Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education; it’s (very basically) a big organisation, which amongst other things, inspects and regulates forms of childcare and schools in England and Wales.

In September 2008 Ofsted introduced a new set of guidelines called the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Prior to EYFS, schools, childminder settings and nurseries each adhered to different frameworks which meant that even though different childcare professionals may have been looking after the same child (all be it in different capacities) no one professional was reading from the same ‘song sheet’ as the other.

Now EYFS combines the different types of frameworks into one big package making it easier for childcare professionals to communicate and ensuring that each child is getting the best from each environment with a consistency in the level of care provided throughout each transition (ie. from childminder to full time school).

This means that the level of paperwork and training required by each setting is exactly the same, so a nursery and a childminder have the exact same professional status and Ofsted expects each setting to provide the same high quality of care, irrespective of varying resources and staffing issues.