More detail on some of the proposed changes

Here are some of the main changes being proposed in the consultation.

Taking context into account

Disadvantage and Inclusion

Under the proposals in the consultation, evaluation areas differ slightly by education phase (early years, schools, further education) but in all cases include a new focus on inclusion. This means inspectors will look at how well providers support vulnerable and/or disadvantaged children, as well as those with SEND, making sure these children are always at the centre of inspection.

We want to be clear that we will put disadvantaged and vulnerable children and those with SEND at the heart of these reforms, because if you get it right for them, you get it right for everyone.

Tailoring inspections to each phase of education

We propose to make the inspection process better tailored to your phase and type of provider. This will make sure the focus is on what really matters for children in your setting. New inspection ‘toolkits’ list the standards that each type of provider will be evaluated against.  

These toolkits provide more detail and clarity about what will be considered on inspection. They are intended to help drive greater consistency of inspection practice and give providers clarity about the expected standards and what they need to do to improve. Inspection should never drive additional workload so we have crafted our evaluation areas around the legal requirements and professional standards you’re already expected to be working within. So, for example, our evaluation area for ‘Safeguarding’ is rooted in ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ and ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ and our evaluation area around ‘Developing Teaching’ are built upon the Teachers’ Standards, to name a few.

The proposed School Inspection Toolkit (in draft format) can be found here. 

The proposed Independent Schools Inspection Toolkit (in draft format) can be found here. 

Changes to monitoring arrangements for schools

From autumn 2025, we propose to 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.

We are 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’.

However, we will only monitor for as long as is necessary to see a tangible difference for children. Importantly, we want to be able to change any grade that is less than secure as quickly as possible, without the need for a full re-inspection in many cases.

While we are still working through the detail of what this will look like in practice, our intention is that schools do not keep any ‘causing concern’ or ‘attention needed’ grade for longer than necessary, where improvement has been focused and swift and the previous grade is no longer reflective of their practice.

New Ofsted Report Cards

Our Big Listen consultation returned a clear message from parents, carers and professionals that the overall effectiveness grade should go and that inspection reports should provide a more nuanced view of a provider’s strengths and areas for improvement. But there were different views on how to do that. Parents and carers favoured a clear evaluation of a wider set of categories, while most professionals wanted narrative descriptions of performance.  

Our proposals aim to bring both preferences together. New Ofsted report cards will give better information to parents in a simple format, as well as driving higher standards for children. They 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.

So, for example, instead of inspectors weighing up strengths and weaknesses to arrive at an overall grade for something such as the ‘Quality of Education’, we propose to grade the component elements of curriculum (intent), developing teaching (implementation) and achievement (impact) separately.

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.