't manhandle anyone, and I don't see how telling me about it is a bad thing. She's not hiding anything! But yes, whether we agree or not on how it's come about, I think the outcome is now inevitable.

The thing though is that she used physical intervention when addressing a child’s behaviour. That isn’t on no matter what the intention was of that.

If you search ‘Ofsted enforcement action’ that should bring up a document, but you probably won’t know for sure what is happening until she gets her inspection result.

Oh that doesn’t sound good.
She sounded frazzled and made bad judgment calls.
She shouldn’t have used her hand to move child’s face to look at her, that is intimidating and not ok. (I may do that to my own daughter if she was refusing to look at me when I was talking to her, but my daughter is school age and there is no way I would do it to other people’s children!!!)

Saying ‘don’t be silly’ isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it depends on context and how it was said.

The whole nap scenario again doesn’t sound great, and I really sympathise with your CM. It’s very difficult when you have inspections because children’s routines are often negatively impacted whilst there is a stranger in the house for up to 3+hrs!

You could enquire with Ofsted but they probably wouldn’t tell you anything. The inspector will have to write her report and then it will have to be checked with their supervisor (there’s a word for this but it’s totally escaped me!) and then sent to CM. I believe this can take 10days.

If I were you I would be finding alternative childcare.

Thanks @Chocolatedaim - I'm gutted :(

please remember that not all children come from homes where books are plentiful, food is nutritious and there are plenty of resources and toys).

Maryann what do you mean by this? I don't understand in the context of the post?

It may be worth searching on Google for ofsted compliance handbook and having a look on the gov.uk link that comes up (third one down). On page 50 of the handbook it explains what happens when a provider is graded inadequate, and on the 'related content' part on that page it also has a link that says 'Childcare inspections: providers judged inadequate or not meeting requirements' which has a bit of guidance. I know it's probably not much of a comfort but at least you will know what to expect 😊

@
My comment was because some posters seemed to be saying they would be happy to use unregulated care. Just because this childminder is apparently excellent, doesn’t mean that every unregulated cm would be. Some would see it as an easy way to make a bit of cash.
there are people out there who place so little importance on the Early Years, that they won’t have all the things I’ve mentioned (books/resources/good food) and also don’t see the benefit of the child having those things at their childcare setting either, so won’t mind having unregulated setting that costs less, but also gives less back to the child. It’s not about how much money you have, (books can easily be borrowed from the library/often cheap or given away on selling sites, it’s cheaper to make a proper dinner with veg than a takeaway etc) but how much you value a good start in life.

I was making the point that unregulated settings would still want the government funding but really wouldn’t be deserving of this money because they were doing little to improve the life chances of the children they were caring for.

Disinterested parents aren’t suddenly bothered when it comes to choosing childcare settings and the whole industry needs to be regulated to ensure that every child gets the best start to their lives regardless of what their parents are bothered about.

@yesthatstheone, my comment above was to you, the tag didn’t work...

The points that were raised from the inspection though. The gate should have been locked, regardless of whether she can see the garden at the time or not. If the inspector could get in to the garden, Anyone could, or a child could get out. That’s really basic stuff and really poor that a lock wasn’t in place.
The other child rocking the buggy, my lot (a mix of my own dc and minded ones) fight over this kind of job. They love helping with the babies and are always wanting to help, push the pram, feed them, play with them. If I were to tell them no, they be really upset! Why would they want to play with a doll when the real baby interacts with them!
My cm friend was picked up on not doing an activity the baby could be involved with. Apparently the baby would feel left out. Ime baby’s care very little if they are doing the same as everyone else or something else, but it seems to be one of ofsted ‘things’ at the moment, so again nothing major.
We do all know that we aren’t allowed to touch children though and so I’m unsurprised she was picked up for moving the child’s face. It is the kind of post I see on here occasionally though, ‘my child’s teacher told him off and used her finger under my child’s chin to turn his face’ it makes my eyes roll, as no harm came to anyone, but it IS unacceptable to do that kind of thing. Same as calling them silly, the only thing we should be calling a child is their name.
None of those things make her a bad cm, but all together when she already had a poor grade a few months ago, doesn’t look great. Sorry.