Out of school

The Education People Early Years and Childcare Quality team also offer a range of support and guidance for proposed, newly registered and existing out of school provisions. Our Out of School Quality team have developed a range of resources and information to support provisions on their journey to high quality inclusive provision either school run or independently registered with Ofsted.

For newly registered settings we offer a centrally delivery plan of support. This is a blended approach of face to face and virtual visits for all newly registered settings to support them until their first inspection.

Ongoing support for inspected settings at the expected standard

Settings judged to be offering provision at the expected standard or above will be inspected on a four-year-cycle in line with the renewed Ofsted framework. All settings in this category will be offered a ‘professional conversation’ with their OoSQA in the year leading up to their re-inspection.

Ofsted headlines

The renewed framework incorporates changes to the inspection process, the introduction of an inspection report card and toolkits to support and guide settings to understand what the inspector will be looking for throughout the inspection.

Under the new inspection framework OOS settings will now be inspected and receive the same grading at EY provisions rather than a met or not met.

From April 2026 Ofsted will inspect all new early years and out of school providers within eighteen months of opening and move towards inspecting all providers at least once every four years, compared to the current six-year cycle.

All early years settings including out of school settings will be inspected against a five point grading scale for the following evaluation areas:

Inclusion
Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines
Children’s welfare and wellbeing,
Leadership and management
Safeguarding.

Because out of school settings are exempt from delivering the leaning and development requirements they will not be inspected against curriculum and teaching and achievement and will not receive a grade for these.

The Ofsted inspection toolkit sets out the areas that will be evaluated and graded against the following the five point grading scale:

Urgent improvement
Needs attention
Expected standard
Strong standard
Exceptional.

Early Years Statutory Framework

The Early Years Register is for childcare providers who care for children from birth to 31 August after their fifth birthday. Out of School or wraparound providers who wish to take children in reception class or younger must be registered on the early years register unless they are exempt. If providers care for children from 31 August after their fifth birthday up to the age of eight, they must also be registered and meet the requirements of the compulsory part of the childcare register (and voluntary register requirements if they have chosen to register) unless they are exempt. For out of school providers on the early years register it is mandatory for them to meet the Early Years foundation stage statutory framework which sets out the standards that early years and childcare providers must meet to ensure that children learn, develop well and are kept healthy and safe. These providers are exempt from delivering the learning and development requirements of the EYFS. However, they do have to meet the safeguarding and welfare requirements in full, which are designed to help providers meet their statutory and legal duties.

The Early Years Quality team have developed the safeguarding and welfare requirement audit (DOCX, 150.3 KB) to support settings in meeting their statutory duty.

Very soon there will be a dedicated out of school webpage where you can find more information and links to support you to meet the EYFS statutory framework

Contact details

Early Years and Childcare Service
Email: eycquality@theeducationpeople.org