Improving the way Ofsted inspects education
Source: gov.uk (2025-09-08)

We asked parents, carers, professionals and learners what they thought about our proposals to improve education inspections and our new report cards for providers.

We have postponed the publication date for our consultation response from the summer term to September 2025 due to the extensive feedback we received. This will give us more time to analyse responses and carry out further testing of our proposals to refine and improve the final approach. You can find more information in our press release (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ofsted-confirms-september-publication-for-consultation-response-ahead-of-new-look-education-inspections-from-november).

Are you a parent or carer?

We want to hear what you think about our plans for clearer, easier-to-read report cards. Watch this video to see an example.

Tell us what you think (https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/ofsted2025/)

New report cards - Ofsted’s Chief Inspector explains our proposals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqK_sQHxYOQ)

Consultation overview

We want to know what you think about our proposed plans for inspecting schools and other settings where children and adults learn. This includes:
- early years
- state-funded schools
- non-association independent schools
- further education and skills (FE and skills)
- initial teacher education (ITE)
In summary, we propose:

Report cards – these would give parents and carers more detailed information than the current reports, including a new 5-point grading scale to evaluate more areas of a provider’s work and short summaries of what inspectors found.

Education inspection toolkits – this tool shows providers and inspectors the evaluation areas that we’ll focus inspections on and how we’ll assess and grade providers (scroll down to see our toolkits).

Inspection methodology – changes to how we carry out inspection.

Full inspections and monitoring inspections, state-funded schools – we plan to end ungraded inspections of state-funded schools and change our monitoring programmes so that we can check that timely action is taken to raise standards.

Identifying state-funded schools causing concern – a new approach to how we’ll place a school into a category of concern.

Read our full plans (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-the-way-ofsted-inspects-education/improving-the-way-ofsted-inspects-education-consultation-document)

Share your views

Respond to the consultation (https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/ofsted2025/)

The Department for Education is consulting separately on proposed changes to intervention and support in maintained schools and academies. Share your views (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/school-accountability-reform).

Supporting documents

Alongside the consultation document, we’re also publishing:

separate proposed toolkits for early years, state-funded schools, non-association independent schools, FE and skills and ITE

an equality impact assessment

an implementation review (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-inspection-framework-implementation-review) of the current education inspection framework

a list of references highlighting the statutory guidance, non-statutory guidance, professional standards and research papers used to inform the proposed toolkits and proposed inspection methodology