The schools watchdog Ofsted is to increase its focus on early-years education as part of its new five-year strategy, to address the devastating impact of the pandemic on some of the youngest children in England.
Ofsted is concerned that children in early years are lagging behind in their communication and language skills owing to Covid disruption, while the sector is under pressure as thousands of staff have left since the first lockdown and childcare providers are down by 5,000.
In its new 2022-27 strategy published on Tuesday, Ofsted says it intends to increase training for its early-years inspection workforce as part of making this sector a strategic priority.
The watchdog is also promising to work with the government to try to simplify the regulatory regime for childminders. The number of registered childcare providers has dropped from 75,000 at the start of the pandemic to 70,000, with childminders accounting for most of the losses.
Ofsted says it also intends to share data and insights about group-owned early-years providers to improve their regulation.
The chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, said: “We recognise the outstanding work early-years providers have done to help children recover what they missed, and this strategy aims to increase our support for a workforce that is so deeply devoted to what it does.
“Whether it is through developing specialist training for our inspection workforce or through sharing our own insights, we will do everything in our power to help every child gain the best start in life.”
Neil Leitch, the chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, welcomed Ofsted’s increased focus on the sector. “That said, even with these positive intentions, it’s difficult to see how much actual change Ofsted, as an independent inspection body, will be able to bring about,” he said.
“Even before the onset of Covid-19, early-years providers were grappling with a raft of challenges such as staffing shortages and immense financial pressures as a result of years of government underfunding, and there is no doubt that these challenges have been hugely exacerbated by the pandemic, with more and more settings being pushed to the brink of closure.”
The 2022-27 strategy also includes plans to accelerate the inspection cycle so that all schools are inspected by July 2025, as detailed in the government’s schools white paper last month.
Ofsted has promised to increase the proportion of longer inspections to allow for evidence gathering, and to work with the Department for Education to increase powers to intervene where children are being educated in illegal and unregistered schools.
Julie McCulloch, the director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, said Ofsted’s inspection system needed to be reformed.
“At the moment you are far more likely to be judged below good if your school serves a disadvantaged community. This isn’t because your school is necessarily doing anything wrong but because there are some very significant challenges associated with this context, the biggest of which is attracting sufficient numbers of specialist teachers to fill vacancies in the midst of an ongoing recruitment crisis,” she said.
