Result: pass
Adults looking after children must have appropriate qualifications, training, skills and knowledge

My working life has been dominated by childcare so I’m fairly sure I have the skills and knowledge. Qualifications? Not so much: my degree in Economics, Politics and French has not proved as useful as I thought. And it’s all been on-the-job experience. But let me just say that you can have all the qualifications, training, skills and knowledge in the World and you will still be woefully unprepared for looking after your own children. Trust me on this.
Result: satisfactory. Needs work in some areas.

Children’s behaviour must be managed effectively and in a manner appropriate for their stage of development and particular individual needs

I excel at discipline: every time my children tell me what to do, I do it.

Ensure that adults looking after children, or having unsupervised access to them, are suitable to do so

Lets see: The Mothership has thirty-plus years of hands-on experience raising children, and I turned out OK, so I’d say she is an the very definition of suitability. In fact it would suit me if she took on more childcare. DH had no childcare experience going into parenthood but he has a long career history in mediation so will definitely have the skills necessary to get us all through teenage-hood. I operate a strict more-adults-than-children-where-possible policy and hope to expand on that by having two adults to every child at some point in the future.

Result: outstanding
Promote the good health of the children, take necessary steps to prevent the spread of infection and take appropriate action when they are ill

I clean them before my mother-in-law of the Health Visitor comes round. And if they are ill, I offer cuddles, the aforementioned ‘magic cream’ and if that doesn’t work, a good glug of Nurofen and a nap usually sorts it.

Result: some retraining required.
Staffing arrangements must be organised to ensure safety and to meet the needs of the children

I think I need to work on my ratios: need more adults than children and evryone’s a winner. Unless you count the dog. In which case, we’re sorted.

Result: speechless.

Outdoor and indoor spaces, furniture, equipment and toys must be safe and suitable for their purpose

The children have learned to look for dog poo before heading out to the swings, they know never to go near the Oven of Doom when it os on, and they know that they should never climb on the kitchen counters whilst wearing shoes. I am so good at this Ofsteddy stuff.

Result: result!

Plan and organise systems to ensure that every child receives an enjoyable and challenging learning and development experience that is tailored to meet their individual needs
Fortunately LBG goes to Kindergarten three days a week, has dancing on a Monday, ballet and French on a Friday and Daddy at weekends, so I don’t need to worry too much about leaving her in front of the television whilst I blog. The Dimpled Assasin has dancing on Mondays, Gymboree on Tuesdays, nursery on Wednesday and Thursday and Daddy at the weekend, so I only really have to make the effort with her once a week. A bit of playdough and a sit in the Lego box and she’s happy.

Result: satisfactory
Maintain records, policies and procedures required for the safe and efficient management of the settings and to meet the needs of the children
I have two words for you: Baby Book. ‘Nuff said.

Result: it was all going so well.

It’s like they say: you need a licence to drive a car but they’ll let any old fool have a baby….

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But my mother can read (in the right light) and regularly interrupts me mid-monologue to tell me that she’s “already read about it on my blog”. Just so that you know, I have a good relationship with my mother- I see her a couple of times a week. It’s worrying that though I see her that often I have frequently written about my weekly traumas before I fill her in on the details. I can only assume that this is a (scary) indication of how fast-paced the times in which we live are.

But I digress: MY MOTHER READS MY BLOG. I have no desire to bring my impeccable conduct as Eldest Daughter and Role Model to Brothers 1 and 2 [insert hysterical laughter here. It's a great joke!] into disrepute. I like living on an pedestal [again: insert laughter. Brothers 1 and 2 will be wetting themselves, so why not you?]

Disclaimers out of the way, I don’t want my daughters to know:

1. I had my ears pierced when I was four. In my mother’s defence, since she is not the bad parent she may seem to be at this point, I ground her down with repeated requests. Hourly repeated requests. Around the clock. And she had a two-year-old who didn’t sleep. As the mother of a child who is a carbon copy of my two-year-old self (I’ll have to rely on both my parents agreeing to this fact independent of each other) I can see how this would lead to the inevitable. My daughters will not ask hourly because they will be brought up to believe that it is against the law to have them pierced before they are thirteen. Oh, and they will NEVER know that I had a belly button ring.

2. That I swear a lot. I put this down to learning to drive too late in life. I’m hoping to curb my enthusiasm with alternative swear words, before they are old enough to remember that they heard me utter expletives.

3. That I don’t have the first clue what I am doing. You don’t get a manual when you give birth, so raising children is entirely down to instinct, a smattering of common sense and a bit of shouting. I believe they call this making-it-up-as-you-go-along. Naturally they will be brought up to believe that we had a careful structure of parenting.

4. That I had boyfriends before I met their father. They will of course, think that it is against the law to have a boyfriend before you have finished University; that illegal to have sex before you get married and that you are not allowed to get married until you are at least thirty. Otherwise you will be sent to a convent.

5. That I am guilty of benign neglect: that I leave them to amuse themselves whilst I try to juggle blogging, writing and cooking. When I am not neglecting them, I fill their weeks with activities, exhausting myself finding fun experiences and new activities and crafts. I do this because I worry incessantly: I worry for them, about them and because of them. I worry that I am not doing enough with them. I worry that I don’t teach them things. I worry that they will remember their childhoods as boring because I was always busy typing, or demoralising because I shouted in frustration, or swore, or told them I’d send them to a convent.

But the abiding thing I want them to remember about me is that, whether I get it right or wrong, I did it all out of love. If I didn’t love them I wouldn’t worry. If I didn’t worry, I would sleep better. If I slept better, I wouldn’t shout. It’s when I don’t shout that they should start worrying!

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