If you're an early years or childcare provider, you can buy one of our toolkits to help you evaluate your early years or childcare setting.
What are toolkits?
Our toolkits are designed to help you identify your strengths and areas for development, where you work as an early years or childcare provider. They can be used individually or as a set, and you can work at your own pace, in a way that suits your setting. You also get external recognition when you use our simple system to record the benefits for children and families of planned developments. Share this impact with us, and we'll send you a certificate to acknowledge your team’s hard work.
Order a toolkit
Find out which toolkit is best for you by opening up any of the following headings. You can see how much each one costs and order a toolkit online. Alternatively, if you want to place a bulk order, email us for a quote at early_years@bathnes.gov.uk
You can also view taster pages of any of our toolkits online.
QUEST is a self-evaluation toolkit for all early years and childcare providers, including:
- Current providers looking to self-evaluate more flexibly
- New providers looking for support to develop good provision from scratch
- Providers looking for a self-evaluation tool linked to OFSTED’s inspection framework (evaluation schedule)
The OFSTED SEF is no longer available, but OFSTED still expects you to evaluate your practice. Inspectors consider how well you evaluate and know your strengths and weaknesses, and how you can improve or maintain a high standard.
QUEST consists of the following five sections:
- Leadership and management
- Inclusion
- Learning and development
- Working in partnership
- Transitions
When you buy QUEST, we'll also let you know about other support options available.
Order a toolkit
Our QUEST toolkit costs £30 (plus £3.95 P&P) and you can order it online.
Our Toddler Quality toolkit is for early years and childcare providers offering funded childcare for two year olds. It aims to help you to reflect on your current practice using a range of activities and audit tools. The toolkit also enables you to evaluate how you meet the specific needs of two year olds; keeping them at the centre of everything you do ('what is it like for me here?').
This toolkit is for any of the following:
- New providers offering places for funded two year olds
- Current providers looking for a new tool to reflect on your provision for two year olds
- Providers considering offering places for two years olds
Our Toddler Quality toolkit has many exciting features to support you to evaluate and improve your provision for two year olds. These include:
- Confidence audits so you can see, at a glance, your strengths, show the distance travelled and evidence the impact of changes you have made.
- Activities that provide structure for staff meetings, support professional dialogue and help you to gather information and evidence.
- Resources to assist you to evaluate individual areas of your provision.
- Top tips to give you snap shots of information and to promote discussion.
Our Toddler Quality toolkit complements our popular and effective Baby Quality toolkit. Both are a must to help you provide the best possible provision for under three year olds.
Order a toolkit
Our Toddler Quality toolkit costs £25 (plus £3.95 P&P) and you can order it online.
Our Baby Quality toolkit is for early years and childcare providers wanting to develop what they provide to under two year olds.
The toolkit will support you to:
- Evaluate your baby provision
- Identify what is going well and what could be improved
- Improve identified areas through a range of activities and resources
- Work with parents and carers, to support the development of babies (including transitions)
Our toolkit will help you to support babies and young children so they receive the highest quality experiences.
Our Baby Quality toolkit has many exciting features to support you to evaluate and improve your provision for babies. These include:
- Audits and an overview grid so you can see, at a glance, the strengths and areas to develop in your setting.
- Activities that provide structure for staff meetings and individual reflection.
- Resources to support you to evaluate individual areas of your provision.
- Top tips to support your thinking and to give you snap shots of information to promote discussion.
Our Baby Quality toolkit complements our popular and effective Toddler Quality toolkit. Both are a must to help you provide the best possible provision for under three year olds.
Order a toolkit
Our Baby Quality toolkit costs £25 (plus £3.95 P&P) and you can order it online.
Our Home Visiting toolkit is for early years and childcare providers who plan home visits. Our toolkit will help providers to ensure home visits have maximum benefit to the setting, the children and families.
By visiting a family in their home before their child starts at your setting, you begin the formation of a trusting, informed relationship between the family and your setting. When handled well, parents and carers feel valued as experts and you can begin the important process of sharing in their child’s development.
Home visits also provide a great opportunity to begin discussing home learning. This toolkit considers how you can help families understand what they can do to support their child with this. Research has shown that the home learning environment is the single biggest influence on a child’s development, and sharing this fact with families can empower and motivate them to support their child’s learning.
Our toolkit contains the following documents for providers:
- Reflecting on home visiting (to support your team in discussing the benefits and challenges of home visiting)
- Top tips for home visiting (useful summary of key aspects of practice)
- Top tips for home learning (summary of how to effectively encourage home learning)
- Home visit evaluation form (sample evaluation form to reflect on each individual home visit)
Information providers can share with families:
- A suggested All about me record and accompanying guidance notes
- Why am I being offered a home visit? (leaflet for parents and carers explaining the purpose of home visiting and what to expect)
- What can my toddler learn...? (leaflets with ideas and practical tips for supporting home learning, including: messy play, books, maths, treasure baskets, singing, and playing outdoors
- Home visit evaluation form (sample evaluation form to be completed with each family to measure impact of the home visit)
Order a toolkit
Our Home Visiting toolkit costs £15 (plus £3.95 P&P) and you can order it online.