It is your responsibility as a parent to ensure that the childcare provider you chose is registered by the Early Years Directorate of Ofsted (this does not apply at present to out of school clubs or holiday schemes that only care for children aged eight and over).

All providers registered with Ofsted must comply with the National Care Standards produced by the Department for Education and Skills.

For more information on aspects of high Quality Childcare, click on the right hand side. 

Quality Assurance

The development of high quality childcare and early education services is one of the key elements of the government’s SureStart agenda. An important way of improving quality is for a childcare provider to take part in a Quality Assurance scheme.

These schemes support practitioners through mentoring and advice and help them to think about the way in which they work and how they can improve the services they offer.

Investors in Children is an endorsement for childcare quality assurance schemes. This should help childcare providers to choose a good quality assurance scheme and also help parents to identify good quality nurseries, childminders, after school clubs, crèches and playgroups.

Some childcare providers have undertaken quality assurance status with one of these schemes and you may wish to ask childcare providers if their provision is quality assured.

Some providers may not be able to undertake quality assurance and will be able to give you information about how they provide high quality childcare.