NEW figures show a sharp rise in serious incidents reported in early years settings in England. This shocking data has led to a chorus of urgent pleas for stronger protection measures. Additionally, The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) receives an average of 75 significant event reports each week. This trend illustrates the growing awareness of the importance of protecting this country’s youngest children in early years environments.
From 2010-15 to 2019-24, reports of harm to young children almost tripled, increasing from 1,303 cases to 3,342. This shocking rise upsurges a need to investigate if there are systemic problems with current nursery care practices. Ofsted have published their initial figures which have included cases of proven, unproven and accidental incidences. That calls into question the overall reliability of their reporting standards and what that means for education.
The DfE cannot be accused of not responding to increasing concerns. After consultation with the sector, from this September they will begin to phase in tougher safeguarding requirements across all early years environments. These steps aren’t just about making kids safer today, they’re about improving their health tomorrow. Ofsted recently published a plan to improve their recruitment and selection practices. This amendment will further protect children by making sure that unsafe people are proactively prevented from moving forward, putting children’s safety first.
Helen Penn, a Congressional champion for better care standards, sounded the alarm. She warned that absent more improvements, crashes and baby injuries might increase, resulting in even more broken-hearted moms and dads, along with children. The substandard and harmful care that is now setting the floor for Ofsted’s inspections further highlights how urgent it is to focus on these huge problems.
Throughout the 2022-2023 period, nurseries reported more than 4,200 life-threatening or serious childcare incidents. This is a huge jump from the 3,021 attacks reported in 2019-20. That’s a shocking increase of 40% in major disasters in only five years. Ofsted’s approach to broad reporting criteria allows nursery workers to “err on the side of caution,” according to the Early Years Alliance. Instead it mostly results in conflict investigations that more often than not exonerate the complainant for any safeguarding violation.
As the number of these reports increases, Ofsted’s capacity to be able to do more regular inspections is still hampered by a lack of resources. Yvette Stanley, a government representative from Ofsted, admitted that staffing shortages were holding back their ability to keep an eye on nurseries. Now, with Ofsted regulating more than 27,000 non-domestic childcare settings in England – including schools and nurseries – the challenge of keeping our children safe becomes all the more complicated.
