How we inspect childcare and play services

When our inspectors visit a care service, they will consider four core themes:

• Well-being
• Care and Development
• Environment
• Leadership and Management

We have two types of inspections: full and focused.

Full inspections

Most of our inspections are full inspections which are planned as part of our inspection schedule. Full inspections take place approximately six months after a newly registered service becomes operational. After that, we use an intelligence led scheduling model to determine the timing of the next inspection.

We expect all providers to have their own quality assurance processes which effectively improve outcomes for children attending their service. In 2024, we introduced quality meetings to support providers to make improvements. Please see the information about quality meetings below.

Using our intelligence led scheduling we prioritise services which need to do most to improve and schedule their inspection within six months. These services will not be eligible for quality meeting until we are confident they have made the required improvements.

During 2024 we reviewed our data about inspections and based on our findings changed the maximum interval between inspections to five years. For services which need to do more to improve, we will carry out an earlier inspection, with a maximum interval between these inspections of two years. We will carry out a quality meeting around midway between the scheduled inspections to support providers to make improvements before we next inspect.

Focused inspections

We may carry out a focused inspection in response to information we receive about setting or to follow up on areas of non-compliance at a previous inspection. These inspections only look at some elements of the setting. We do not usually award a rating at a focused inspection. If a focused inspection is to assess the actions taken by the provider to address non-compliance and a rating of poor, we will review this rating.

All our inspections are unannounced, however for childminders and open access play, we will normally telephone you one week before we intend to inspect. This is to check their availability and operating times to ensure they are operating when we visit. If we have not been able to speak to anyone, then the inspection will go ahead without prior discussion. However, providers are responsible for letting us know of any changes in the days and/or hours of operating. We will inspect any service at any time, especially where concerns have been raised.

Each year you will be required to send us:

• a Self Assessment of Service Statement (SASS) and,
• a review of the quality of care at the service.

More information is available from our SASS page.

From April 2019, all reports of our full inspections of childcare and play services will include a rating for each of the four themes considered during the inspection. This means a rating of Excellent; Good; Adequate; or Poor will be published in respect of the themes of Wellbeing; Care and Development; Environment; and Leadership and Management.

Newly registered services will receive a full inspection approximately six months after becoming operational, the ratings awarded will be published.

Our inspection report template has been revised to show ratings at the front of the inspection report and alongside each theme. It is our intention to publish ratings on our web directory in the future.

Important – read our reports in full.

We are responsible for regulating over 3,000 childcare and play services. This means that it will take several years for all services to have ratings published in their inspection reports. With or without ratings it is always advisable to read the report in full.

We have produced an inspection guide for childminders and daycare and play providers. We have also produced a tool for open access play providers when assessing staff ratios.

Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) and Estyn jointly inspect funded non-maintained childcare settings that provide part-time education for three and four-year-olds. These joint inspections evaluate the care provided for all children up to the age of twelve and the education of three and four-year-old children that do not receive education in a maintained setting.

The guidance below sets out the way that Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) and Estyn will inspect care and education in funded non-maintained nursery and childcare settings who provide part-time education.

The joint inspection framework covers three themes:

• Well-being and care
• Teaching, learning, play and development
• Leadership and management

After each inspection, we publish our findings in a joint report on our service directory.

We introduced quality meetings between inspections to enable providers to update us about any improvements they have made since the last inspection. We would also like to hear about any planned future improvements and will signpost providers to other sources of advice and support which may be of assistance to them.

Guidance for providers

We’ve put together the video below and a quality meeting guidance for providers document to give you more information on what to expect at your quality meeting and how to prepare for it.