Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. They inspect and regulate services that care for children and young people. They register people and organisations that want to provide childcare.
They carry out a series of checks on everyone who applies to register. The number and type of checks they carry out depend on the position each person holds, including whether they work directly with children. The checks always include a check against police records (called a ‘Disclosure and Barring Service’ check or ‘DBS’ check).
They do not check employees of registered providers, such as the manager or other staff who work in a nursery (this is the responsibility of the provider). They do check household members of childminders and any assistants they employ. They check people when they first register with them.
Ofsted grade each judgement on a 4-point scale: outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate. If they judge the provider as requires improvement or inadequate, we will say in the inspection report what it needs to do to improve.
Ask the childcare provider for a copy of their Ofsted inspection report. You can also view it online at reports.ofsted.gov.uk If they are a new setting they may not have received an inspection yet.