DfE scraps Ofsted single-word school inspection grades

Single-word overall school inspection grades will be scrapped with immediate effect and a new scorecard approach to rating school performance will be introduced next year as part of “generational” reform, the government has announced today.

Labour’s manifesto-pledge school report cards are set to be introduced in September 2025. Schools will keep existing single-word grades until they are re-inspected by Ofsted, with the government set to consult the sector on its new report-card model.

In the meantime, schools inspected from September will only receive the four grades across the existing sub-categories: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management.

Ofsted grades: how will they work?

The Department for Education said that it will continue to intervene in poorly performing schools, according to its legal duty in the 2005 Education Act, including issuing academy orders and termination warning notices.

As a result, Ofsted will continue to be legally required to identify schools that are “causing concern” - previously rated as “inadequate” - and notify the education secretary, the DfE said.

Where schools had received two “requires improvement” grades in the now-defunct headline grade system and were due to convert or transfer before Christmas, that process will continue.

The end of ‘double RI’

However, schools due to transfer or convert after Christmas will now get targeted support from a “high-performing school” instead.

Where a school is identified from September onwards as having weaknesses in sub-categories but is not “causing concern”, it will also get support from a high-performing school.

From early 2025, schools in this category will also be offered support from new regional improvement teams, the details of which are not yet set out.

School standards

The government said that the move would “boost school standards” and replace a system that “fails to provide a fair and accurate assessment of overall school performance across a range of areas” and that is “supported by a minority of parents and teachers”

Only 29 per cent of professionals and 38 per cent of parents supported single-word judgements for overall effectiveness, according to findings from Ofsted’s Big Listen consultation, due to be published tomorrow.

More on Ofsted reform:

• Sir Martyn Oliver: We accept the criticism and will change
• Overall Ofsted judgement scrapped, but challenges remain
• Ofsted report card model should have ‘slim’ set of standards

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “The removal of headline grades is a generational reform and a landmark moment for children, parents, and teachers.”

She added that the judgements were “low information for parents and high stakes for schools”.

Ofsted previously awarded one of four headline grades to schools it inspects: “outstanding”, “good”, “requires improvement” and “inadequate”.

Ofsted report card

During the general election earlier this year, Labour pledged to replace single-word judgements with a report-card system and introduce an annual safeguarding check, which would look at attendance and off-rolling.

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) suggested in a recent discussion paper that the scorecard model should be “flexible” and based on a “set of slim standards” for all schools, encouraging “collaboration” over “competition”.

There has been a growing clamour for change from across the school sector since the death of headteacher Ruth Perry last year. Ms Perry took her own life after an Ofsted report downgraded her school, Caversham Primary School in Reading, from the watchdog’s highest rating to its lowest over safeguarding concerns.

A coroner subsequently ruled there was a risk of future deaths unless action was taken to address concerns.

A ‘fairer’ inspection of schools

Welcoming the changes to the inspection system, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said that “this is an important first step towards building a fairer, more humane approach to school inspection”.

However, he added that the union “would have liked the government to have gone further by also removing sub-judgements from inspections”.

He added it was now “vitally important that the grades do not end up being used as proxy measures”, which would risk maintaining the “many risks and harms associated with high-stakes inspection”.

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of ASCL, said the union was “delighted” that “damaging and counterproductive” single-word headline grades were being removed with immediate effect, but warned that the “big challenge” would now be to ensure “we get this right and that we don’t end up replacing one flawed system with another flawed system”.

The sister of Ruth Perry, Professor Julia Waters, who has been leading a campaign for inspection reform, said that the family was “delighted and relieved that the government has taken this important and long-overdue step”.

Move to ‘more intelligent’ accountability model

Steve Rollett, deputy CEO of the Confederation of School Trusts, said that the organisation had been “concerned for some time that the risks of Ofsted using single-phrase overall judgements may outweigh any benefits” and welcomed the move as “the start of a longer process to recalibrate how accountability is enacted in education”.

He added that the announcement “potentially represents a move towards a more intelligent model of accountability that more transparently represents the nuanced and multifaceted nature of complex organisations”.

The DfE said that it will announce further information on the new Regional Improvement Teams in due course.

Leaders ‘delighted’ but details will be ‘crucial’

Sector leaders have responded positively to the changes in general, although some have emphasised the need for more information on what will replace one-phrase judgements, and highlighted the potential for multiple grades to cause “confusion”.

Seamus Murphy, chief executive of Turner Schools, said: “While we are delighted that the government is dropping the single-word judgements, the details around report cards are going to be crucial.”

And without significant reforms to the curriculum, “too many children continue to be judged as failures and cannot access high-quality further education and training”, he added.

Meanwhile, Tom Campbell, CEO at E-Act, said that the sector ”needs to understand how this will change the experience of inspection for schools and address the issues the sector has raised on quality and consistency of inspection”. 

Mohsen Ojja, CEO of Anthem Schools Trust, said that removing single-word judgements will allow for a more nuanced understanding of school performance.

However, he added: “I have concerns about the potential confusion that multiple grades could create for parents, as well as the continued reliance on an inspection system with unresolved systemic issues such as assessment accuracy and workforce quality.”

Becks Boomer-Clark, CEO of Academies Enterprise Trust, said: “Any move to recognise the complexity of school improvement and its many contributing factors should be cautiously welcomed, particularly if it creates the space for leaders to pursue sustainable improvement at depth, which lasts, rather than creating perverse incentives to chase superficial quick wins.”