Alliance broadly supports 新澳门六合彩官网开奖 announcement on separate early years judgements in schools and academies

18th March 2014

The Alliance is pleased that 新澳门六合彩官网开奖 is considering introducing a separate, graded judgement relating to early years provision delivered in Academies and grant maintained schools. Early years teams working with the youngest children in schools frequently feel overlooked in the current inspection framework which often only makes passing reference to nursery and reception provision.

The Alliance believes the new proposals would ensure that the quality of the provision in these classes contributes to the overall effectiveness judgement of the school. It would also help inform and improve children鈥檚 transitions from the Early Years Foundation Stage to Key Stage 1 which is an area where early years practitioners delivering learning in reception classes believe their knowledge and understanding of a child鈥檚 learning and development needs is often overlooked.

However, chief executive Neil Leitch expressed some concern about the proposed criteria saying:

鈥淭he Alliance is concerned that the proposed criteria for inspection which focuses on achievement, the quality of the teaching, behaviour and safety, leadership and management, differ from those in the wider early years sector. This is likely to set school-based early years provision apart from other services and make a comparison of performance difficult.

鈥溞掳拿帕喜使偻扁檚 role is to assess the effectiveness of the delivery of the Early Years Foundation Stage, so their judgements should be made against a consistent criteria to assist benchmarking and ensure the overall fairness of the process across all types of childcare regardless of where the provision is delivered.鈥

For further information, please .

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Notes for editors

  1. The Pre-school Learning Alliance is the largest voluntary sector provider of quality affordable childcare and education in England.
  2. Through direct provision and its membership of 14,000 nurseries, sessional pre-schools and parent and toddler groups, the Alliance supports over 800,000 children and their families in England. The Alliance also develops and runs family learning programmes, offers information and advice, runs acclaimed training and accreditation programmes and campaigns to influence early years policy and practice.
  3. For information about the Pre-school Learning Alliance, visit our website:

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