Out of school childcare: after school clubs, holiday clubs and more

Did you know Ofsted inspects out of school care for children under the age of 8? This can include activity-based clubs, wraparound care and holiday activities. Find out more about how we inspect in this podcast with guests Craig Jones from the School-Aged Childcare Association and Dan Super from Super Team Sports. 

Cait Mellow: Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. This time we're talking about school-age childcare. Did you know we inspect and regulate out-of-school care? I'm here with Wendy Ratcliff, HMI, the Principal Officer for Early Education at Ofsted. Caroline Hearn, the Specialist Advisor for Early Years at Ofsted. Craig Jones from School Age Child Care Association and Dan Super from Super Team Sports. What type of setting does this cover? After school, holiday clubs, wraparound sports? Caroline, talk us through that. 

 

Caroline Hearn: I absolutely can. But before I start, I just want to say we are recording this July 2026. So, we're heading into the summer holidays. And just I think Wendy and I and all at Ofsted would want to say a big thank you to all the wraparound providers who, unlike a lot of sectors who are winding down potentially in schools for the summer, we know the wraparound providers are gearing up to what is very hot summer it's turning out to be. So huge thanks for all the work they do to keep children safe, happy and well educated over the summer. I think that's just a huge importance for us to say that. And then of course I can answer the question. So after school clubs, it's funny, it really depends on the register you're on rather than the type of provision. So the way the Department of Education set up the legislation, you've got the early years register, which is for children from birth to the 31st of August after their 5th birthday. And then you've got the later years registers for 5 to 8 and then the voluntary for older children. So it really depends on the ages of the children that you want to be caring for. And often we find those that offer that the around holiday clubs, breakfast clubs, all of those, that type of care provision, do also register on the early years register because we've got those children who go into school who are before the 31st of August, before their 5th birthday. So they are captured in that age group. And then within that, there's all the different provider types that we have that I've just mentioned. So really, I want to now just ask Wendy, I'm just really interested, and Dan and Craig, just looking at what Ofsted does in our inspection work, how have you found inspections? I've talked about all that wide range of provision that gets inspected. So I'm going to hand over to Wendy and Dan and Craig to talk a bit more about that. 

Wendy Ratcliff: 

Shall I just talk a little bit about the changes we've made to how we inspect registered early years, if you're on the early years register as out of school providers, then maybe Dan and Craig, you can tell us a little bit about what you're finding?  

So if you are a provider that is registered on the early years register but only provide care exclusively to children at the beginning of or and end of the school day or during school holidays, you only need to meet the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the DFE's early years foundation stage. Therefore, our inspectors, when they come to do your inspection, they're not going to grade particular evaluation areas, curriculum and teaching or achievement, because you don't have to meet the learning and development requirements. And that's the same for before and after school settings and holiday provision with children younger than reception age. If you have one of these settings, you must have regard to, but you do not have to meet those learning and development requirements of the EYFS. Inspectors do evaluate though, your safeguarding and welfare arrangements. They will confirm that your setting meets the requirements of the early years register. And if your setting is also on the compulsory or voluntary part of the childcare register, inspectors will need to check it meets those requirements. So inspectors will do a range of things in, you know, gathering that first hand evidence and having those discussions. working with leaders, taking leaders on the journey and working collaboratively throughout that inspection through kind of like shared observations, using the early years toolkit. I could say more, but let's bring Craig down in. What are you finding in terms of our inspections? 

Craig Jones: 

First of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak and meet you guys as well. I guess we're finding that the scorecard, we're big fans of the scorecard and a lot of our providers are, it's something we've requested in relation to having an aspirational workforce. So they're not just looking at met or not met. And now we can have strong standards and if we can exceed them, amazing. So that's something obviously we couldn't get when outstanding good was changed to not met, which is fantastic. So I think that there's no doubt that that's something that we really want to strive for. And I think, again, it's sort of given the fire in providers’ bellies to really raise that quality as well. And I think the cycle of inspection, so clearly, we've obviously, everyone's got deadlines, we can see that. So there's quite a surge of activity to hit that three-year cycle, and we can see lots of inspections coming through at the end of the school term and during the school holiday periods as well, which clearly there's a lot of provisions that sort of register the same time. There's lots of providers start for the summer, so I can imagine Ofsted have got like a spike there. Our providers over our membership had over 100 inspections since November. So hopefully we can give a bit of feedback on that. But yeah, Dan, I think you've had one in Easter? 

Dan Super: 

We had two at Easter. So yeah, a quick little overview of who Super Sports are. So we only run holiday camps. That's what we do. It's been going nearly nine or 10 years now. Predominantly for years was mainly sports coaching camps. And then in the last two or three years, we've joined the early years register. We start taking children from age 3, as well as then the compulsory and voluntary registers. We run our camps every school holiday in independent schools. So in the kind of the private school facilities when those schools aren't running. Had previous knowledge. So last year had had a voluntary inspection at one of our locations, which was just more of a 45 minute, one hour inspection. Still wouldn't say very easy, but it was definitely easier than the full early years, which we had two this Easter, two weeks in a row back-to-back. And I enjoyed them, to be honest. It was, I was scared, I was nervous. It was, first time we'd been going nearly two years with early years, confident that we were, you know, that we're doing everything we needed to do. Had a lot of advice from, you know, SACA and other organisations that are there to support us. But you just always have that little worry of, until Ofsted are there, you know, to get to really, to really know. And it did, it went really well. We got strong across the board in all the areas. Both of the inspectors went through the toolkit on the day, the call the day before, then arranging a call in the afternoon, that was great. Felt like we knew the inspector before they arrived. Yeah, on the day, really supportive, definitely working together, felt supported all the way through and now confident and looking forward to another one. 

Wendy:  

And I just liked actually hearing you say about the planning call. That's actually something we are hearing across the sector, that the sector are welcoming it. And also, you know, thinking about that, notice and those telephone calls and the preparation in advance of actually being on site. And as you say, feeling like you've already built that professional relationship with the inspector. I think what's really important as well is something else she was saying there, it's saying about, we're confident we're doing what we're doing for our children is right. And I think that's a really key message for us, isn't it, Caroline, in terms of if you're doing what's right for your children, then you're doing what's right for Ofsted and you shouldn't be needing to do anything that isn't already set out in statutory or non-statutory guidance, which of course for early years is the early years foundation stage. And that's kind of like what the toolkit's based on. So we didn't want the toolkit to add extra workload to providers. 

Caroline: 

Yeah, it's a really interesting point you're raising there. And I'll just pick up on one thing you said there, Danny, that Les, you know, you were nervous. I think if you're vested in something and you really want to do well for children, which that's what the sector is there for, we want to do well for children, you're going to be invested in it, so you are going to have some nerves. So I think nerves are to be expected, but we need to work with you and help put you at your ease when we arrive and all the things that Wendy just about the planning call should all really help with that. You also talked about the difference in inspections though, it's really interesting. So the early years inspection, we're now moving to a four year window. So it was six, we're now every four. And then the later years, so if you're registered on the later years registers, that's a 10% sample. So you may or may not get an inspection. So you have, so you've had experience of both. But yeah, that's the difference between those registers and that's why that does just feel really different when you're out there having those different experiences because they are different by design. 

Craig: 

I think so. Certainly our sector is predominantly 5 plus. Now there will be school-aged childcares and the nature of it is that the children at full-time school and education. So therefore while there is 3 and four year olds, those 5, 6, 7, 8 plus are the core. 

Caroline: 

I mean, just have no doubt, we're always interested in all the children. It's just the legislation asks us to look at a certain age child. So it does seem like we're following around the four year old or not quite, you know, not quite 31st of all because after 5th birthday, five year old. But yeah, we're definitely interested in experiences for all children because that tells a lot about the setting and how relaxed children are and how much they're enjoying their experience and how confident they are. You still see all of that? 

Wendy: 

And thinking about that safeguarding culture. for example, that the safeguarding culture across the piece, of course, isn't it? And Dan, I know you touched on the call. I think the call is helpful. There's no doubt about it. And even just talking about the setting and getting the inspector's knowledge about even logistics around where do we park and where do we meet and so on, all those things that can sometimes take time before. And it feels like straight away the inspection is more around the children versus paperwork and policy, when obviously that's all important as well, but it feels like there's that, the duty of care requirement, feels like it's more focused on that than maybe, you know, a long time ago, maybe inspections were geared towards around paperwork, which again is still asked and deep dive in on those questions, but I think I like the idea of when the inspectors are in, they actually follow a trail and they'll follow a thread of something. So this team member, can we look at their recruitment? How did they start? What their process? Can we now speak to them? What training do they have? So it feels like it's end to end as well versus maybe before, maybe some providers have brought in their best people to go through an inspection. And now it feels like the inspection process is a lot more robust to to make sure that that's a, I guess, a measured outlook as well. 

So following through those areas of inspection focus and, at the end of the day, what we want to do is we want to find out what it's like to be a child at this holiday play scheme. We want to find out what it's like to be a child at this breakfast club, this out of school, you know, provision. That's really important. And what it's like, typically like, not just on the day of inspection. 

Caroline: 

We've had some questions around, qualifications. And we're well aware that when it's school age childcare, not specifically three-year olds, that qualification is sort of deemed by the provider and the provider can choose what qualification, obviously mandatory safeguarding and whether they're providing food and so on, food hygiene, but that and paediatric first aid, but that feels like it's sometimes can be ambiguous. I know it's something that school-aged childcare association really pushing forward in relation to what kind of qualification framework or standard should there be for school-aged childcare, which again is not linked to the inspection. It's just trying to raise that quality as well. But Dan, you've got a lot of range of qualifications, don't you, from teachers and nursery team members to sports coaches and so on. 

Dan: 

Yeah, there's all of the younger coaches that are doing sports kind of leadership courses at school. We run our own ones of those now to give some key leadership. And then we touch on safeguarding in those, even for age 16 plus, just starting to teach them all about that. And then there's all the different national governing bodies for each of the sports that have their level ones, twos and threes. And obviously those sports coaching qualifications I don't think mean very much to Ofsted. It's more, that's more learning how to coach the sport. Those courses usually come with safeguarding qualifications. They have to get through the governing body. 

Caroline: 

We do recognise the qualifications. Anybody who's taken the time to go and get a qualification want to up their skill set, that's no bad thing. We're always really keen to see that. What we don't have is any specific qualifications because you've got EYFS. is there. Yes, we do recognise qualifications and you can see when a staff member is skilled and had some training, it's really good and really important. But I think that's one for the department to look at and look at the underpinning legislation and to help. with that, because I think, the sector are asking for that kind of to be a little bit more navigable, so to speak. Just looking at the sector and what's going on in the sector at the moment, people might find it interesting to know how there's been lots of government initiatives, lots of change at the moment. What's it like out there in the sector at the moment? How is it looking? Obviously, we see what we see through inspection, but you see what you see through the kind of sector growth. 

Craig: 

It's quite good actually. So you've got, I'll maybe talk from a maintain school background and then Dan from an independent. So maintained schools, we're definitely seeing more children with SEND challenges. I guess a range of whether children have got EHCP plans or not and how we can be, how can we make reasonable adjustments versus unreasonable adjustments. That's quite a grey area for providers. I think that's quite an area whereby we definitely need more upskilling and I know that lots of providers have various partnerships to help their team members. Cost of living has been challenging, no doubt about it, and the price of childcare is rising and that sort of goes in line with the national minimum wage increases and so on. So to make that sustainable and really make sure it's constantly striving to develop people. The challenge is making sure that the best people stay in the sector, I think. And certainly within wraparound childcare and school age childcare, you know, that split shift scenario of a breakfast club and an after school and then a holiday, right? How can we make that a real role that people feel? And it's great that we've got those different roles for people and backgrounds and all those people that do work in the sector. but I do feel that maybe that progression and that I think the qualification and the standard in the future could help that as well. So staff retention is a challenge, no doubt about it, but I see innovation from providers and how they develop and retain their people, whether that's engagement pieces throughout the term time, whether that's being full-time contracts versus just holiday or just term time, and then also providing that real flexibility. Some of our team members in the sector don't necessarily want to work Monday to Friday anymore. So having that option of working some of the peak days and we see Friday as a real quieter day within wraparound childcare in the term time certainly and sometimes in the holidays as well with that sort of remote working and difference in behaviour there I guess. All in all the sector is super resilient. The National Wraparound Fund has seen lots of new spaces grow and create new clubs. I am worried about the sustainability within school age childcare session, there's over 100 schools that will be closing because they're not sustainable and that have previously had funding. So there seems to be, we could have some kind of solution after that in regard to a parent subsidy and so on. Great news around the holiday activity food fund and the continuation then, but I know local authorities can flex that up, but that can create challenges for providers. But All in all, those challenges aside, the sector is still continuing to grow. I do think it's professionalizing more as well and seeing, and I'm going back to that scorecard scenario, that's got lots to do with it. The sector's now aspiring and I think, you know, the first provider that gets that exceptional will be a real coup because I think it's, I actually do think it's quite difficult for out of school because you're only seeing a snapshot of maybe one hour, 3 hours. whereas a nurse where you can see the children in their learning environment as well. But needless to say, I think, and Dan, you might be the first, aren't you? So maybe from an independent school background, you'd want to give an outcome there. No pressure, mate! 

Dan: 

Yeah, I hope so. No, we should have one, another one due this summer, I think. So, yeah. In terms of the independent school sector, that all of the, our camps are open to children from all backgrounds. With regards to children, everything Craig said, again, we're noticing exactly the same. And then with the recruitment and coaches challenges, again, all the same. I guess the only difference that we're noticing independent school wise is the addition of VAT onto school fees. So there are some independent schools closing. I guess then we are then seen more as a marketing tool for the independent school that we work at, that then we work with the marketing admissions team to help, in local community engagement of that school into the, for the, area coming in to attract children to the school. 

Wendy: 

Is there anything around registration timelines, Caroline, that you wanted to follow up? 

Caroline: 

Yeah, I mean, people's registration is, we're doing a lot this summer. We're going to take down all our existing registration guidance and reissue just to make a lot more clarity. I think it still comes back to, it does take a window that it takes because it, and it's an average of 12 weeks because we've got a lot of checks to do on individuals. We're really mindful though that we've got individuals out there who've got buildings and probably staff starting to set up and they want to get parents and it's that sequencing and how you can sequence to make sure that the things align so that your registration is really at the point where you're starting to want to pay for those buildings and pay for those structures and got to make sure it's safe for children and it's right for children. And then we've got to make sure that we're keeping as much communication with you as we can. We've introduced welcome calls into our registration processes to kind of have that chat with people to walk through. And of course, I mean, you guys will probably be looking at more of expansion of existing, so an approval visit when you're wanting to add on a new provision because that's possible. That's a bit quick because we already know you and know a little bit about you. Is there anything sort of you think we could be doing different in the registration space? 

Wendy: 

Caroline, we're seeing a lot of the sectors sort of consolidate. So some of the smaller providers are starting to work with the larger providers. And I think to Dan's point within the independent school sector, you can feel how that might happen as well to help them one survive, but also continue to grow and give opportunity to more employees and more children. And I think then that can be challenging because there's a point where a provision might be closing and a provider wants to take it on to keep consistency of service. And then that feels like even when the staff are TUPE-ing across and it's the same team members versus the same employer, that feels like maybe, because at the end of the day, we don't want it to impact the families that need that consistent care. So there's, I think there's a piece there that maybe, school-aged child care can help Ofsted in understanding some of the challenges there as well. 

Caroline: 

That's really interesting. So helpfully, the Secretary of State announced earlier in the year that she is now looking at, and she's commissioned the department to look at multiple provisions. So exactly what you're saying, where you're trying to bring in new provision and you're growing your business, but maybe get it all under one registration and what that looks like. So they're looking at the legislation around that. And I know there'll be after groups like yourselves to come in and talk about that with them and talk about experiences of that. And that work has already started. Can't talk too much more about that at the moment, but just kind of it's there, it's been announced, it's been it's being looked at. So you are being heard in that space. 

Craig: 

I think that's positive, Dan, from my point of view, certainly for the members in relation to them often having to speak to one person and the restrictions that one person has when that one person might be associated with 50 to 60 settings. It feels quite prohibitive and I know we can have other people attached to them, but that sort of one person scenario. It doesn't feel like the business owner, Dan, I know you're under pressure with that. You know, you would never go on holiday when the provision's on at the moment. Whereas obviously a provider that runs 52 weeks of the year is going to need that time as well. So yeah, it feels like there's something more there as well that could maybe the infrastructure of a medium sized organisation and how many people are known to Ofsted? 

Caroline: 

Definitely, hearing that kind of one point of contact is tricky when you've got a lot of provision that you are the one point of contact for. So yes, there's definitely something to come back on that on. I was just looking, we talked a bit about inspection and how that's going. And I just wondered, just to ask Wendy a bit more about the toolkit and how providers can use the toolkit, because there's some sort of changes in that within our ways of inspecting that might be interesting to explore. 

Wendy: 

Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good question and something that we would encourage settings providers to be using the toolkit in between inspection as well, because it's something that we feel can be used as a self-improvement tool. We want to be open and transparent with, what it is that we look at when we're on inspection. There's some really useful evidence gathering prompts in there in terms of what our inspectors will look at, you know, in terms of, as you say, following through one of those areas of inspection focus you talked about earlier, Craig, that kind of thing. And just that kind of reassurance that, you know, we don't want the toolkit to add to settings workload, anything, you know, there shouldn't be anything in the toolkit that a setting's not already expected to do by other, you know, statutory guidance, non-statutory guidance. And very much, using it as a tool in between inspection, as that kind of like self-improvement tool. Our inspectors will work with settings and leaders and go, use it as a way of celebrating what a setting is doing well, validating leaders, what leaders are working on and their priorities. for the future. And also then there's that opportunity to highlight where improvement is still needed. And then there's then, then there's the standards as well in terms of how they're set out. And that's set out of, across that five point grading scale. There's, and we've got needs attention expected, strong standard. They're all on one page and they're on one page for a reason because they're the grades we expect to see most often. And every inspection will start with expected standard because that's what we should expect for all our children. 

Dan: 

On the planning call, one of the things the inspector was asking us is where we thought that we are on the on in terms of the grading on the toolkit. and first inspection we went modestly with expected and then that was the starting point in the actual inspection. The inspector went through that column and on each of the different areas, all the different points and then we ended up with strong. So she moved us up from where we thought we were. And then the next week for the next one, we kind of knew where we were. So we went with strong and that was the column again that she was then grading us on. And it was, it was, it was, that was a big consistency. There were slight, slight differences as well between the inspections, but that was a, that was a really good thing. Then we, yeah, enjoyed that. I found the framework over the last few years more difficult to read. That toolkit now, I think, is we've all been through it lots recently, and it's a lot easier to read. 

Wendy: 

That's good to hear. Thanks for sharing that, Dan. And I think as well, the other thing to say with the toolkit, and hopefully that comes through as well, is that there is, it does talk about how the toolkit works for different provider types. So it will say, for out of school providers, curriculum and teaching, for example, that doesn't apply. You use the word consistency there because that's something from our chief inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver's big listen he did not long after he was first in post. And consistency was something that was coming through. And that is one of the things that we've said we need to make sure that there's a consistent approach to how we use our inspection methodology whilst taking into account the context in which providers are working in because no... It's a bit like we say, no two child minders are the same. So no two inspections are going to be the same. No two types of holiday place scheme are the same. They might be operating under the same kind of like umbrella and policies and procedures, but they're in a different building to the one, you know, it's a different, no 2 inspections are ever going to be the same. But the application of how we apply our inspection approach, there should be consistency there. So that's good to hear. Okay, so just before we finish, I think it's good to finish off where Caroline, you started by giving thanks to the sector for all that they do. They're providing for children before school, after school, during school holidays. We've got a busy summer coming up. So yeah, just to say thank you and you carry on doing what you're doing. And if you are doing inspection, then just remember that, if you're doing what's right for your children, then you're doing what's right for Ofsted. 

Cait:  

So, thank you so much to Craig, Caroline, Wendy and Dan and join us next time on the Ofsted Talks podcast