ABSTRACT
The opportunity to revise this book comes at time of considerable change in the early years. An increase in the range and structure of provision for young children to include greater rigour and accountability for childminders, full day care, sessional care, creches and out of school care is to be welcomed. The move towards greater integration of services providing education and childcare is increasing. Early Excellence centres, neighbourhood nurseries and extended schools are all part of the developments to provide parents with a choice of services for their children. From September 2001 Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) took over the regulation of all childcare for the under eights. This entailed the creation of one national system for the regulation, inspection, investigation and enforcement of under eights childcare. There is one database listing all providers and one set of national standards as a baseline for quality. Information about the national standards can be found later in this chapter. The overall aim of Ofsted is to ensure that children are safe, well cared for and take part in activities that contribute to their development and learning. This initiative is in the early stages for development and has not as yet provided details of the curricular implications of the work of practitioners in settings other than through the national standard concerned with care, learning and play, more of which is mentioned later. The DfES (Department for Education and Skills) are due to report on the play and learning requirements for children under three in 2003.
