09 December 2005
Children who are dropped off at nurseries early in the morning are being left alone because of staff shortages and poor planning, a senior education inspector said this week.
Dorian Bradley, Ofsted's deputy director of early years education, said a survey of early-day care at 45 nurseries revealed that at too many the child care on offer fell below acceptable standards.
Security was weak at some nurseries, with adults able to enter the premises unchallenged, while at others children arriving early in the day were left unsupervised and unoccupied while staff attended to other duties. In one case children were found crying while staff went to answer the telephone.
'Our evidence shows that it is likely that in many nurseries the quality of care during the first hour or so of opening will not be of the same standard as that provided during the core hours between 9am and 4pm,' Bradley told an early years education conference on December 6.
'It is also likely that the care at the end of an extended day will also be of poorer quality. The weaknesses arising from staff deployment and organisation in the early morning could occur at the end of the day when tidying away activities and cleaning may take staff away from directly working with children.'
Bradley urged childcare professionals to take note of Ofsted's good practice checklist, which recommends better planning and more effective deployment of staff.
Ofsted's warning came in a week that MPs considered the detail of the government's Childcare Bill, which makes councils responsible for ensuring there are sufficient childcare places for their areas.
PFdec2005