Children's Home Registration
Readiness Checker.
Answer a guided self-assessment about your proposed home and get a written report setting out what is missing, what contradicts itself, and what to do first — before you start an SC1.
This tool reflects what you tell it. It cannot decide whether you are suitable, whether a person meets Ofsted's fitness requirements, whether an application will be accepted, or whether a home will be registered. Arc is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or certified by Ofsted.
Two different things have to be ready at once.
The first is the application: the SC1, the SC2 forms for everyone who needs one, the Statement of Purpose, the policies, the planning and insurance evidence, the location assessment, the business plan. Ofsted cannot accept an application until all of the required documents are provided and everyone who needs to submit an SC2 has done so.
The second is the service: whether the children you propose to care for, the building you have chosen, the people you have appointed and the way you intend to work actually describe the same home. That coherence is what the registration visit and the interviews examine.
Most providers discover the gap between the two late, after a property is bought and a solicitor is paid. This check walks through both, in the order the decisions depend on each other, and returns an ordered plan rather than a list.
How the report is organised
Decisions other work depends on. Until these are made, documents written now will need rewriting.
Required forms, documents and SC2 applications without which an application cannot be accepted.
Two of your answers that do not appear to describe the same home. Prompts to check, not findings.
Scenarios where an arrangement exists but is not written down, or is not yet in place.
Evidence the inspector asks for at the visit and interviews rather than at submission.
No obvious missing item identified from your answers, listed so the outstanding work stays honest.
Questions no tool can answer, with who to ask.
There is no percentage score. A single number would suggest a threshold, and there is no threshold to reach — an application is either complete enough for Ofsted to accept, or it is not, and suitability is decided by people, at interview.
Where the questions come from
Ofsted. The registration hub for children's home applicants.
Ofsted, updated 10 July 2026. Required documents, registration visit and interviews.
Ofsted. Who fills in which form, and what the application must contain.
Ofsted, updated 2 July 2026. The published criteria for priority.
Legislation and statutory guidance underlying the quality standards.
The Children's Home Location Assessment Tool gathers published evidence on crime, services, transport and local provision for a postcode, to support the location assessment required with your SC1.