Ofsted sets out proposals for new approach to inspections including introduction of report cards

Ofsted has today (3 February) launched a 12-week consultation seeking the views of parents, carers, professionals and learners on a new approach to inspecting and reporting on education providers, which includes replacing the ‘single word judgement’ with a 5-point grading scale for each evaluation area.

Proposals for the new inspection model, which would come into effect from the Autumn, include:  

• Introducing the Ofsted report card, giving parents detailed information about standards across more areas of practice in their child’s school, early years, or further education provider.
• Returning to schools with identified weaknesses, to check timely action is being taken to raise standards.
• Increasing focus on support for disadvantaged and vulnerable children and learners , including those with SEND.
• Replacing the ‘single word judgement’ with a new 5-point grading scale for each evaluation area, including a new top ‘exemplary’ grade to help raise standards.
• More emphasis on providers’ circumstances and local context.
• New toolkits to tailor inspections to the phase and type of provider.

The watchdog noted that report cards will give better information to parents in a “simple format”, and will include a colour-coded 5-point grading scale to evaluate more areas of a provider’s work at-a-glance, accompanied by short summaries of inspectors’ findings in more detail. An overall effectiveness grade will not be awarded.  

Ofsted said: “The 5-point scale will allow inspectors to highlight success when things are working well, provide reassurance that leaders are taking the right action where improvement is needed, and identify where more urgent action is required to avoid standards declining. As well as giving parents more nuanced information, this approach will help reduce pressure on staff - by presenting a balanced picture of practice across more areas, not a single overall grade.”

The proposed scale ranges from ‘causing concern’ at the lowest end, ‘attention needed’, ‘secure’ and ‘strong’, to ‘exemplary’ - where a provider’s practice is of such exceptional quality that it should be shared with others across the country so they can learn from it.

Ofsted is meanwhile planning to include more “contextual data” in inspections and reports, such as learner characteristics, performance outcomes, absence and attendance figures, and local area demographics – so inspectors can use this information “to help understand the circumstances in which leaders are operating”, and assess their work in context.

From autumn 2025, it is proposed that Ofsted will no longer carry out ungraded inspections of state-funded schools. This means every school will know that its next routine Ofsted inspection will be a full, graded one.

The watchdog is also proposing that all schools with an identified need for improvement will receive monitoring calls and visits, to check that “timely action” is being taken to raise standards. This includes schools with any evaluation area graded ‘attention needed’.

His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver, said: “Our mission is to raise standards and improve the lives of children, particularly the most disadvantaged. Today’s proposals for a new Ofsted report card and a new way of inspecting are designed to do just that.

“The report card will replace the simplistic overall judgement with a suite of grades, giving parents much more detail and better identifying the strengths and areas for improvement for a school, early years or further education provider.

“Our new top ‘exemplary’ grade will help raise standards, identifying world-class practice that should be shared with the rest of the country. And by quickly returning to monitor schools that have areas for improvement, we will ensure timely action is taken to raise standards.

“We also hope that this more balanced, fairer approach will reduce the pressure on professionals working in education, as well as giving them a much clearer understanding of what we will be considering on inspection.”

Welcoming the proposals, Cllr Arooj Shah, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, said: “The continued use of a single word judgement and how this can accurately reflect the complexities of the child protection system has previously raised concerns.

“We are pleased Ofsted has acted on our calls for a much greater focus on inclusion, and on whether a setting is playing a meaningful role in supporting vulnerable and disadvantaged children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities.

“We would also like to see this important work informed by the adoption of a nationally agreed definition of mainstream inclusion.”

However, Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, warned: “Ofsted and the government appear to have learned nothing from the death of headteacher Ruth Perry and have instead devised an accountability system which will subject a beleaguered profession to yet more misery.
  
“[…] Astonishingly, Ofsted’s proposed school report cards appear to be even worse than the single-word judgements they replace. The introduction of five new judgements that can be applied across at least eight performance areas creates a set of hurdles which will be bewildering for teachers and leaders, never mind the parents whose choices these reports are supposedly intended to guide.
 
“We would question whether it is possible to reach with any degree of validity, in the course of an inspection, such a large number of conclusions – all of which are critical to those being inspected and where judgements may be finely balanced between categories. It is certainly a recipe for systemic inconsistency.”
 
He added: “Rather than reducing the pressures on teachers and leaders – a situation so serious that it is unsafe – this system will introduce a de facto new league table based on the sum of Ofsted judgements across at least 40 points of comparison.
 
“The schools with the greatest challenges will continue to be stigmatised by the application of the labels ‘attention needed’ and ‘causing concern’ in exactly the same way as the previous system. This will in turn make it harder to secure improvement.”

The consultation will run until 28 April 2025.

Ofsted added that formal pilots of the inspection approach and further user testing of report cards will be carried out over the coming months, to help “inform and improve the proposals”.

Lottie Winson