Joint statement from the Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland on early learning and childcare inspections and our progress towards the delivery of the new Quality Improvement Framework for the early learning and childcare sectors

We are pleased to share some important updates on the development of the new quality improvement framework for the early learning and childcare sectors. 

Over the past months, we have been working to develop a framework that will support continuous improvement in the quality of early learning and childcare. The framework will be used by the Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland when carrying out inspections from September 2025.

We are grateful to all those who have contributed to its development and to our stakeholder reference group for their work in developing the framework. We want to make sure the framework is a valuable tool for everyone in the sector.

To ensure that colleagues across the sector are familiar with the framework, we are launching a series of engagement sessions throughout November 2024.

These sessions will provide you with the opportunity to:

Discover: how the framework was developed

Explore: how the framework can support your own self-evaluation and how it can enhance the quality of your setting with an opportunity to engage directly with the digital version of the framework.

Prepare: for implementation and what to expect in the next phase of the framework's rollout.

Connect: directly with inspectors from the Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland to understand how the framework will be used on inspections.

Ask: questions you might have about the framework, its application, or how it will support the sector's goals for improvement. We welcome your queries, whether they are about the framework's practical use, the inspection process, next steps or how it aligns with your setting’s needs.

These sessions are designed to be interactive and informative, ensuring that voices across the sector are heard and that everyone has a better understanding of the framework. Your engagement in these sessions is really important to support the work at this stage before it is released. We will share more information on the session dates and formats soon, which will include webinars to ensure the sessions are as accessible as possible.

The framework will be released on 14 January 2025 on Education Scotland’s website. We will then test the use of the new framework in some settings during late January and February 2025. Further information about this will be provided in due course.

We will use our existing frameworks for inspection until implementation of the new framework from September 2025. Please also note that the 18-month gap between Education Scotland and Care Inspectorate inspections will remain in place.

Thank you for your continued dedication to providing the best possible learning environments for children. We value your continued engagement on this framework and look forward to seeing you at our engagement sessions in November.

Jackie Irvine	Janie McManus
Chief Executive, Care Inspectorate	HM Chief Inspector of Education