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CHAPTER 8: POLICIES INFLUENCING PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH AND PRACTICE – 93consider staff practices and pedagogy, but this is not required. Municipalities also provideadditional quality assurance measures by providing educational and psychologicalforums/councils for social educators, who serve as a medium of communication between thepolitical system and the ECEC settings. The objective is to promote best practice and ensurecomparable standards for centres throughout the country (Jensen et al., 2010).GermanyIn Germany, ECEC settings focus on achieving structural quality standards (e.g. child/staffratios, formal qualification level of preschool teachers). These are regulated by laws at the federalstate level. As noted earlier, the curricular frameworks also refer to pedagogy, but theirimplementation is not monitored and no central inspection system exists. Most of the federalstates rely on internal quality management and evaluation systems, which are carried out by thepreschool centres and funding organisations. To date, only one federal state, Berlin, hasimplemented an obligatory external quality evaluation that also considers curriculum andpedagogy (Anders, 2015).FranceThe national agency Protection maternelle et infantile (PMI) is in charge of inspectingchildcare services in France. The focus is on structural quality, staff qualifications and parentalinvolvement rather than pedagogical practices, as is the case for preschools. Écoles maternellesare supervised by the Inspecteurs de l'Education Nationale (IEN, or national education inspectors)and teachers are the focus of evaluation (Naumann et al., 2013). Regional education officesoversee the pedagogical practices of individual teachers through direct inspection, conducted atthe beginning of their working career and repeated on average every four to five years (Rayna,2007). Before an inspection, the teacher completes a preliminary questionnaire, which is followedby an inspector observation of about two hours. The teacher is then interviewed to analyse thepractices, assess the professional quality of the teacher, and to give advice and talk about careerprospects. This also provides an opportunity to identify where additional training may be required,including providing support for the teacher’s professional practice, for example, by working withan academic advisor or observing teachers in other classes (peer learning). As a result, monitoringpractices in French preschools highly influence pedagogical approaches and practices, becausestaff are assessed on this basis.JapanIn Japan, monitoring is the responsibility of local governments, and practices vary acrossregions and municipalities. There is no general monitoring system, and although all publickindergartens are monitored, not all private ones are. Some Japanese settings use a supervisingsystem to maintain and develop quality in public and private kindergartens. Supervisors, who aremostly kindergarten teachers themselves, observe pedagogical practice and provide guidance onhow care and education should be carried out in the ECEC settings (RCCADE, 2011; OECD,2014b). These facilities also conduct meetings and briefings where the entire staff observes anddiscusses practice of one of the teachers, sometimes using video recordings (ibid.). While this is ahighly decentralised form of monitoring staff and process/pedagogical quality, if conductedregularly and implemented throughout the country, such internal systems can influence a staff’spedagogical practices.New ZealandNew Zealand has a government department at the national level, the Education Review Office(ERO), that evaluates and reports on the education and care of students in schools and earlychildhood services (ERO website, 2014). Early childhood services are reviewed on average onceEARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE PEDAGOGY REVIEW: ENGLAND © OECD 2015