The government has announced that Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, will no longer give schools a headline grade of outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.
Instead, state schools will this year receive grades in a number of sub-categories, such as behaviour and attitudes and leadership and management. A new “report card” system will be rolled out from September 2025.
There has long been debate over Ofsted’s single-word judgments – and this increased after the death by suicide of headteacher Ruth Perry in January 2023. The coroner for the case ruled that an Ofsted inspection, which saw Perry’s school downgraded from outstanding to inadequate, had contributed to her death.
Our current research focuses on examining submissions published by the Education Committee Inquiry into Ofsted, which began in 2023 after Perry’s death. The submissions came from current or former teachers, inspectors, academics, education charities, teaching unions, school and college groups and occasionally, pupils, parents, grandparents and others who were anonymous. Our analysis shows how Ofsted inspections and its judgments were described as unfair and unhealthy by many respondents.
Time and again, teachers talked of the fear and dread associated with inspections. Despite Ofsted arguing that its grades were not about teachers, many inevitably took the grades extremely personally. One submission to the inquiry said:
After the inspection of my school, I had a nervous breakdown and had to see a doctor. My teaching wasn’t criticised but I took the judgement “requires improvement” of a school I loved and had given so much to, personally … As a person, I never recovered and although I am in a better place, it has left a horrible mark on me. The thought of Ofsted fills me with dread.
Beyond this, one of us (Andrew Clapham) has spent the last ten years asking pupils, teachers, head teachers and governors about Ofsted.
Regardless of how well their school had done in its most recent inspection, overwhelmingly the same story was recounted: Ofsted was hugely problematic, and the way it ranked schools was unhelpful at best and dangerous at worst.
Governors talked about how focusing on achieving an Ofsted grading of “good” made them lose sight of what their purpose really was. One said:
I don’t even know what “good” means! Describing all the work of a [governing] board, let alone an entire school, in one word is frankly ridiculous.
The decision to remove single-word grades will be met with relief from teachers. It will in part remove some of the anxiety teachers feel about inspections, allowing them to focus more of their time on why they became teachers – their pupils.
However, in many ways the most important outcome of this announcement is not related to the grades themselves. For teachers, any reform to Ofsted indicates that their concerns regarding the inspectorate are at last being listened to.
But the stress and anxiety teachers associate with inspections will not simply disappear with this announcement. Teachers have explained that the trauma around Ofsted headline grades have been ingrained in their work, in some cases for decades. One submission to the Education Committee Inquiry into Ofsted said:
Ofsted inspections and what happens as a result are solely responsible for this haemorrhaging of quality professionals, away from the children they always wanted to serve. Being in a leadership role for the past 10 years, I have tried to support, nurture and maintain the health and well-being of my colleagues, but eventually it became a battle I could not win.
There will also be uncertainty around what will take the place of the headline grades. Ofsted’s grading has shaped almost every aspect of what schools and teachers do. Consequently, there will be concern as to how schools being inspected this year will be judged.
Simply removing the headline grades and replacing them with a report card should be only the beginning of wider ranging reform to the inspectorate.
Teachers, governors and other school employees we have worked with have consistently argued for a complete reset of Ofsted. Most notably, teachers are desperate for Ofsted to move from a disciplinary and accountability device to supporting schools to develop and improve.
Without root and branch reform, simply changing the way Ofsted reports findings will not stop the harm the inspection system can cause to schools, teachers and pupils.
Rachel Harding works for Nottingham Trent University.
Andrew Clapham receives funding from Education Training Foundation; Skills and Education Group; Skills and Education Group; The National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics.
