Ofsted Parent View: guidance for schools
Source: gov.uk (2025-11-27)

This guidance explains Ofsted Parent View. Schools can use it to encourage parents and carers to share their experiences of their child’s school.

November 2025 update

The Ofsted Parent View online survey has been revised to reflect the changes made by Ofsted to the education inspection framework (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-inspection-framework). The new questions ask more clearly about what matters to pupils, parents and inspectors, including:
- whether a child feels safe and happy at the school, and that they belong and can thrive there
- how the school promotes positive behaviour and a culture where every pupil can achieve and feel respected
Introduction

Ofsted Parent View is an online survey where parents can share their views about their child’s school. Parents can complete the survey at any time. By ‘parents’, we mean anyone with parental responsibility for a child at the school.

Ofsted Parent View is our main online tool for hearing views from parents about their child’s school. When a school is notified of an inspection, parents can share their views through a short survey. Schools can also encourage parents to complete the survey outside inspection periods.

You can access the survey directly from the Ofsted Parent View site (https://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk/).

Ofsted Parent View questions

Every registered parent and carer can share their views on the following:
- My child is/children are happy at this school.
- My child feels/children feel safe at this school.
- The school makes sure its pupils are well behaved.
- Has your child/Have any of your children been bullied at this school? [If you answer ‘Yes’ we ask your view on ‘When the bullying took place, the school dealt with it quickly and effectively’.]
- Does your child/do any of your children at the school have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)? [If you answer ‘Yes’ we ask your view on ‘The school gives them the support they need to succeed’.]
- The school communicates well with me about the things I need to know.
- When I have raised concerns with the school, they have been dealt with properly.
- When the school makes decisions, it has the child’s best interests at heart.
- The school gives my child/children the right support to enable them to learn well.
- Would you recommend this school to another parent?
The standard responses are:
- strongly agree
- agree
- neither agree nor disagree
- disagree
- strongly disagree
- don’t know
There are additional responses in some instances.

Schools with boarding and residential provision

We have 5 more statements for parents with children who board or reside at these types of schools:
- maintained schools and academies
- independent schools that are not members of associations
- some non-maintained special schools
If your child is a boarder or in residential provision, you will also be asked the following questions:
- My child/children enjoy(s) boarding and feel(s) well cared for.
- My child/children is/are warm enough and comfortable in the residential accommodation.
- The experience of boarding/welfare helps my child/children’s progress and development.
- I can easily contact the staff who care for my child/children.
Free-text response

The survey includes an additional question during an inspection. This allows parents to use their own words to express their views about their child’s school.

We do not publish the responses to this question.

We warn parents not to use this option for:
- urgent issues
- safeguarding concerns
- complaints
It also explains that:
- comments are confidential and anonymised
- we will not contact parents about their comments
Engaging with parents

You can use the Ofsted Parent View poster (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d67908f40f0b607c8970beb/Ofsted_Parent_View_poster.pdf) (PDF, 139 KB, 1 page) to help you raise awareness and encourage parents to share their views.

Use Ofsted Parent View link and images

You can add a link to Ofsted Parent View on your own:
- website
- school newsletter
- emails and letters to parents
Schools receive a higher number of responses from parents when they have actively promoted the survey to parents.

You can download Ofsted Parent View logos, links and poster (https://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk/link-to-us).

Guest accounts

We can set up guest accounts for you to use with parents on a computer or tablet device in school. With these guest accounts, parents can use logins created for the school to make it easier for them to give their views.

These are a good way of encouraging parents to complete the survey, particularly at parents’ evenings and school events.

Request Parent View guest accounts (https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=nScIp4jeYkuVYIWmvowIzN0VRgr1gOdHhUbGSJ9fVi1UQ0ZES1E4SDlEQVc5WlBRMEJaTkJIVU5aSC4u)

Please give 5 working days’ notice before you need to use the accounts.

Your school’s network may be set to block access to secure HTTPS sites. If so, you will need to remove this restriction to be able to view Ofsted Parent View on your school network.

Viewing results

We publish a school’s result to any given question only when there are at least 10 responses from parents to that question. At that point, the information about that question will be available to view in Ofsted Parent View for:
- schools
- parents
- the general public
Ofsted Parent View displays data about each school in percentages and easy-to-understand graphs.

We save the results for each school in Ofsted Parent View at the end of the academic year. This gives headteachers and governors a useful year-on-year picture of parents’ views.

Schools can sign up to the Ofsted Parent View site to receive regular email alerts about responses once we make the results public. You can choose how often you want to receive alerts, for example daily, weekly or monthly.

National data

We publish national response rates (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/ofsted-parent-view-management-information) for all schools for both maintained and independent schools 3 times per year.

Ofsted Parent View gives response rates for maintained schools by phase.

The report details:
- responses to Ofsted Parent View by question and response
- average number of submissions per school nationally
- total number of submissions received to Ofsted Parent View in the last 12 months
Using parents’ views

During inspections

We ask the headteacher to notify parents about the inspection and invite them to complete the Ofsted Parent View survey.

Inspectors will review the responses from Ofsted Parent View at various points during the inspection to ensure that they take into account all parents’ views received during the inspection. If the response rate is low, inspectors may take steps during the inspection to gather more parents’ views.

Inspectors will consider and weigh parents’ views against a range of other first-hand evidence they gather through the inspection.

Other evidence includes:
- learning walks and visits to lessons
- discussions with pupils, teachers and senior leaders
- progress and attainment data
- other relevant information
Read our guidance for inspectors and schools on inspecting maintained schools and academies (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-toolkit-operating-guide-and-information).

Outside of inspections

Parents can give their feedback using Ofsted Parent View at any time during the year. Information from Ofsted Parent View responses may also contribute to Ofsted’s annual risk assessment of a school, to help decide if and when the school should be inspected.

Ofsted Parent View keeps only a parent’s most recent survey responses. If a parent updates their responses in the survey for a school more than once in an academic year, only the most recent responses will show.

Security

Ofsted Parent View is set up securely.

Parents must:
- register with a password
- verify their email address
- accept the terms of use
The log-on process needs to be simple to encourage parents to use it. We have put in place a range of measures to make Ofsted Parent View more secure, minimise the risk of abuse by individuals or small groups, and make sure that all schools are treated fairly. We also have systems in place to alert us to any potential signs of misuse.

If you are a headteacher of a school and you are concerned about your school’s survey results, please contact xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx). If you have any general enquiries about Ofsted Parent View, please contact xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx)