Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills, the independent inspectorate that judges the quality of state-funded schools in England. Since 10 November 2025, exactly a year ago today, it has inspected schools under a new framework that replaces the old single-word verdicts, such as Outstanding or Good, with a detailed report card. Each part of school life now gets its own grade on a five-point scale, and there is no overall grade at all. Safeguarding is judged separately, as met or not met.

For parents, that change matters. A school can no longer be summed up in one word, and two schools that once shared the same label can now look very different on their report cards. For headteachers, the new system has brought more detailed feedback, but also fresh pressure, and reports this week suggest some are considering leaving their jobs earlier than planned after inspection under the new framework. This guide explains what Ofsted is, how the new report cards work, what each grade means, and how to read a report for your child's school.

What does Ofsted stand for?

Ofsted stands for the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills. It is a non-ministerial government department, which means it operates independently of the Department for Education, and its stated aim is to improve lives by raising standards in education and children's social care. Its chief inspector is Sir Martyn Oliver. Ofsted inspects state-funded schools in England, as well as registered early years settings, further education and skills providers, and the minority of independent schools that are not covered by the Independent Schools Inspectorate. It also inspects children's social care services, including children's homes and local authority children's services.

Ofsted covers England only. Scotland has its own inspectorate, Education Scotland, Wales has Estyn, and Northern Ireland has the Education and Training Inspectorate. A school in Cardiff or Glasgow will not have an Ofsted report, so parents there need to look to the inspectorate for their own nation. Within England, however, almost every state-funded school a parent might consider will have an Ofsted report card or an older-style report on the Ofsted reports website.

Why did school grades change?

For decades, Ofsted summed up a school with a single overall grade: Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement or Inadequate. That changed in two steps. In September 2024, Ofsted stopped awarding the single-word grade for a school's overall effectiveness, following the death of headteacher Ruth Perry in 2023 and the inquest that found an Ofsted inspection had contributed to her death. The grades for individual areas of the school remained, but the headline verdict went.

The second step came on 10 November 2025, when Ofsted replaced the old four-point scale entirely with report cards. The old categories no longer appear on new reports. Instead, each area of school life is graded on a new five-point scale, and the report card gives a written explanation of what inspectors found in each area, along with background data recorded at the time of the inspection, such as the number of pupils. Ofsted's first official statistics on the new framework, published in June 2026, covered the 921 full inspections carried out between 10 November 2025 and 31 March 2026.

What is an Ofsted report card?

A report card is the written outcome of a school inspection, published on the Ofsted reports website. It is longer and more detailed than the old-style report, and it is colour-coded so that parents can see at a glance how the school did in each area. There is no overall effectiveness grade, so a parent cannot simply look for the word Outstanding or Good. Instead, the card shows a separate grade for each evaluation area, a short written summary explaining each grade, a met or not met judgement for safeguarding, and contextual data about the school.

Ofsted is clear that the new grades cannot be compared with the old ones. Strong standard is not simply a new name for Good, and exceptional is not a new name for Outstanding. The new scale measures a school against a set of standards in Ofsted's school inspection toolkit, and the grades work as a ladder: inspectors first check whether a school meets every expected standard in the toolkit for an area, and only then do they look at the strong standards. A school that meets all of those can be considered for exceptional. The current version of the toolkit applies to inspections from 7 September 2026, after Ofsted's first annual update to its toolkits and operating guides.

The five Ofsted grades explained

Every graded area of a school receives one of five grades, from best to worst. Ofsted describes them as follows.

• Exceptional. Practice judged among the very best nationally, which other schools can learn from. A school must meet all the strong standards and all the additional standards in the exceptional section of the toolkit.
• Strong standard. Excellent, consistent work that makes a real difference for pupils. A school must meet all the expected standards and all the strong standards for the area.
• Expected standard. The school is doing everything it should. Ofsted calls this a high standard, shown in green on the report card, and it is the benchmark for a high-performing school.
• Needs attention. Work is needed to reach the expected standard. Ofsted says this is not a fail, but the school will receive a follow-up monitoring inspection, which can change the grade.
• Urgent improvement. Bigger problems that need fixing quickly. The school is normally placed in special measures or judged to require significant improvement, and it is monitored closely.

Parents should note that expected standard is a demanding bar. It means the school meets every standard Ofsted sets for that area, including legal requirements, statutory guidance and professional standards. A school graded expected standard across the board is, in Ofsted's own terms, a high-performing school, even though the label sounds modest next to exceptional or strong standard.

The six areas Ofsted grades

A full inspection of a state-funded school grades six core areas of school life. They are:

• Inclusion: how well the school meets the needs of all pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs and disabilities.
• Curriculum and teaching: what pupils are taught, in what order, and how well it is taught.
• Achievement: how well pupils learn and what they achieve, judged against similar schools.
• Attendance and behaviour: how regularly pupils attend and how they behave.
• Personal development and wellbeing: how the school supports pupils' wider development, character and wellbeing.
• Leadership and governance: how the school is led and managed, including the work of governors or trustees.

Two more areas are graded where they apply: early years provision, for schools with nursery or Reception children, and post-16 provision, for schools with a sixth form. Safeguarding sits alongside the grades and is judged simply as met or not met, measured against the government's Keeping children safe in education and Working together to safeguard children guidance. The old quality of education judgement has been split into two areas, curriculum and teaching and achievement, and the old leadership and management judgement has been renamed leadership and governance.

How does a school inspection work?

Schools normally receive short notice of an inspection. A team of inspectors then visits the school, observes lessons, talks to pupils and staff, looks at pupils' work, and checks safeguarding arrangements and the school's records. Under the new framework, inspectors work from the school inspection toolkit and hold a planning call with school leaders instead of carrying out the deep dives used under the old framework. The approach is meant to be more collaborative, with inspectors working closely with school leaders, although the inspection itself remains a formal judgement of the school.

After the visit, Ofsted publishes the report card on its reports website, where anyone can read it free of charge. The report card replaces the old inspection report, and earlier reports for the same school remain listed at the end of its page, so parents can see how the school was judged under the old system as well. Because schools are now inspected roughly every four years, down from six until 2026, those pages should update more frequently than they used to, although it will take time before every school has been through at least one full report-card inspection.

How often are schools inspected?

Under the new framework, all routine inspections are full, graded inspections, and schools are inspected roughly every four years. That is a faster cycle than the six-year cycle that applied until 2026, and ungraded inspections of state-funded schools have ended. The faster cycle means parents are more likely to find a recent report, but it also means schools face the full inspection process more often, which is part of the reason the new system has proved so demanding for headteachers.

Ofsted also carries out monitoring inspections where a school needs them. A school with an area graded needs attention receives a follow-up monitoring inspection, which can change the grade if the school has improved. A school graded urgent improvement in an area is normally placed in special measures or judged to require significant improvement, and it is monitored until it improves. In the most serious cases, a school may be required to become an academy under a new sponsor.

How can parents use a report card?

Start with the areas that matter most to your child. If your child has special educational needs, look at inclusion first. If you are choosing a secondary school, look at achievement and curriculum and teaching, and at post-16 provision if the school has a sixth form. Read the written summaries, not just the grades, because they explain what inspectors actually saw. And remember that the grades cannot be compared with the old ones: a school that was Good under the old system might be graded expected standard or strong standard now, and that does not necessarily mean it has got worse.

Parents can find any school's report card on the Ofsted reports website by searching for the school's name. The report card also carries contextual data, such as the number of pupils on roll, which helps when comparing schools of very different sizes. If a school's report is more than a few years old, it is worth asking the school when its next inspection is due, because the report may describe a school that has changed considerably since.

Why is Ofsted in the news now?

One year after the new framework took effect, the system is under scrutiny from both sides. Supporters say report cards give parents far more information than a single word ever could, and that the five-point scale recognises excellence without branding a school a failure for falling short in one area. Critics, including headteachers' leaders, say the new framework is more demanding to prepare for and to be inspected under, and reports this week suggest some headteachers are considering leaving their jobs earlier than planned after inspection under the new system.

Ofsted itself updated its toolkits and operating guides for inspections from September 2026, the first of what will now be annual updates, covering how achievement is judged against similar schools, a wider view of inclusion, and changes to learning walks. The framework will keep evolving, and the grades on a school's report card will reflect the toolkit in force at the time of its inspection. For parents, the practical advice stays the same: read the report card, read the written findings, and visit the school before deciding.

Frequently asked questions

What does Ofsted stand for? The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills. It is the independent inspectorate for schools and children's services in England.

Does Ofsted still give schools a grade of Outstanding or Good? No. Since 10 November 2025, new inspections produce a report card with a separate grade for each area on a five-point scale: exceptional, strong standard, expected standard, needs attention and urgent improvement. There is no overall grade.

How often does Ofsted inspect a school? Roughly every four years for state-funded schools in England. All routine inspections are now full, graded inspections, and ungraded inspections have ended.

What does safeguarding met mean? It means inspectors judged that the school meets the requirements for keeping children safe. Safeguarding is not graded on the five-point scale; it is reported simply as met or not met.

Where can I read my child's school report? On the Ofsted reports website, free of charge. Search for the school by name, and the latest report card appears at the top of its page, with earlier reports listed below.

This article is general information about the inspection system in England, not advice about any individual school. Check the school's own report card on the Ofsted reports website for the current position.