Quality of childcare in Lincolnshire
The most recent Ofsted data, shows that Lincolnshire has 97% of settings graded good or outstanding. This means that the majority of children in Lincolnshire have access to high quality settings. The table below shows the comparison between Lincolnshire’s Ofsted ratings and the regional and national figures.
| Region | Outstanding percentage |
Good percentage |
Requires improvement percentage |
Inadequate percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| National | 14% | 84% | 2% | 1% |
| East Midlands | 7% | 91% | 2% | 1% |
| Lincolnshire | 5% | 92% | 2% | 1% |
Giving every child the best start in life sets out the approach for expanding and strengthening family services, making early education and childcare more accessible and affordable, and improving the quality of early education and childcare.
In Lincolnshire, we aim to achieve our ambitions to improve educational outcomes for our youngest children. Our own strategy is being updated to outline our commitment to ensuring the availability of high-quality childcare provision, enabling all children to access their entitlement.
Supporting the development of quality provision remains one of our primary focuses. This is now under development, utilising the findings in the government’s strategy and will be linked to the family help strategy for Lincolnshire.
The early years and childcare support team provides a range of support services across the sector. The support available includes:
- direct face-to-face support
- the delivery and commissioning of subsidised training
- information advice and guidance
- special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support to early years providers across the sector including:
- private
- voluntary
- independent providers
- childminders
- schools
- academies
The childcare sufficiency duty is embedded within the early years and childcare support team. To ensure Lincolnshire succeeds in the government’s ambitious target that by 2028, a record proportion - 75% - of children reach a good level of development by the end of reception, it is vital for quality and sufficiency to work cohesively together.
