Quick Description:

This is the first in a series of special workbooks aimed at childminders, that will help you go through the Ofsted Early Years Inspection Toolkit to evaluate your setting and put on place an action plan to help you improve or maintain your existing standards. This workbook focuses on the 'Leadership and Governance' area of inspection evaluation.

More Information

Why should you do self-evaluation?

When you are due for inspection you Ofsted Inspector will probably ask you to have a look at the new Early Years Inspection toolkit and have a go at evaluating which standard you think you are at under each evaluation area. This will help your inspection go much more smoothly.

Evaluating your setting has always been an important part of the improvement process and one which your Ofsted Inspector will want to see you doing. The second sentence in the new Early Years Inspection Toolkit states:

'Inspections focus on the impact of the systems and processes that leaders use to support the continuous improvement and effective running of the setting.'

Self-evaluation is the first step in the continuous improvement cycle. Just like you observe and assess your children to work out what their next steps are, you need to evaluate what you do in order to work out what your next steps for improvement are.

Why is it so important to evaluate how you meet the Leadership and Governance requirements?

There are now two areas of inspection you absolutely have to pass if you wish to offer funded places to your families. These are Safeguarding and Leadership and Governance. (For help meeting the safeguarding requirements please refer to the 4 in 1 Safeguarding Pack.)

The Statutory Guidance ‘Early Education and Childcare (valid from 1 April 2026) states:

‘The guidance outlines the circumstances in which local authorities are not required to make arrangements with providers for the delivery of the free entitlements following receipt of a ‘specified grade’ after an inspection by Ofsted. The definition of specified grade is as follows:

Latest inspection took place from 10 November 2025:

• For Early Learning for 2-year-olds – ‘needs attention’ or below in leadership and governance or safeguarding is ‘not met’
• For all entitlements – ‘urgent improvement’ in leadership and governance or safeguarding is ‘not met’

In other words, if you have children aged 2 and under on funding you must get a ‘met’ for safeguarding and ‘Expected Standard’ for Leadership and Governance.’

If you have children aged 3 and over,you must get a ‘met’ for safeguarding and at least ‘needs attention’ for Leadership and Governance.

As you can see, evaluating your Leadership and Governance is absolutely essential so that you can ensure you are meeting all the requirements in order to pass your inspection. However, as I always say, 'do not panic.' It isn't as difficult as you may think and this workbook is here to help you.

Why should you use this workbook and not just look at the Ofsted Early Years Inspection Toolkit?

Although the Ofsted Early Years Inspection toolkit is a great resource to help you start evaluating your setting against Ofsted gradings I have found that there is an awful lot of information that childminders need to know to effectively evaluate their setting that simply isn't included. For example, would you know that you have to research your local area using the Ofsted Explore an Area webpages' so that you can fulfil this statement from the 2026 toolkit?

'Leader's understand the setting's context, strength and areas for development.' (Early Years Inspection Toolkit 2026)

Therefore, this workbook is not really just a workbook. It contains a wealth of information, guidance and tips on every evaluation section to help you to understand what might be expected of you in order to meet each inspection standard. Therefore do not panic and think that this workbook will take you hours to complete. For a lot of the sections you will be able to read the information and very quickly jot down a couple words about evidence you have about how you fulfil the requirements. This will leave you more time to focus on the areas you really want to improve

Another issue with the Ofsted Early Years Inspection Toolkit is that you cannot use it to record any notes of thoughts you have about your self-evaluation - there simply isn't space. Sure, you could jot notes in the margins (as I have often done,) but these have a tendency to get muddled making it hard to properly organise your thoughts. It is important to be able to do this so that you can decide what your most important points for improvement are as you will be judged on this during your inspection. Therefore this workbook takes  Deciding on your most important areas for improvement will also save you lots of time as you will then be able to focus your efforts on improving the important things rather than wasting doing umpteen courses that have little or no effect.

This is where this workbook is different.It is broken down into separate sections, each covering one of the new Ofsted inspection judgement standards. Each section breaks down the requirement descriptions from the Early Years Inspection Toolkit into smaller, easy to understand chunks to make your practice easier to evaluate.  There is space for your notes next to each section and an 'action plan' template to help you organise your plans for improvement.

New for 2026/2027 If you have already completed an older version of this workbook do not waste time redoing the whole thing - life is far too short! Instead use the new 'update log' pages included in the 2026/2027 version to quickly note any changes and job done!

Can you use this workbook if you are registered with an agency instead of Ofsted?

Of course! Self-evaluation and improvement is an important part of any childminder's work, however they are registered. Therefore, this workbook is really helpful for all childminders.

What does the workbook contain?

The workbook is split into separate sections, each covering one of the new Ofsted Inspection grades. Each section has the statements set out in the new Early Years Toolkit, along with useful guidance and space to record your own thoughts and notes.

'Expected Standard.' This is the standard which you should initially be aiming for and so the workbook starts here. To meet the ‘Expected Standard’ you need to show that you fulfil ALL of the statements listed in this section. Read the statement and the accompanying information and think about what evidence you can provide or show to prove you fulfil the statement. If you feel there is one or more statement you do not yet fulfil write it on the action plan sheet at the back of this pack. It is really important that these are the first actions you focus on.

'Strong Standard.' If you think you can confidently say that you meet all the requirements to meet the 'Expected Standard' you can then aim at gaining a 'Strong Standard.' Working through this section of the workbook will help you decide how to do that.

'Needs Attention.' If you work through the 'Expected Standard' section and think that there are two or more areas where you do not yet reach the standard then you can use this section of the workbook to help. This section has lots of 'tips to help you improve' which, when used with the action plan included in the pack, will make your improvement plan easy to create and follow.

'Urgent Improvement.' Your Leadership and Governance is likely to be graded ‘urgent improvement’ when breaches of the EYFS requirements have a significant impact on children’s safety, well-being and/or learning and development and any of the conditions listed in this section of the Early Years Toolkit apply. If you receive this judgement during an inspection this shorter section will help you start with the basics again to help get things back on track.

'Exceptional.' If you work through the ‘Expected Standard’ and ‘Strong Standard’ sections of this workbook and are really confident that you completely fulfil the standards in both then you can move onto this section of the workbook.

I have not included and tips or guidance notes as if you are exceptional, you will not need them! However, I have included these sheets in case you want to use them.

New for 2026/2027 Update Log

As I have already said, I do not want anybody who has already worked through an earlier version of this workbook to waste time by redoing it all again. Instead you can quickly use the new 'update log' pages to record any changes that you have made or need to be aware of.

Action Plan template:

A simple action plan template is included at the back of this pack. This will help you organise what you want to improve, what you are going to achieve this, and set yourself deadlines. It can also be used as evidence that you are organised about how your self-evaluation and improvement.

Pack Length: 30 pages 

IMPORTANT INFORMATION - PLEASE READ

N.B This pack is supplied as downloadable PDF and Word documents. If you cannot find your download links please check your junk box first in case it has gone there. If you have any problems contact me at jennifer@wellywren.co.uk and I will help. 

Products ARE NOT sent out by post.

FREE THREE YEAR UPDATE GUARANTEE

This Welly Wren product come with a free update guarantee. If this product is updated at any point, within three years of your purchasing your pack and you are on the Childminding Best Practice Mailing list you are entitled to free updated copies. If you are a member of the Childminding Best Practice Club you are entitled to free updates, no matter how long ago you bought the product. See the frequently asked questions for more information.

Copyright/Fair Usage Statement

Please support my small business by using this pack in a fair way.

By purchasing this pack, you agree that it is for use only in your individual use. You may make as many copies as you need for the children and families in your setting BUT MUST NOT share, copy or distribute any of the materials in any way, to anyone else. If you are part of a larger group, for example, a childminding group, or a chain of settings, please purchase one pack per setting. 

The contents of this pack remain the copyright of Welly Wren Ltd.