WEBVTT - This file was automatically generated by VIMEO. Please email info@talestoolkit.com to report problems. So, hello everybody and happy Christmas. So yeah, welcome to our webinar. I'm really excited about today's webinar. So just to do a little bit of an introduction today, I'm really excited to have Dr. Julian Grenier online with us. Um, and he's gonna be running our webinar for today. Um, and I've known Dr. Julian Grenier for quite a long time now. Um, and he's been a big support of Tells Toolkit and really helped us. And Julian is the head teacher of sharing, um, nursery school and Children's Center in East London. And they've been using Tells Toolkit since Easter last year, um, really successfully. And I'm getting some great feedback. They've got some fantastic teachers there, and they've been doing some really creative storytelling. Um, and Sheringham Nursery School and Children's Center is a national teaching school, and Julian is one of the co-founders of the Eastland, uh, early Years and Schools Partnership, which does lots of fantastic early years training and sharing of best practice. Um, and Julian is also the keynote speaker for Nursery Worlds Show, has done advisory work for the Department of Education, written lots of articles for Nursery Worlds show, um, worked with Osted and has recently written a book about successful early years Offstead inspections. And there's lots, lots, lots more that he's done. So we're really lucky today to have Julian speaking with us. So I'm gonna hand over to you now, Julian, so that we get to hear you speak more than me. Okay, Kate, thanks. Thanks very much. And, uh, yeah, it's been been a real pleasure for me to, um, see Kate develop a Tales toolkit and, uh, see the kind of great success of the project, you know, internationally now is Kate, Kate, Kate. That's, that's really fantastic. Okay, so the, um, webinar tonight is gonna be based on the book that I've just written, successful early years Offstead Inspections, which is just literally out now. So here we, here we go, because I know that, um, it's always an important part of what we do to get our message across to osted. That's, that's, uh, a, a, a key concern for, for all of us working in schools and other early settings. What a big tonight really is an overview of the Common Inspection framework and a particular focus on teaching, learning and communication in the EYFS. And because we are looking at Tales Toolkit, it's really thinking about the ways that you can evidence and argue for the quality of what you're doing. When you have your OSTED inspection, really draw their attention to Tail's toolkit, the benefits it's bringing to your children and to your set. Okay, so here are the intended outcomes tonight. Know a bit more about the common inspection framework and how it relates to the early years preparing for your inspection, approaching it with confidence, what Ofsted mean by teaching in the early years, and what that definition of teaching means when we're thinking about communication. Okay. But I always, always want to say at the beginning a few things, though, slightly off that track. And the first thing is that, uh, I think often people use what I call the oted months to motivate or coerce their teams. In other words, people will say things like, oh, but you have to do that for oted, or I want you to sort that out for oted. And I really disagree with that approach to, uh, leadership in the early years and also that approach to Ted. 'cause it's, it's all of us that should be leading the pedagogy and growing our teams. So we should always really be saying, well, I think we need to rethink that because I'm not sure that's the best way to do it for the children, or, I'm not sure that that really fits with our, our values. And I think it is really important that we are clear about our own values and our own principles. And sometimes in schools we get pointed a hundred different directions at the same time, and then we pass that on our teams. We hear something, we go to a conference, we talk to a colleague, we get a new idea and we come back. But of course, it's really, really difficult to develop high quality work if you keep being pointed in different directions. And that's why I think it's important to have some really clear values and some really clear principles. And I think that vision and inspiring people with a vision is really essential when we think about some of those really, uh, amazing moments in world history like Dr. Martin Luther King's, uh, address from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Martin Luther King didn't stand up and say, I have a really good plan with smart objectives that's broken down into achievable outcomes. He said, I have a dream. And I think setting forth your vision, your dream, your values, is something we should really be focusing on as leaders in the early years. And that's why, of course, I love what Kate has done with Tale's Toolkit, because Kate really did have, um, a vision for something better for children that would help get more outta their early years education and help them make lots of progress in their communication and storytelling. Uh, and that's why it's been so great to, uh, to be involved in this project at Sheringham. We did a bit of work as a whole team thinking about what our vision and what our mission were. And we thought it was really, really important that we could boil that down to something that was fairly straightforward, not really complex, not really high flow language, something that we could communicate quite clearly to our, our families, and also remind ourselves about. So we did lots of brainstorming and lots of different, different thinking, and then we tried to really narrow it down to something that would fit, uh, easily onto a postcard. Um, and that that's our vision and that's our mission. And, and yours will be different. Uh, and that's quite right, but you should definitely have one. So, in other words, to go back to the, the theme of tonight's webinar, we are not doing stuff in the early years because we want Osted to like it, or we want some other other person to like it. We're doing it because we wanna do something really great for the children and the families, and we want to come together as a team with a really strong vision, and we want to challenge each other to live up to our vision, uh, and our mission. So yeah. Why focus on developing high quality and effective practice? Is it for Sted? Is it for your performance management? Is it for the benefit of the children, the families, and the local community? Well, the truth is, it's probably is for three of those, but if I had to put my emphasis somewhere, it would be on the third one. Mm-Hmm. It's for the children, it's for the families. It's for the local community. That's, that's why we do it. Okay. But the reason I wrote a book about successful Ted, uh, earlier inspections is that this is something we do need to get right. It is really, uh, not a good moment for a school or, or any sort of setting. Uh, if they have a bruising experience with Ted, we do need to understand what Sted are looking for, and we need to know how to manage an Ofsted inspection, uh, so that we can show what we can do as well as possible when the inspectors are with us. But the framework, the inspection system, they are not a guide to best practice. That's our job leading our teams thinking through best practice, achieving those really great outcomes for the children. That's what we all do. And what sted come to do is they come to validate that. They come to check it out. They come because we are accountable for the public money that we receive. So we are the people that drive it and create it and develop it, and self-evaluate it, and offstead, in a sense, come in and check up that what we're doing is okay, and they make us accountable to local people. So let's just think now about a few of the, uh, suggestions that I've taken about, uh, having a successful experience with ted. The first thing is keep up to date with what they're saying. And you can do that really easily. You just search online for Ted email subscription, put in your details, and then you will get regular email alerts from sted. Uh, sometimes you'll get new publications. Sometimes they'll tell you that they've posted a new video on YouTube. I think it's really a, a good thing to keep up to date with what they're thinking about so that when your inspector comes, you are very much, uh, with their latest thinking, uh, what, what they're particularly looking for. They don't send you too many emails, by the way. It's not like one of those things where you get about a million emails once you sign up. Okay? So what doted say about the purpose of inspection purpose is to evaluate the quality and standards of children's care, learning and development and the progress children make towards the early learning goals in line with the principles and requirements of the earliest foundation stage. And there's a line a bit in that line that people sometimes neglect, which is the sted say, in line with the principles and requirements of the EYFS. So often what we concentrate on is the outcomes, the progress, the teaching, and the learning. Those are really important things. But to go back to my earlier theme, the principles are really important too. Think about what the principles of the YFS are and how your osted inspector will see those principles in action, that commitment to every child as a unique child, for example. Mm-Hmm. So let's have a closer look at, uh, some of those requirements. The first thing to say, which is, uh, basic, but also important is that you must be, um, compliant with the statutory framework for the earliest foundation. And the book that I've just published has a quick checklist, which helps you to ensure that you are compliant with the framework. And one of the things that I recommend to schools that I'm working with is that they spend a bit of time running through the checklist, uh, and ask themselves, does, does anything come up that makes you, uh, wonder, oh, are we actually getting that right? Um, the checklist in the book is abbreviated because otherwise, uh, you are dealing with the statutory framework, which is really long. But I do recommend that if you've got any queries, you always go to the full document rather than the abbreviated, uh, list in the book. The sort of things that, that happen that are really disappointing on off inspections is when a school is, is doing great work, but there's a bit of what they're doing that isn't compliant with the statutory framework. So, for example, maybe that morning in nursery is really great, but you've got 20 children over lunch and you don't have enough staff or enough qualified staff to meet the requirements of the statutory framework. And if that happens when you are being inspected, you could get yourself into real difficulties. Plus, of course, it's not good for the children, which is again, the real reason it matters. So to avoid the disappointment of a hiccup over the statutory framework, it's always worth checking it regularly. Um, and look over it helps you to do that quickly. Okay. How will your inspection run? So, uh, the inspector will agree a timetable for the inspection. And one of the things that Ofsted put a lot of emphasis on is joint observations. It's very likely that in the early years, your inspector will want to observe jointly with you. And being prepared and confident and practiced in doing that is really important because if they're under, because they will observe you giving feedback to your team. So one of the ways that they check the quality of your leadership and whether your self-evaluation is accurate, is by how good you are at observing teaching and feeding back, uh, to your team. Okay? They will ask for any self-evaluation that you've got in the normal form you had in. They'll ask you about the different groups of children who come to your school, and they'll ask to see the assessment info you've got and the planning you use every day. And I'll still really clear now that they aren't looking for something that isn't the normal information you use every day. They're not looking for you to prepare some massive pack of data or planning. They've got no preferred format. They wanna see what you use every day, and they want to see if it works or not. When they talk about the different groups of children who attend the setting, they're particularly interested in, for example, children who are eligible for early years pupil premium. They'll be interested in, uh, how boys are doing and how girls are doing. They'll be interested in the different ethnic cohorts you have, because what they're checking out is that you are compliant with the equality duty, which is, uh, making sure that, um, all the different children from all the different backgrounds that come into your setting have an equal chance to make progress and to do well. Okay. These are some of the key inspection activities, observing practice to ensure that active teaching helps children make good progress. Completing joint observations, tracking individual children to check how accurate and robust your assessments are, and to measure their progress. Looking at records, meeting with leaders in key staff, talking to staff, key people, talking to parents. Some of the things to unpick a little bit in there, we've talked a bit about joint observation. Um, one of the things an Ofsted inspector may do is ask you who your EYPP eligible children are, and then spend a bit of time observing those individual children, looking at the sort of provision they're getting, looking at the progress they're making during the session with that provision. And then checking that out against your special books, your WOW books, your folders, however you are recording information about the children. And what they're checking for is that there's a kind of consistent story there. So, uh, for example, that's a particular reason why it's important not to, uh, assess children unrealistically low on entry mm-hmm. In the belief that it will make your progress measure look good because your offstead inspector will be maybe talking and playing with those children. And if what they experience is really inconsistent with what's in your records, then they'll really worry about how accurate your assessment process is. And Tales Toolkit is potentially a really, really good medium for lots of this to happen. So it may well be that you've spent some of your earliest pupil premium money on Tales Toolkit, and it may be that you want your inspector to see how Tales Toolkit is particularly benefiting some of those children that you've identified. And that would be a really good use, uh, of Tales Toolkit. And it would be really good to, in, to steer your inspector that way. There's nothing wrong with trying to manage your own inspection. Show them the things that you think you do really well and explain what's good about them. Don't just wait for them to make the decisions, uh, about what they're, what they're doing. Okay? So joint observations of Ted see them as a really excellent way of gathering evidence. They help the inspector to assess the accuracy and quality, your monitoring and evaluation of staff. So how good a leader you are, how good a manager you are. They also offer you an opportunity to contribute evidence so you know the children much better than your off offset inspector. So you are able to say, you know what, when we were watching that, that's really phenomenal progress for that child because three months ago they were not really able to sustain their concentration for more than 20 or 30 seconds. So to see them going through all those stages and Tales toolkit, and coming up with those ideas and contributing to that story, that represents really fantastic progress for that child, and that then becomes part of the evidence that they will grade you on. Okay? So one of the, uh, one of the aspects of the new common inspection framework that some people found, uh, controversial was their constant focus on teaching in the early years. Um, but in fact, if you look in the common inspection framework, how they define teaching in the early years, it's actually quite an interesting definition. So this is what they say, teaching shouldn't be taken to imply a top down or formal way of working. It's a broad term that covers the many different ways in which adults help young children learn. Okay? Now, this is a very long sentence here, but there's a lot to unpack. It includes that interactions with children during planned and child initiated play in activities, communicating and modeling language, showing, explaining, demonstrating, exploring ideas, encouraging questioning, recalling, providing a narrative for what they're doing, facilitating and setting challenges. And I think when you look at that sentence again, you could really see how Tales Toolkit can provide really powerful evidence for your inspection, because pretty much all of those things there, communicating, modeling, language, showing, explaining, demonstrating, exploring ideas, encouraging questioning, recording, providing a narrative, facilitating and setting challenges, those are all gonna be strengths, uh, in the way you're using Tale's Toolkit. And it's really good to, again, point that out to the inspector. If you're giving feedback to a member of staff, you might even want, uh, this definition of teaching in front of you. So you can actually go through, uh, some of the strengths in that person's, uh, teaching that, that you noticed. And then what you are doing there is you are making sure that Ofsted through their inspection, are focusing on that broad range, uh, of activities which your team, uh, are undertaking. Because sometimes people feel, if they're being observed, they should definitely be in some sort of situation where they are teaching a group of children. But in fact, the common Inspection frameworks says that this could be during child initiated play or activities as well as adult initiated play and activities. The second bit of it there says it takes account of the equipment adults provide and the attention given to the physical environment, as well as the structure and routines of the day that establish expectations. So again, unpicking with your inspector what the Tails toolkit equipment is, how the children use it, how it helps them to learn will be a really important thing to do. And definitely don't assume that just because someone's seen it, they've understood it. I'd always spend a bit of time trying to explain, uh, exactly the rationale of what you're doing and exactly what you know the impact is. Mm-Hmm. Um, that's a really key point, Julian just putting in there, because I know for a lot of schools they have, um, sometimes issues where their head teacher isn't as knowledgeable as you about early years, and there's that top down pressure. So I think the information that you're given across now would be very useful for some of those schools to think about. Um, I dunno what answers are, but, but I think this is a really interesting conversation that they could have. Um, Yeah, I'd, I'd agree with that, Kate. And I think e even if you only share that definition of early years teaching with senior leaders in your school, when you are having a conversation about what you're doing, you know that that's important because not all senior leaders in school are experienced skilled at early years teaching. Yeah. So again, in terms of your leadership, you, you need to help them with that. You need to show that you know what you're talking about and that you didn't just make it up yesterday. It's actually there in the framework. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good thing. Yep. Great. I'll leave, leave it to you. So the, the next it here of Ted's definition says, um, integral to teaching is how practitioners assess what children know, understand, and can do, as well as taking account of their interests and dispositions to learn characteristics of effective learning, and how practitioners use this information to plan children's and learning and monitor their progress. And again, some of the things I would unpick there are put an emphasis on the characteristics of effective learning. Put an emphasis on how you help children to become fascinated, to become deeply involved, to become creative thinkers. Don't just look at the content of what they're learning, but also how they go about their learning. And that's in the EYFS and it's in the osted inspection framework. So you've got a perfect opportunity to emphasize that. They definitely want to see how you pull together all of that sort of information and use it to keep planning challenging activities, which will help the children to make progress. They want to see how you, uh, gained information from parents if children have been to a previous setting, how you've got the assessment information from them, how you use the information that you gather all of the time about the children to plan interesting, engaging, challenging activities for them. Okay. And again, I've got no doubt that when they see children taking part in Tale's toolkit, they will definitely see, uh, exactly that sort of challenge. And the other day when I was watching a a session going on, you could actually see the children were right at the edge of their abilities. They were stopping and thinking and pondering and really thinking about what they're doing. And you just know when you're watching children like that, that they're making progress. And you can again say that to your Osted inspector, the fact that, uh, Jamal is really having to stop and think and, uh, struggling to, to, to, to, to, to get out his next idea that shows what a challenging activity this is. And it shows the progress he's making and the fact that even though he finds it difficult, he's keeping engaged and keeping on trying, uh, is a really good sign of how we're promoting the characteristics of effective learning. Mm-Hmm. Okay. So, uh, here are the characteristics of effective learning. And just a really quick point to make about this is that in, in a lot of schools, there's a lot of focus on getting information together about playing and exploring and active learning, and not very much focus on creating and thinking critically. So don't, don't neglect to emphasize and, uh, show your Ofsted inspector how you promote creative and critical thinking amongst the children. So when I was watching Te Tales talk at session the other day, um, and, uh, the children were suggesting a, a fight between a polar bear and a shark, and they were thinking about this is the problem and how their solution was gonna come about to it, you could see the children were creating and thinking critically. And that's a really important part of what we're doing in the UYFS. And a lot of children depend on their provision and they depend on us for that. They may not have people around them who see them at three, four, and five as creative thinkers or critical thinkers. It's really important for early years teachers to both model that and also share that, uh, with parents. Um, because that is not, not the normal way that people in our culture think about young children. But a lot of people in early years are really skilled at seeing children like that. As I've said, there are particular bits of that that relate, uh, really well to tale's toolkit, the interactions, the communicating, the modeling, the exploring ideas. So what we're gonna do in a moment, uh, on the, uh, next slide is just have a look at a piece of video from a reception class. And this is a piece of video from the DFEs YouTube channel. And it was taken to, uh, go with the earliest foundation stage profile, uh, materials in the previous version, not the current version. So what I'd like us to do together is to watch this piece of video and then think about, um, what that is telling us about, you know, how effective that teaching is, using the sort of definition that Ofsted give. So what can we see that are strengths in this video around interactions with children around communicating and modeling language, around showing, explaining, demonstrating, exploring ideas, et cetera. What, what are the strengths we see? What's the sort of feedback you would give if you were jointly observing that teacher with your Sted Inspector? Inspector? Okay. So I'm now gonna rely on Kate to get this bit of video working. Yeah. Um, and everybody feel free to kind of chip in and type away while we're doing this. So I'm gonna press play and let this go. Yes. So if you have thoughts during this, add them in. Yes. We catch up with Ellis as he approaches an outdoor activity that is to engross him for an entire morning session, making a trap for baddies. Port Ellis is completely able to make decisions about what to wear for outdoor activities and consort himself out. He has a friendly relationship with Lucy and talks to her with ease. How many? Five. 1, 2, 3, 5. Despite the noisy distraction of the other groups thinking aloud as they aim to secure the stake, Ellis remains occupied on his own task. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 want, He shares his strategies. You can swap hands if you want to and use his initiative. Say, what would you need for that? How long is that? Long enough. Ellis hasn't revealed his big picture for the structure, but a net is needed and a lot of tape, right? Should, Yes. How long a piece of tiger do you like? Long? Quite long. Is that long enough? His confident exchange with a practitioner reflects his security with decision making. Okay. Me to hold it while you type. It's your, And despite the wealth of activity from his co builders Is That he remains completely focused on securing the big net to the post his way. I'll come and have a look her on onto them. Right? So should we try another piece of tape? 'cause that piece has got stuck together. Or maybe go like this tape on there. Oh, he's strong, right? Go On. Ellis is not put off from his mission, but is happy to explain and is about to reveal the big picture to the practitioner. Oh, brilliant. Well, this trap, ah, what's it going to trap? Any the bag they trying to get in. Oh, they won't be able to. They go into there, do they? Yeah, but I think it, they touch it and it, they'll get poke in it. And then what will we do with them? Go. Just lay them there and cause off play, they put them jail. Look, Ellis has explained the trap for baddies and sequence potential events. When they get caught, they may go to jail or fall into his pocket in the net. Ellis needs paper and pencil for the next part of his mission. He wants to write about the construction he has spent so long thinking through and building, despite the photographer's interest, he remains focused on his self-initiated task. Ah, He is more interested in trying to write, saying the words out loud as he formulates a sentence. His writing is clear and well-formed. But the reversed p he writes to complete the word leads to some concentrated reflection. He's able to identify the sounds in the words he wants to write and blends them to read. I'm writing bad. Oh yeah. It's down in that way. Ellis has a positive picture of people around him with no embarrassment about asking for advice. I'm doing bad now. That's bad. But The exchange reveals his knowledge of sounds and names of letters. Four baddies. Alice, why don't not, when you finish writing, why don't you get on here and try and put it back on there. Yeah. The children's initiative to place the sign is evident. Again, writing bad is, is proving a challenge. Bad mo, But he's going to persevere. This is after for bad, He has had a respectable stab at spelling baddies and seems to have made the link to his, at the end of the word, which sounds so similar, a self-possessed little man who taps into all the expertise around him so he can achieve what he has set himself. He does not give up easily, even when it's tricky and writes independently for a purpose about things that stir his emotional engagement. Okay, I'll put you back on there. Great. Thanks Kate. So let's just look up a couple of slides. So, um, type away if you, I've got a comment on which of those features of effective early years teaching we saw in that video, what really struck you as effective. Take a minute for people to get typing in there, Julian. Absolutely. So Pauline just said a moment ago Mm-Hmm. About the determination. Yeah. And there were really high levels of engagement. You could see that that determination, he was really engaged in that activity and Yeah, yeah. On task the whole time. When you look at the bottom of that slide, remember that part of the Oscar definition of effective teaching in the early years takes account of the equipment adults provide in the attention given to the physical environment. So if you were doing joint observation with your inspector, you should definitely talk about the high quality physical environment there. The attention that had been given, where the, the children had some really quite challenging equipment, like those big mallets and the big bits of wood that were just the right equipment to really challenge, uh, challenge them all. So again, it's very natural for us to concentrate on what the teacher says or that idea of, um, teaching. Don't forget to notice and feedback the physical environment, the equipment, how that helps, uh, the learning. Okay. Yeah. Any, any other thoughts from anyone here? Yeah. Um, I know that, um, we talk a lot on the training as well, Julian, about open-ended resources. Yeah. And there was lots of resources shown in that film, like big bits of fabric and wood and things that just could have been used in lots of different ways, which was great to see. Yeah. And I think it would be very, very clear if you were watching that teaching, um, that that didn't just kind of come out of nowhere. So those children have had a lot of experience of, um, that sort of open-ended play with challenging materials. They're obviously in a climate where children are encouraged to help each other through difficulties. But again, draw those sorts of things that are important in your setting to the inspector's attention and keep that focus that that's all part of what we mean by teaching. Don't just focus on what the teacher says and the direct teaching. Keep it, keep it holistic. Mm-Hmm. Okay. So I'm gonna move on, uh, from here. Uh, here's what Osted say about characteristics of effective teaching and learning through the daily routines. Uh, that there's sufficient time for children to create their own play, uh, and explore their ideas. And again, you could definitely see that, uh, in that video playing thought processes are not interrupted. Time is allowed for children's playing creativity to reach their own conclusions, time and necessary resources to solve their own problems. Have opportunities to explore different ways of doing things, find alternative uses for objects. So again, if you have that, um, at hand, that can help to structure the feedback that you give to your member of staff when Ted are there, because these are all things that Ted have identified as characteristics of effective teaching. Or equally, if you are the person that's teaching, not the person that's doing the joint observation, uh, take the opportunity if you can. So just speak to your inspector for a moment and point out those things that you're doing. And again, tales toolkit will enable you to do a lot of those things, uh, really effectively. Uh, there's a strong focus in what sted is sharing with us about, uh, the, the the learning environment for children. Um, so, so let's move on then and just think briefly about, uh, assessment, which is integral to good teaching, um, and what's expected. And, um, I think that sometimes what we, we feel that's what it, what's expected is a lot of stuff, hundreds and hundreds of post-it notes or other notes about the children, loads of photographs and things in on online journals. But there's nothing in either the EYFS or the common Inspection framework. That means people are expecting to see that. What's expected is that, uh, your assessment information is accurate and high quality and robust, and that you use it to plan challenging experiences that help children to make progress, that you use your assessment information to pick up if there are any groups of children who are at risk of not making good progress so that you can target extra resources, uh, try different teaching strategies with those children. So there is definitely no reason to feel that you have to have masses and masses and masses of evidence in order to have a successful TED inspection. There's nothing in the UYFS and there's nothing in the TED framework that, uh, focuses on quantity. Here's what TED is. I imagine there's lots of people that are very happy to hear that. Julia, what, what will the teachers say in there? So what you've got, what, what what is important is that the information that you've got is used well. So if, um, you were looking at your, if you, if you've got special books or profile books or WOW books or whatever you call them, um, is that book telling me a story of that child's progress? So, do I see that that child, when they first started, was really struggling quite a lot to manage the environment to separate from their parent to play with other children. And then as I flick on a few pages, am I seeing them, uh, maybe playing alongside or they've got a friend or they're showing that they can sustain their play over a period of time? So what, what you want your assessment information to do is to tell a clear story of progress. If you decide to put next steps in there, which can make really good sense, make sure that you then follow that story through, because it's a weak assessment practice. If people identify loads of next steps, but then there isn't any sign that they ever did any planning to help the children make those next steps. Okay? So if you are putting in next steps, make sure that you regularly, you know, look back and check that they happen. Mm-Hmm. This is, this is what Ted say. There is no expectation from Ted Jane about the amount of, or the type of planning. What they're looking for is to see whether what you do is effective or not. So you could have pages of it and it could be beautifully produced, but if in the joint observations, um, children aren't making good progress, then that won't be, uh, a positive thing. Equally, you could have something very, very brief, but it works for you. And you can show your offstead inspector that it's helping children to make, uh, progress. This is what they say. These are the three things. Uh, integral to teaching is how practitioners assess what children know, understand, and can do, as well as taking account of their interests and dispositions to learn characteristics of effective learning and how practitioners use this information to plan children's next steps in learning and monitor their progress. That's the really key thing you've got to demonstrate. They also want to see how well you work with parents, engage them in children's learning, keep them informed. They also want to look at, they want to see that you are offering a broad curriculum based on accurate assessment of children's learning so that activities and experiences meet their needs. So, uh, just to sort of unpick that, I suppose a bit in a school I was working with recently, um, their assessment information said that lots of children came into their nursery, uh, at levels of development that would be more typically seen in a 2-year-old. But when you looked at their provision, it looked like provision for three and four year olds. So they hadn't really made a link between their assessment information and what they were planning. So if you're assessing that children are, uh, at a level of development that's typical for two year olds, then you should be offering them provision that would meet those needs. So, lots of sensory play, lots of opportunities to play alongside, uh, lots of sand, lots of water natural materials, strong focus on social emotional development. So make sure that if you've got assessment information, that it's consistent with the planning you are offering so that the children are gonna make progress. You must make sure that the activities and experiences, uh, meet that meet their needs. Uh, here's something I think interesting that Nancy Stewart wrote recently. Nancy's one of the people that co-wrote Development Matters. And she's really worried that she keeps seeing development matters being used as a tick list of descriptors of what children must achieve. And she feels that that is limiting children's development and it's limiting the professional awareness and the skills of the practitioners. So it was never the intention of development matters, that there was this list of things that children should achieve and that they should achieve every bit, and that they should achieve it in a certain order. It's there as a guide to child development and you can use your professional judgment. Um, you also should be focusing on the characteristics of effective learning just as much as you're focusing on the stages of development in that document. So, again, to use Tale's Toolkit as an example where you can see, um, children are, uh, engaging over longer periods of time thinking creatively, where once they just maybe used one or two or sometimes three words, they're beginning to use whole sentences. Then that's really strong evidence of, of, of progress, which is important. So, uh, Nancy points out that assessment means analyze on the observations, deciding what they tell us about the children. So in other words, every time you write something down, uh, you ought to think about it really carefully. Think, what, what does that tell me about that child? How's that gonna inform what I do for them next? And if you find that you are writing down far too much stuff to, uh, analyze in that way, then your system is out of balance. You are writing down too much and you're not giving yourself enough time to analyze and to think about the children. Um, STED are very concerned about, uh, equality, uh, and they, uh, have lots of data to show how, uh, the gaps in achievement between poorer children and better off peers are already established by five. Meaning that a lot of children, um, from poorer backgrounds move into year one, uh, at a significant disadvantage compared to their peers. Um, and again, that's why Tales Toolkit is such a good, uh, and important initiative because it's so well geared to those children who, for one reason or another may not have had the early stimulation. And learning their language and communication may not show strong signs of development when they start with you, that you are able to use it to give them a real boost to help those children catch up with their peers, but also to give their parents really good, uh, ideas, um, for ways they can help their child make progress. And that is a key preoccupation of stead equality. Um, so that's why it's so important to check that all different groups of children are making strong progress in your school. Uh, and that next bullet point should say, identify children at risk of making poor progress and take steps to ensure that you accelerate the progress at the most disadvantaged. So again, a program like Tale's Toolkit is a really powerful way of giving those children extra help, accelerating their development, helping them catch up with the other children. Uh, in school. What's the single thing that makes the most difference to a child's development? It's their home learning environment. So it's really important to have that partnership with parents that's built on respect, um, so that we are working collaboratively with parents. And that is the only real way to tackle educational, uh, inequality. Okay, inspectors may well look at some of your children, particularly children eligible for EYPP, uh, and they want to see that your, uh, using all of the resources and stuff that you have available to help those children make good progress. And again, tales Toolkit is a really good, uh, piece of your provision to show that. Okay, some questions to think about here from Ted. Uh, how do you monitor the quality of teaching and learning? How often do you do it? How do you know your work is making a difference? How can you be sure all children, including those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, make good or better progress? And tonight we might be thinking about how Tales Toolkit is helping you to make that difference. So, uh, it's really helpful that Ted give you that script because you can kind of prepare how you're gonna take your inspector through the answers to those questions. And that I think is part of the way you can feel confident and well prepared for your TED inspection. So here, here are my final thoughts before we hand it over to some questions. Um, just recapping what I've already said. Being clear about your values, aims and objectives, show them in action to your inspector. So if you are, uh, aims as an earlier setting are to, um, help all children to set, for example, say you put that you, one of your aims was to help all children to, uh, have a, a positive start to their early education and become confident learners as you're taking your inspector around, really point that out. Our key aim is this. Can you see the way those children are learning and playing there? That's an example of what we mean. Children becoming, um, confident learners. Be knowledgeable about the quality of care and the teaching, learning and assessment in your setting. Be confident when you observe jointly with your inspector. So really practice giving, uh, observing teaching, using that Oscar definition so that you can confidently feedback, encourage staff to engage in professional dialogue all at the time, including with your inspector. So if you are being observed, if any member of your team is being observed, if it's possible, 'cause sometimes you're too busy, but if it is possible to just talk to the inspector for a minute or two at the end, say, can I just explain this is what I was doing. This is a particular issue for this child. That's a, that's a good thing to do. Um, it's a good opportunity for you to have professional dialogue with someone who's seen, uh, a lot of different provision in different schools and it's a good learning experience for us. Okay? Be really have a good set that's sharp, clear sense of what you're doing to improve, know about those key issues, narrowing the gap or diminishing the differences they like to say. Now, promoting British values, promoting equality, promoting school readiness. Make sure you've got a definition of what you mean by school readiness. So again, you can be on the front foot with that one. You must meet all the safeguarding requirements and show how the process you put in place, make sure that EV Agile is safe. And it's really good to have systematic to the point manageable documents at hand. So you aren't running around during your inspection trying to find things. And I would really advise you to approach Osted as a leader, approach Osted as a future leader. Think about how you lead yourself. Think about how you can confidently articulate your pedagogy, have dialogue with your inspector, see your inspection as an opportunity for you to learn seeing Osted as a root of validation and critical challenge of your practice. Don't let the tail wag the dog. We're not doing it for Ted, but be confident about how you can demonstrate to an TED inspector the quality and the value, uh, of what you are, what you are doing. So I'm just gonna end on a, a quick plug, which is my book, which is just been published. Um, and uh, I've got a, for, for all of you guys on Tales Toolkit, a 25% off uh, offer. So if you use that UK EED UC 25 code, when you order it direct from Sage, you'll get 25% off. Okay. End of plug Away Julian. That's great. So has anybody got any questions that they'd like to ask Julian? Um, while you've got 'em here, um, I know there was lots of talk there, Julian, about pupil premium. Just while we're waiting for people to type any questions they've got, what are your top tips in terms of um, offset and pupil premium and evidence in that and how you work with children around pupil premium? Because often they're at very different levels when they come in. It's not always that those children are the ones that are lowest academically. No, not at all. It is all about progress. So, mm-Hmm. Ted want to see that what you spend your EYPP on helps those eligible, eligible children to make strong and sustained progress from their different starting points. So, like Kate is saying, some of those children will come in with, with high levels of development, they'll have really supportive families. So how are you using the pupil premium to really keep promoting that high level of development for those children? Perhaps you want to focus on developing their creative and critical thinking, for example. So, so think about the children as individuals and think about what you are offering them, which helps them to make strong and sustained progress from their different starting points and have that information at hand so that if they ask you, you know, what have you spent on and what's been the impact, you can, you can tell them. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. So has anybody got any questions they'd like to ask? Give you a minute. Oh yeah. So S'S got one. Um, okay. Sask hasn't got one. I haven't got any questions at the moment, but the session's been really useful and I shall lay this back to my management team. Okay. That's fantastic, Saskia. No, that's fine. We're happy with that. We we're, we're happy to accept compliments where they come Saskia and I'm really glad that's been useful. Mm-Hmm. Yeah, no, really good, really good session. Julian. And I was actually in Julian's school when you got the call Frosted the last time we ran. Oh yes, it was, I was working there for the day. Um, it was, it was really surprising 'cause it's the only school I've been in where I think you came in Julian and you said, I want you all to go home early and get a really good night's sleep and come in tomorrow fresh and prepared and that you are all outstanding and I believe in you. And I've never seen a head teacher do that before. It's always been like, we're getting pizzas, everyone's here till midnight and I want you planning on my desk in half an hour. So no, it was really great to see that. That sounds really great Kate. 'cause I have no memory of doing that at all, but I quite like to work for that person. I don't remember feeling that confident. I was quite shell shocked in the corner and everyone was very calm Actually. We had, we had quite a rough first day Mm-Hmm. Um, so we had to really pull it back. Yeah. And we pulled it back by getting everyone together and say, look, this is what we stand, well these are our values and tomorrow we've got a, because we didn't think the team were getting it, that that was probably us being panicky rather than them. Yeah. But we pulled ourselves together by saying tomorrow we've really gotta show them our values in action and point things out and explain what we're doing. Yeah. Um, and that in a way has underpinned a lot of the ideas in my book. Yes. Yeah. That's good. And often, I mean, when I've spoke to schools that do get outstanding off stage, often the feedback is that they've had to fight for that and they've had to really kind of talk about really pointing out that great practice and really showing that and communicating that to the off offset. Is that something you found? Well, it, it's never gonna be easy to get an outstanding grade. So they, they, you, you gotta be really confident that what you are doing isn't just really good for the children. It's exceptional. Yeah. And don't be shy, you know? Yes. Tell them what you do. That's great. And don't expect them necessarily to notice everything. You know, sometimes it's really helpful for you to explain and to point out why something you are doing is just the right thing for those children. Yeah. Yeah. And saying that it's actually quite great in that the survey, the feedback I'm getting on tell's toolkit from schools, it really seems that they're doing that. So I don't know if anyone's got any comments on that, but the feedback I'm getting is that you are very aware of those benefits and how to communicate those. So in terms of language and creativity and the changes in the children, I'm getting some great feedback from people, so that's good. But yeah. Has anyone got any comments or questions they'd like to add in there? Everyone's very quiet tonight. Do you? And you've answered a lot of questions. No, that's okay, Kate. Well, um, you know, I was really pleased that when we had, um, Carolyn minister for early years to come, come and visit us, she saw Tales toolkit being used and she was really struck by hearing kids using terms like, well, what's the solution going to be? And it really stood out what a high quality intervention it was. So I'm sure that whenever you've got senior leaders or advisors or consultants or Ted people coming in, they're, they're gonna be really, really impressed by Tara's toolkit. There's no doubt. Yeah, That's great to hear. Yeah. And it's interesting 'cause a lot of schools you do get children even at two years old saying, oh, we've got a problem, what's the solution? Yeah, yeah. I think advocates like that. So yeah. So I think we've got a few comments maybe coming in. Lovely, brilliant. So Charlotte saying big thank you. Um, really useful. So feel confident now and that's great and all of this will be online for all of you to look at later. So there's lots of comments and lots of stuff in this presentation that you can then look at later. But yeah, thank you Julian. No Pleasure, Kate. Yeah. Okay. And just, just to go back to where you were earlier, just to wish everyone, whenever your end of term is, have a really great holiday and happy Christmas to everybody. Yes. Happy Christmas, well deserved holiday.