Is Childcare Safe?

Is North Lincolnshire Childcare Safe?

What is OfSTED

Choosing Good Quality Childcare

Is North Lincolnshire Childcare Safe?

It is important to us that childcare provision in North Lincolnshire provides safe, secure and stimulating environments that meet children’s emotional, development, and educational needs.

North Lincolnshire Council provides a whole range of support services to increase the quality of childcare and help parents that wish to use childcare.  The support is provided through the Childcare Development Service, Kids Lincs, and Learning Services Team.

North Lincolnshire has it’s very own Investors in Children endorsed scheme, ‘Steps to Quality’.  Childcare providers that have achieved Steps to Quality have demonstrated that they deliver a much higher standard of care than the OfSTED minimum standards.  A number of settings have already achieved Step 3. There is more information on this scheme at: www.stepstoquality.org.uk

Staff working within childcare in North Lincolnshire are well qualified with over 81% qualified to at least level 2 standard additionally  67% hold a level 3 qualification. To ensure staff have access to training  a whole range courses of  are available, as published annually in the North Lincolnshire Early Years Training Manual. The Childcare Development Service carefully monitor the ‘take up’ of training accessed, e.g. in 2003 -2004 2460 training days were delivered on the Foundation Stage Curriculum.

All childminders and day-care providers operating in England are required to be registered with OfSTED (Office for Standards in Education). This means that they go through a registration process followed by regular inspections to ensure the standards within the setting are maintained.  Registration includes a criminal records check of all persons involved in the management of the setting and an inspection of the premises to look at health and safety and educational welfare issues. 

Kids Lincs Children’s Information Service is free and confidential and provides information to parents and carers so that they can find, choose, and pay for good quality childcare.  Kids Lincs can ease the burden and explain what measures are in place to protect children in childcare, including what to look for and questions to ask when searching for high quality provision.  Information is produced in leaflets and Kids Lincs have offices in Scunthorpe and Brigg.  Also a website,  www.kidslincs.org.uk is dedicated to providing a variety of information to both users of childcare and providers of childcare.

North Lincolnshire Council also holds an annual Childcare Awards ceremony that celebrates the success, dedication and hard work of childcare providers.  The awards ceremony is special as the childcare providers are nominated by parents and carers that use childcare.