We were notified on Friday 8/1/16 that we would have our first inspection from Ofsted, since I had taken over in 2014, on Monday 11th January.

Some time over the weekend was spent just checking where everything was and making a list so the Ofsted inspector could find it all. We had a written Self Evaluation Form (SEF) as we had been going through the updated Audits from Central Beds and were compiling our SEF but it hadn’t managed to make to the Ofsted Online SEF.

On the Monday morning, all staff due to work that day met at 7.30 and helped set up as we had packed away due to numerous parties at the Football club over the weekend. I set out all the files that I thought we needed to show to the Ofsted inspector in the ‘Committee room’. Around 8am the Ofsted inspector arrived, I checked her details, she signed in and then put her mobile phone in the mobile phone box with her car keys. I showed her where the files were and the toilets- important point, introduced her to the staff and then left her to peruse the files whilst we continued to set up.

As parents arrived at 9am, the inspector chatted to them about the care and education we provide for their children. Parents were very complimentary and I think she enjoyed the chats.

The inspector was also being assessed as well as us so when her ‘boss’ arrived I showed her where her colleague was. The inspector having looked through the files, then came into the main room to ‘observe’ us with the children. She tracked a child, looked at her files and then asked her key-person lots of questions about how she observed and how she was intending to take the child further. At drop off the inspector managed to speak to the parent about her child so she got a good rounded view of her and how she was developing with us. Later on she asked to see a file of a child who had started in Sept to compare them.

She observed the children doing their dancing with Jodie and then went outside to a very wet boggy garden to watch the children explore the outside. Once she’d got all her evidence she then had a chat with me about what I had seen the staff do in the morning with the interaction with the children.

After this the inspector went through her findings and then asked me to discuss them, this is when she told me that we had achieved a GOOD grade.