Understanding Ofsted’s New Report Card: From ‘Causing Concern’ to ‘Exemplary’

Proposals for a new inspection model 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
- 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
- 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
- More emphasis on providers’ circumstances and local context
- New toolkits to tailor inspections to the phase and type of provider
Ofsted has today launched a major consultation, seeking the views of parents, carers, professionals and learners, on a new approach to inspecting and reporting on education providers, from the autumn.
The consultation sets out a series of proposals that aim to serve the interests of the parents and children Ofsted works for, while strengthening the trust and cooperation of professionals working in the services it inspects and regulates.
In the past 12 months Ofsted has already made some significant changes to support education providers’ wellbeing, but further reforms were promised in the response to last year’s Big Listen. Today’s proposals apply to inspections of early years settings, state-funded schools, non-association independent schools, FE and skills providers, and initial teacher education (ITE) providers.
New Ofsted Report Cards
The Big Listen 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 assessment of a wider set of categories, while most professionals wanted narrative descriptions of performance.
Today’s 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 and learners. 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.

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, through ‘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 seeking feedback on the proposed layout for the new inspection reports and has produced this video demonstrating how they could look.
Disadvantage and inclusion
Under the proposals, evaluation areas differ slightly by education phase (i.e. 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 disadvantaged children and learners, including those with SEND, making sure these children are always at the centre of inspection.
Taking context into account
Ofsted is also proposing to include more contextual data in inspections and reports, such as learner characteristics, performance outcomes, absence and attendance figures, and local area demographics. Inspectors will use this information to help understand the circumstances in which leaders are operating and to assess their work in context – for instance, whether they are working hard in a disadvantaged area facing particular challenges, or – if they have a high-attaining intake – whether they are stretching their most able pupils. This will help parents make national and local comparisons, and comparisons between providers working in similar contexts.
Tailoring inspections to each phase of education
Under the proposals, the inspection process will be better tailored to the phase and type of provider, to make sure the focus is on what really matters for children and learners in that setting. New inspection ‘toolkits’ list the standards that each type of provider will be evaluated against.
These toolkits provide more detail and transparency about what will be considered on inspection. They are intended to help drive greater consistency on inspection and give providers clarity about the expected standards and what they need to do to improve.
Changes to Monitoring Arrangements for Schools
From autumn 2025, it’s 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. Ofsted 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’. Ofsted will only monitor for as long as is necessary to see a tangible difference for children.
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.”
Tom Rees, CEO of Ormiston Academies Trust & Chair of the DfE Expert Advisory Group for Inclusion said:
“It is right that Ofsted is putting disadvantaged children and children with SEND at the heart of their reforms. Inclusion should not be a secondary consideration, but a fundamental principle of schooling and education – a truly great education system serves the needs of all children.
“It is vital that schools, nurseries and colleges have the highest possible expectations for all children. Schools with expert teaching, a stretching curriculum, high standards of behaviour and attendance are the entitlement of every child – especially the most vulnerable.”
Jason Elsom, Chief Executive of Parentkind said:
“We know that an effective partnership between school and home is a cornerstone of the most successful of schools, enhances pupil well-being, and can add the equivalent impact of up to three years of education.
“Schools increasingly face issues with attendance, behaviour, and the mental health and well-being of their pupils. Years of evidence shows that getting parental engagement right is vital to reducing these challenges, which is why we welcome Ofsted making parental engagement an important part of the process for inspecting schools.
“We are delighted to have supported Ofsted’s work on a new Report Card for schools, which recognises the need for school leaders to focus on building sustainable, long-term partnerships with parents, as well as the role of parents in helping improve behaviour and attitudes to learning, attendance, and personal development and well-being. Getting this right will deliver significant benefits for schools and children.”
The consultation will run for 12 weeks, from 3 February to 28 April. As well as the online survey, Ofsted will hold focus groups during the consultation period. Formal pilots of the inspection approach and further user testing of report cards will also be carried out over the coming months, to help inform and improve the proposals.
Ofsted will publish a report on the outcome of the consultation in the summer, reflecting on all feedback and challenge received. The final agreed reforms will then be piloted again across all education remits, before being formally implemented from autumn 2025.
Changes to children’s social care inspections will follow in 2026.
Sector Reaction
Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:
“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.
“Rather than securing high and rising standards – something we all want to see – this is a sure-fire way of doing the exact opposite. People will vote with their feet by leaving teaching which will worsen an already severe recruitment and retention crisis.
“We will end up without teachers to teach children and leaders to lead schools.
“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.
“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.
“And the vast majority of schools which are providing a high standard of education will continue to feel that this is not good enough if they don’t achieve a prized ‘strong’ or ‘exemplary’ grade.
“It seems that the government will then add to the chaos with a support system administered by its planned regional improvement for standards and excellence teams which is so muddled as to be barely comprehensible and is unlikely to have anything like the capacity required to be effective.
“All of this will have a devastating impact on the wellbeing of teachers and leaders and will be intensely demoralising for parents and children. We are extremely disappointed with these proposals and will do everything possible to persuade Ofsted and the government to see sense.
“School and college leaders had high hopes that an approach to inspection based on report cards might be more nuanced and humane. Sadly, the way in which Ofsted and the government are going about this suggests that the opposite will be the case.
“It is essential that the inspection system is clear to parents and has the confidence of the profession. These plans achieve neither objective.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union, NAHT said:
“The proposals set out today for consultation suggest an inspectorate determined to hold on to a model of inspection that is long past its sell-by date.
“The plan to retain numbered sub-judgements risks replicating the worst aspects of the current system and will do little to reduce the enormous pressure school leaders are under.
“Given that Ofsted previously struggled to provide reliable judgements using a 4-point scale, it is very hard to see how they will be able to do against a 5-point one. As other inspectorates have shown, there is another way – a way to provide clearer information for parents and schools without resorting to grades.
“Avoiding the harm to education professionals caused by an outdated approach is not going soft on standards. The opposite is true, the current system is at the root of the teacher and leader retention crisis which in itself is a threat to the education we can deliver to children.
“The decision to remove overarching judgements was absolutely the right one and we welcome the confirmation these will not be returning, but as school leaders made clear at the time, that must be a first step towards fundamental reform of a broken system. School leaders do not want to see evolution of a system that has caused so much harm over many years.
“We are very concerned about the design of the consultation. By using open-ended, free-text questions, Ofsted will be able to avoid gathering data accurately to gauge whether there is genuine support for the model it appears to have already chosen. Picking out what parents and professionals really think will be virtually impossible and the design risks losing sight of the wood for the trees. Ofsted is refusing to ask simple and straightforward questions about the extent to which stakeholders support these proposals.
“As a public body, Ofsted must do better than this – parents and professionals should be presented with a set of genuine options. Arbitrary deadlines must not be used to push reforms through if the support is not there.”
Natalie Perera, Chief Executive at the Education Policy Institute said:
“The need for reform of the accountability system is clear and Ofsted are right to consider the impact of disadvantage and inclusion. The current system does not paint a fair picture of school effectiveness with schools serving disadvantaged communities being far more likely to be labelled as underperforming, and performance measures can act as a disincentive to be inclusive for all pupils.
“We have long argued for a more rounded accountability system. Our own measures of performance for school groups illustrate a potential approach to providing a more nuanced summary of schools to include pupil outcomes and progression, pupil inclusion, and workforce and financial management.”
“There will rightly be concerns about the capacity and ability of Ofsted inspection teams to provide consistent and reliable judgements across a wide range of measures, given the relatively limited time that they spend in schools. Both Ofsted and the Department for Education should consider whether some of these areas might be better served by the more frequent data collections that already exist.
“The proposed approach to reporting, with the same type of judgement in each area, will unfortunately make it relatively easy for users to combine measures. This risks taking us back to simple overall judgements, precisely what Ofsted are attempting to move away from. Schools and academy trusts are complex organisations, and for most, there will be areas of strength, and areas where more support may be needed.”
Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT General Secretary, said:
“It is to be welcomed that the Chief Inspector has committed to a genuine consultation around essential reforms to the inspection system in England. No one should be in any doubt that reform is necessary and long overdue.
“However, it is deeply regrettable that the proposals published by Ofsted highlight how far away we still are from developing a fit-for-purpose approach to school accountability that serves the public interest whilst respecting, supporting and valuing the work of the teaching profession.
“Whilst we will be seeking engagement on the detail set out in Ofsted’s proposals, it is already clear that further significant changes are still needed to the way in which inspections are undertaken and their outcomes reported.
“Some of the proposals Ofsted has put forward may have merit, but others fail to address the root problems and could make the experience of inspection even worse.
“Reform of inspection must not be limited to tinkering at the edges with grading scales and descriptors; we need to see fundamental reform to the climate, conditions and culture of the wider accountability framework within which Ofsted operates.
“Whilst we welcome the Chief Inspector’s commitment to securing a constructive and collaborative relationship with the profession, we are concerned that the continuing high stakes system of inspection and accountability will do more harm than good and will not help Ofsted to build a relationship of trust with the profession.
“The reforms needed will also require changes to be made by the government as well as by Ofsted.
“We still need to see the government addressing the flawed legislative framework within which Ofsted is required to operate and which continues to undermine trust in inspection.
“We have been clear from the outset that any effective reform to inspection must be capable of commanding the support of the profession. To date, we have seen too little engagement, especially on the big idea of the Report Card. This 12-week consultation must now provide the opportunity to lift the lid on Ofsted’s proposals and examine these changes in detail.
“However, we are concerned that by insisting on a timescale for implementing these reforms from autumn 2025, the government risks preventing deep and meaningful engagement and testing of proposals that needs to be undertaken with the sector to ensure that the effectiveness of these reforms. If more time is needed, the government and Ofsted must ensure that more time is given to get these changes right.
“It must never be forgotten that the impetus for the development of these proposals and recent debates about inspection and accountability were a consequence of the tragic death of headteacher Ruth Perry. It is vital that Ofsted and the Chief Inspector are able to demonstrate through this consultation that these proposals will ensure that all future inspections are carried out with professionalism, empathy, courtesy and respect.”
Green Party Education Spokesperson, Vix Lowthian, said:
“Ofsted isn’t working. For teachers or parents.
“We’ve seen the toxic impact it can have on teachers and we know it doesn’t serve children.
“These reforms are too close to the previous failed model.
“We must instead scrap Ofsted and end the era of forcing teachers into narrowly defined boxes.
“To replace it we need a collaborative model connecting teachers on the frontline with local experts.
“By connecting them with specialists in pedagogy, child development and social care we can encourage teacher retention, tailor support to local circumstances and drive much better local and national outcomes.”
Gemma Baker, Area Director (SE) & Senior Policy Lead (Ofsted Inspection) said:
“We welcome the opportunity to engage in the Ofsted inspections consultation and we will be urging each and every college to respond, while we work together with our members on an AoC response.”
Simon Ashworth, Director of Policy and Deputy Chief Executive at AELP said:
“My initial thought on the report card is that Ofsted has swung from a fairly simplistic approach to a much more granular one in these proposals. For providers who deliver in all four funding areas that’s an awful lot of different grading. Much more manageable if the provider only delivers apprenticeships.
The new five-point grading scale is something AELP originally called for through the Big Listen, so on the face of it that’s positive as a concept. But there are other things to consider too when you get into the details of the proposals. For example, Ofsted says that they also plan to “no longer use the deep-dive methodology.” That one might be a marmite decision.
Over the next few weeks, AELP is running a series of virtual roundtable events to talk and listen to our members to get their feedback on these proposals.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said:
“School leaders share the education secretary’s determination to ensure that all children, no matter what their background, receive a first-rate education, and they welcome fair, proportionate accountability. However, we are deeply concerned that many of Ofsted’s proposals will hinder, not help in this mission.
“The inspectorate previously struggled to offer a fair reliable and consistent single-word rating during a two-day inspection, harming teacher and leader retention and driving sky-high rates of ill health. Rather than engage in fundamental reform it seems to think it can judge multiple complex areas in the same timeframe, piling more unnecessary pressure on school leaders and their staff working hard to deliver for pupils.
“What’s needed is a constructive approach to schools facing the greatest challenges to improve, supported by significantly more investment. We urgently need to better understand how RISE teams will work alongside schools – but make no mistake, if their operation is informed by a flawed inspection framework this will undermine their effectiveness.
“It’s important this government makes a clean break from the past and avoid using the same old tired tropes from previous administrations which focused on blaming and shaming, rather than working with schools. The current accountability system unfairly penalises schools working in the most difficult circumstances. Labelling schools which face the most significant challenges has helped no-one. We desperately need a new approach where everyone works together to ensure those schools have the resources and support they need to succeed.
“The education secretary stressed the importance in her speech of hearing the views of everyone during the forthcoming consultation, but it will be crucial she acts upon the concerns raised to ensure these plans are redrawn to focus on a more nuanced and helpful narrative of schools’ strengths and weaknesses rather than crude sub-grades.
“That might mean delaying implementation of reform, but for the sake of our children it’s absolutely essential we get this right.”
Mark Simpkins, FE Quality Consulting:
“The shift to a five-point scale (from “causing concern” to “exemplary”) appears more nuanced than the current four-point system, but the implications are far more complex than initially apparent. For FE colleges offering full provision across all streams, the number of judgments will double from ten to twenty areas. As ASCL’s Pepe Di’Iasio points out, this 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.‘
“The impact on different provider types highlights significant equity concerns. For FE providers delivering across all four funding streams (16-19, Adult Education, Apprenticeships, and High Needs), this creates an overwhelming matrix of judgments, while specialist providers might face a more manageable scope, yet still more than this current framework. This disparity raises questions about whether the system achieves its core aim of providing clearer information for stakeholders.
“For me, these changes, at face value, seem like just a ‘complicated repackage’ version of what we currently have: Evolution, not revolution.”
Louise Doyle, Chief Executive Officer of Mesma said:
“Whilst I need more time to digest and work through the implications of the proposals for the inspectors trying to make valid, reliable and consistent judgments, the schools, colleges, training providers, universities and adult community learning providers being inspected, and stakeholders such as parents and students trying to make sense of the resulting report card, I do have some immediate reactions.
“Firstly, stepping up the emphasis on inclusion is long overdue and should be welcomed. The current system does not fully recognise this, yet it permeates through the work of every provider from early years to further education and skills. However, against a backdrop of the known SEND crisis, where schools are the frontline for family support and FE inherits young people who do not feel supported by the system, I’m keen to understand how system failures will be accounted for.
“Secondly, I’m struggling to understand how the complex structure of grading can be achieved effectively without risk of challenge during the short window of an inspection. It highlights the critical role of the provider’s model of quality assurance to ensure robust conversations are had where needed.
“Thirdly, whilst I firmly believe in a system of accountability for education, I’m unclear why a report card full of reds and not quite reds will be less stressful than receiving a single grade. And finally, I recall my first inspection all those years ago in FE. With five grades. There’s a reason we moved away from it so I’m wondering what lessons were learned from that, in order that the reintroduction of a fifth grade is done with history in mind.”
Responses