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Follow the leader

The new combined Ofsted inspection puts the onus on effective leadership, says June O'Sullivan The quality of a setting's leadership and management will come under scrutiny when the new combined inspection is introduced next month.
The new combined Ofsted inspection puts the onus on effective leadership, says June O'Sullivan

The quality of a setting's leadership and management will come under scrutiny when the new combined inspection is introduced next month.

The new inspection will combine the Children Act 1989 inspection and the three-and four-year-old nursery education inspection. In your role as manager you will have to demonstrate to inspectors how staff consistently provide a service which meets the requirements of the 14 National Standards and show how the quality of educational provision for funded three-and four-year-olds ensures that all the children will achieve the Early Learning Goals. The theme of self-assessment and continual improvement will run through the inspection process beginning with an examination of how the setting addressed any issues raised at the last inspection.

Ofsted will use a new set of criteria to judge how effective leadership and management is in providing nursery education. The criteria are:

* Leadership of setting

* Setting's ability to assess its strengths and weaknesses

* Effectiveness of the nursery setting in monitoring and evaluating the provision for nursery education

* Extent to which the setting is committed to improving care and education for all children.

Ofsted's expectations

Leadership is an important aspect of a manager's complex role. Ofsted recognises the vital role a manager plays in leading and running an effective service - in particular how you create an environment of continual development, reflection and self-assessment, where you lead your team to ensure that the nursery is accountable, effective and efficient.

The distinctions between management and leadership can cause confusion.

Some people see leadership as the big picture and management as the more immediate with a much greater operational focus. You need to apply both skills throughout your work and the mark of both a good leader and a successful manager is someone who regularly reflects and considers their strengths and weaknesses within all aspect of the role and who continually tries to improve and learn. Remember the wisdom of Chinese philosopher Lao-Tse, 'Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom; mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.'

Leaders set the tone of the service - they are positive and self-motivated.

They have a vision they believe in and inspire the staff towards achieving it. They recognise and value staff and make sure that they can contribute to the success of the nursery.

Mutual trust

The learning environment is a 'can do' supportive environment where there is a free exchange of information and ideas. Managers need to create an atmosphere of mutual trust that is underpinned by the shared belief that everyone in the setting is continuously learning.

You must monitor informally by listening, observing and communicating and make monitoring a continual process so ideas are encouraged and the purpose of the setting is constantly reinforced. It is also important to act as a positive role model and show how to continually learn and question and how to use feedback to good effect.

Monitoring the nursery

Conduct an annual 'SWOT' (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the nursery. Analyse the information you've included under the different headings and use it to draft an annual action plan. Include any comments from other monitoring and inspection processes such as the setting's last Ofsted inspection. For continual monitoring it is important to:

* Ensure that staff collect information about daily operational procedures as part of their responsibility and have a system in place for discussing concerns.

* Analyse information from health and safety risk assessments to improve the setting's service.

* Give staff responsibility for auditing a learning area and use their feedback as part of an improvement plan.

* Monitor annual staff training and development plans to make sure they are linked to the nursery action plan and individual targets.

* Analyse training evaluation forms, then send out learning impact questionnaires to check how new learning is applied.

* Use feedback from supervision and annual staff appraisals to improve the service.

* Evaluate your recruitment and selection processes - are you getting the right staff?

* Review induction processes regularly - new staff can offer a very different view of the service.

* Conduct exit interviews to find out why staff are leaving.

* Provide professional magazines and reference books for staff to use to update their skills and knowledge.

* Evaluate the effectiveness of meetings and how information in minutes is used.

It is worth considering following a quality assurance programme to help evaluate your service and they are likely to become a requirement at some stage as the Government wants 40 per cent of all settings to have gone through or be part of a quality assurance programme by 2004.

Evaluating children's needs

Also consider how you evaluate the needs of the children in your setting.

Regularly monitor aspects including:

* Adults' and children's communication and interaction.

* Children's involvement in activities.

* Patterns of children's behaviour.

* The quality and balance of activities across the range of curriculum areas.

* How you differentiate to meet individual children's needs.

* How you include all children.

* How you extend children's curiosity.

It is important to seek children's own views about the nursery. The older children will be able to directly answer questions about what activities they enjoy and what they would like to do more of at nursery. Younger children can be encouraged to express their views through play or drawing activities.

Working with parents

Your setting should have a parents' complaints procedure in place and you should be able to demonstrate that you have responded to parents' comments.

Provision for collecting parents' feedback formally can include annual questionnaires or suggestion boxes. Parents can also be asked to contribute to children's development records.

Remember At the end of the Ofsted inspection, you will receive a report in a new format. It will comment on the characteristics of the setting, whether registration will continue including any actions raised or conditions imposed and judgements about the quality of the nursery education including any key issues for action. The setting will then be given a nursery education grading of:

* High quality

* Acceptable and is of good quality overall

* Acceptable with significant areas for improvement

* Unacceptable These gradings are separate and distinct from the 'care' gradings also to be introduced by Ofsted.

Your Ofsted report will be available on the internet and through the EYDCP.

A poor grading cannot be hidden and could have negative effects on staffing and occupancy. It is, therefore, in your interests to ensure that the nursery is consistently looking to provide the best service it can.

June O'Sullivan works for a children's charity in central London.

LEADING THE NURSERY TOWARDS CONTINUAL EVALUATION

* Form a vision.

* Share it with the staff and parents.

* Turn it into realistic objectives.

* Draft an action plan for each objective.

* Involve everyone in the process.

* Set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, recorded or reliable and time targeted) targets.

* Review the targets regularly.

* Reflect on what has gone well as well as on mistakes.

* Analyse the mistakes with the staff.

* Be willing to learn and improve.

* Avoid asking staff to do anything you would not do yourself.

* Create an environment where it is safe to take a risk.

* Get feedback on your own performance and accept the criticism positively.

* Aim high, seek constantly to improve the nursery.

* Praise every step of the way.

FURTHER INFORMATION

* www.ofsted.gov.uk

* info@dfes. gov.uk