Single headline Ofsted grades scrapped with immediate effect today

Single headline grades for schools will be scrapped with immediate effect, the government has announced today.

The Department for Education said ‘reductive’ single headline grades fail to provide a fair and accurate assessment of overall school performance across a range of areas and are supported by a minority of parents and teachers.

For inspections this academic year, parents will see four grades across the existing sub-categories: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development and leadership & management.

The government said the reform prepares for the introduction of school report cards from September 2025, which it said will provide parents with a full and comprehensive assessment of how schools are performing and ensure that inspections are more effective in driving improvement. Recent data shows that reports cards are supported by 77 per cent of parents.

The government said it will continue to intervene in poorly performing schools to ensure high school standards for children.

Bridget Phillipson, education secretary, said: “The need for Ofsted reform to drive high and rising standards for all our children in every school is overwhelmingly clear. The removal of headline grades is a generational reform and a landmark moment for children, parents, and teachers.

“Single headline grades are low information for parents and high stakes for schools. Parents deserve a much clearer, much broader picture of how schools are performing – that’s what our report cards will provide.

“This government will make inspection a more powerful, more transparent tool for driving school improvement. We promised change, and now we are delivering.”

As part of today’s announcement, where schools are identified as struggling, the government said it will prioritise rapidly getting plans in place to improve the education and experience of children, rather than relying purely on changing schools’ management.

From early 2025, the government will also introduce ‘regional improvement teams’ that it said will work with struggling schools to quickly and directly address areas of weakness, meeting a manifesto commitment.

The government said that today’s announcement follows engagement with the sector and family of headteacher Ruth Perry, after a coroner’s inquest found the Ofsted inspection process had contributed to her death.

Jason Elsom, chief executive of Parentkind, stated today’s announcement was a step in the right direction, saying: “Parents have been very clear that they want to see changes to the way Ofsted reports back after visiting a school, and it is welcome to see a clear timetable being set out today for moving towards a report card that will give parents greater clarity of the performance of their children’s school.

“We need to make sure that we get this right for parents, as well as schools.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the school leaders’ union, NAHT, said the association welcomed the change, saying: “This is an important first step towards building a fairer, more humane approach to school inspection. We have repeatedly called for such a measure to be taken and are pleased that the government has taken swift action whilst it works towards more fundamental reform.

“We are equally pleased that the government intends to place a stronger emphasis on supporting schools to improve where they need help, rather than defaulting to heavy-handed intervention or knee-jerk changes of governance structures.

“We would have liked the government to have gone further by also removing sub-judgements from inspections.  It will be vitally important that the grades do not end up being used as proxy measures or given any sort of elevated status. 

“Doing so would undermine the positive benefits of removing the headline grade, and risk maintaining the many risks and harms associated with high stakes inspection.”

Jo Henney, CEO of charity Nugent, said: “I welcome the news that Ofsted has reviewed its inspection rating system for education settings and will refrain from issuing single word inspection grades with immediate effect. This is a step in the right direction.

“No two days are the same in the education sector and to define the outcomes of a provision using only one word can be catastrophic, as we’ve seen with the tragic death of primary school teacher Ruth Perry.

“As a charity that has a range of social care services including an independent special school, it’s vital that the inspection system has more clarity, consideration of what impacts a school on a daily basis, and recognises the hard work involved in providing care and education to children all year round for us and mainstream settings.”

Where necessary, in cases of the most serious concern, the government will continue to intervene, including by issuing an academy order, which may in some cases mean transferring to new management. Ofsted will continue to identify these schools – which would have been graded as inadequate.

The government also currently intervenes where a school receives two or more consecutive judgements of ‘requires improvement’ under the ‘2RI’ policy. With the exception of schools already due to convert to academies this term, this policy will change. The government will now put in place support for these schools from a high performing school, helping to drive up standards quickly.