From September 2025, after a consultation, a new “report card” will come into effect. The frequency of future inspections will also be determined by the consultation.
The changes are partly in response to the wave of criticism that the rating system received after Ruth Perry’s death in January 2023.
The coroner who investigated her death highlighted concerns that one-word judgements meant the same grading of “inadequate” could be given to a school which “is dreadful in all respects”, and to another which is good but with issues which could have been remedied by the time the Ofsted report was published.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has denied that the new system lacks the simplicity of the old one, and said it would provide parents with a “richer picture” of what a school does well, and where it requires improvement.
Estyn in Wales and the body which inspects Church of England schools and academies, external have both already moved away from a single grade approach.
