Ofsted Tracker, Highlights & Insights

Welcome to SAfE’s latest Ofsted tracker, highlights and insights

This month along with the Ofsted tracker for 2024-25, we are sharing details of the key changes to expect if you are inspected.
Download Surrey’s September 2024 Inspection Tracker to find your school and access data by phase and cross-phase.

Ofsted Inspection Highlights for 2023-24

  • This academic year there have been 117 inspections across Surrey Local Authority, this is a 5.5% increase on inspections compared to this time last year

  • 45% of inspections have been in maintained schools

  • 67% of inspections have been in Primary schools

  • 47% of inspections have been graded (S5)

*Data only references inspection in the 2023/24 academic year, *Data correct as of 23 September 2024, for published grades, *Data compares historic Ofsted outcomes, with graded (Section 5) outcomes since September 2021

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Number of Ofsted Inspections
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Percentage of published graded inspections
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Percentage of graded inspections
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Comparison to 2022/23
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Inspections in Primary Schools
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Inspections in Maintained Schools

Inspection Notification Pilot:

From this point, schools will usually be notified of either a graded or ungraded inspection on the Monday of the week in which it will take place (or a Tuesday if there is a Bank Holiday) Inspections will take place on a Tuesday and Wednesday with Inspectors writing the report on Thursday. The notification phone call will now be carried out from 9. The exceptions to this are where an urgent inspection takes place or when inspection has been deferred; in these situations, OFSTED will contact schools on any day of the week.

Removal of overall effectiveness grades:

OFSTED will no longer give a single word overall effectiveness grade to a school in a graded inspection. For the academic year 2024 – 2025, inspectors will still apply one of the existing four grades to the individual sub judgements they assess (quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development and leadership and management as well as Early Years provision if applicable) Schools who have an overall effectiveness grade from a previous inspection will keep their existing grade until their next inspection.

Ungraded Inspections:

Inspectors will discuss with leaders during the pre-inspection discussion and in the inspection the context, challenges and priorities of their school. The methodology remains the same in terms of inspectors gathering a top-level view of the school and following this through into the inspection. Ungraded inspections will not have deep dives but instead inspectors will look across a range of subjects and will group subjects together. For example, recognised groupings such as the arts or humanities, early English (including reading) and mathematics knowledge and skills or any other selection of subjects that are relevant given the schools context. Inspectors are likely to carry out joint visits to lessons, review pupils work and speak to pupils about their learning and will approach these flexibly to gather evidence about the quality of education relevant to that inspection.

Ungraded inspection outcomes updated:

Reflecting the removal of the overall effectiveness grade, there are now four possible outcomes for ungraded inspections;

Outcome 1:

the school has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.

Outcome 2:

evidence gathered during this inspection suggests that the schools work may have improved significantly across all areas since the previous inspection.

Outcome 3:

evidence gathered during this inspection suggests that aspects of the schools’ work may not be as strong as at the time of the previous inspection.

Outcome 4:

the school may now be inadequate in one or more of the key judgements under a graded inspection, there are serious concerns about the quality of education, pupils’ behaviour or safeguarding. In this case, the ungraded inspection will usually become a graded inspection within 48 hours.

Faster Re-Inspections for Safeguarding Issues:

A ‘Suspend and Return’ pilot Policy; meaning inspectors can halt a graded inspection to allow leaders to resolve issues with safeguarding, where it is the only issue of concern i.e. all other judgement areas are likely to be judged good or better. Where one of the other judgement areas is graded requires improvement or inadequate inspectors will conclude the inspection as normal and judge the school to have serious weaknesses. A decision on suspending an inspection is based on the wider context i.e. if inspectors judge that leaders can resolve the issues and follow the set protocols within a three-month timeframe. Where inspectors judge this is not the case, they will conclude the inspection and publish the report as normal (see p412) Inspections will continue as normal for lesser safeguarding concerns which can be remedied during the inspection.

Clarification on the SCR:

The handbook now clarifies what inspectors will look for on the SCR as part of the inspection to ensure a school is completing safer recruitment checks as set out in Keeping Children Safe in Education. (p395)

OFSTEDs Code of Conduct updated:

Setting out the ‘professionalism and sensitivity’ which providers can expect from OFSTED staff and the ‘integrity and cooperation’ expected from providers as the basis for a collaborative working relationship.

Revised Complaints Procedure:

OFSTED is introducing a new complaints system to resolve issues more quickly and transparently. This includes improved dialogue between OFSTED and schools, reducing the administrative burden on complainants by giving leaders.

Introduction of School Report Cards:

From September 2025 a new reporting style will come into effect using a Report Card. We do not yet know what these will look like as OFSTED and the DFE will be developed over the coming months.

Use of OFSTED logos:

Schools that receive a graded inspection from September 2024 onwards may no longer use the OFSTED judgement logos as they relate only to overall effectiveness which is no longer part of the inspection judgements.

Further Reading

Further Learning

SAfE’s Self Evaluation Frameworks

SAfE have worked in partnership with Evaluate My School to launch a further 2 self-evaluation frameworks for:

We continue to support and update our existing frameworks for you to use:

To access our frameworks please register here.

TESTIMONIAL

“Your visit last autumn was a catalyst for some of the transition we saw recognised today, and  prepared the team for the rigour of the inspection. As always – thank you for the insight, the feedback and the benefit of your knowledge and experience.”