Ofsted's new school 'report cards' are coming - what will they look like, and when can parents see them?
Ofsted says they will give parents ‘better and more detailed information’ at the touch of a button 💻
- Schools will soon get new Ofsted ‘report cards’ which will grade them on a five-point, colour-coded scale
- They will be assessed on at least seven different criteria - but won’t be given overall grades
- Inspections using this new system will begin in a few months’ time
- Polling shows parents generally find the new report style easy to understand
- But some educators still have concerns about the changes to inspections
Ofsted will go ahead with plans to publish new ‘report cards’ for schools based on what its inspectors find there - but it may still be some time until parents start to see them.
The Government’s schools watchdog this week confirmed that the way it inspected schools would change from later this year onwards. Schools still won’t be given overall inspection grades - a controversial practice the Government ended last year - but will instead be issued colour-coded report cards that aim to give parents a good understanding of what inspectors found at a glance.
Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver said that just as children deserve the best possible education, “their parents deserve the best possible information - and education professionals deserve to have their work fairly assessed by experts”.
“Our new report cards will give parents a clearer understanding of the strengths and areas for improvement at the places where their children learn,” he continued. “We will work with the professionals in schools, early years and further education to help them showcase the best of what they do – and help them identify where they can improve.”
But what exactly will these new report cards look like, and when will they start to become available? And finally, have earlier objections to the new system been quelled? Here’s what you need to know:
When will the new school ‘report cards’ be available?
Ofsted has confirmed that the new report card-style reports will apply to schools inspected from November 10 this year onwards. They will be issued for state-funded primary and secondary schools, early years centres, and further education or skills training centres. For independent schools which aren’t part of the Independent Schools Council, the revamped inspections will begin in January 2026.
Routine inspections for this term won’t begin until November, so no more schools are expected to be inspected under the current system. In-line with Ofsted’s usual timeframes, this means that parents will likely see the first of the new report cards published from January.
What will they look like?
Just as originally proposed back in February, the new report card system will allow parents to quickly access key information about what Ofsted inspectors found at their child’s school – or a school they are considering.
An updated mock-up of a report card shown in a new informational video (see below) shows five colour-coded categories laid out one after the other, starting with blue (exceptional) at the top, followed by dark green (strong standard), medium green (expected standard), orange (needs attention), and red (urgent improvement). Schools won’t be given any overall grades, but instead a dot for each area assessed will be placed within one of the colour-coded categories.
Safeguarding will also continue to be inspected, but standards will either be judged as ‘met’ or ‘unmet’. This information will appear in an expandable box below the at-a-glance report card.
Scrolling down, parents will find more detail on each of the different evaluation areas, grouped by the grade they have been given. New guidance shows these areas will include curriculum and teaching; achievement; inclusion (which has been newly added); leadership and governance; personal development and wellbeing; and attendance and behaviour.
Schools that offer early years provision or post-16 education (a sixth form) will also have additional categories and ratings for those. Parents can click on any of these for details on what Ofsted found during their inspection, and why the school has received a particular grade.
Further down, there will also be a section on what it is like to be a pupil at a school, which describes what student life there looks like. Other extra information available will include the next steps inspectors recommend that school leaders take to improve, as well as info on who the inspectors were, who the headteacher was, and when the actual inspection took place. There will also be a few facts and figures further down the webpage, covering actual roll size, how many pupils a school can take total, absence rates, the proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals – and even performance data.
Towards the very bottom, parents will see a new option to explore education options in their local area – as well as past Ofsted reports which they are able to scroll through. Lastly, there will be a link to the Parent View survey website, where you can share your own experiences or concerns about a school.
Are there still concerns about the new inspections?
Ofsted says that independent polling from YouGov showed strong parental support for their new approach. Almost 7 out of 10 of parents surveyed said they preferred the new-look report cards to current inspection reports, with just 15% preferring the old system. Nearly 9 out of 10 parents found the report cards easy to understand.
It had listened to feedback on the new system from parents and educators, it said, which was why its five grades had been renamed. To address concerns around workload, it would be adding an extra inspector to each inspection – as well as following other recommendations made in a new wellbeing review.
But there were still concerns from some corners, with one group – which includes headteacher Ruth Perry’s sister and several teaching union leaders – writing to the education secretary to call for the rollout to be delayed, the BBC reports. “The proven life-threatening risks associated with a grades-based schools accountability system, based on public shaming and the fear of high stakes consequences, have not changed," they wrote.
Perry’s suicide in 2023 came after an Ofsted inspection saw her Reading school downgraded from ‘outstanding’ to ‘inadequate’, and a coroner ruled that the inspection had been a contributing factor in her death. The group suggests that the new system shows Ofsted had “failed to learn the lessons” from the tragedy.
The National Education Union says that a new snap poll it conducted suggests some 88% of its members do not think the new inspection system will address the impact of Ofsted inspections on the mental health of school staff - and 9 weeks was not enough time for schools to prepare.
Want to find out more about how Ofsted inspections will be changing, and what inspectors will be looking for? You can find its freshly-updated guidance on state-funded school inspections online here.