The government has scrapped single-phrase headline Ofsted grades for schools “with immediate effect”, ahead of a switch to new report cards next September.
But schools will still receive grades in four sub-judgments and may face intervention if they fail on any of those measures or are found to have ineffective safeguarding.
Ministers are also scrapping the previous government’s coasting schools policy, which triggered intervention in schools with two or more consecutive ‘requires improvement’ judgments.
Instead, those schools will now be known as “struggling” and given support instead.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the removal of headline grades was 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.”
The immediate scrapping of headline grades will apply to state schools only. It will “follow” for private schools, early years settings, colleges, social care and initial teacher training, but the government has not said when.
Report cards from 2025, sub-judgments remain for now
Labour pledged ahead of July’s election to scrap single-phrase Ofsted judgments and replace them with a system of report cards. It followed the death of headteacher Ruth Perry.
Last November a coroner ruled an Ofsted inspection contributed to her suicide after she was told her school had been rated ‘inadequate’.
The government today confirmed the new report cards will come into effect from September 2025 following a consultation on their design and content.
Government has promised “extensive consultation with parents, schools and the sector”.
The DfE said Ofsted’s “big listen” consultation, which is set to report back tomorrow, found only three in 10 professionals and four in 10 parents supported single-phrase judgments for overall effectiveness.
The current sub-judgments of quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development and leadership and management will continue to be used until then. And schools will continue to be graded for each of those areas.
Intervention to be based on sub-grades …
Ministers said Ofsted would continue to identify, and the Department for Education would “continue to intervene where necessary, in cases of the most serious concern”.
The watchdog is under a legal duty to identify schools causing concern – defined as those requiring special measures or requiring significant improvement.
Intervention will be triggered by the sub-judgment grades, often referred-to as limiting judgments because under the previous system if one is rated ‘inadequate’, the school’s overall effectiveness of a school is deemed ‘inadequate’ too.
Intervention would include issuing an academy order, “which may in some cases mean transferring to new management” and by issuing existing academies with termination warning notices.
… but coasting schools to get support instead
However the controversial coasting schools policy is changing. Previously, schools with successive ‘requires improvement’ judgments would have been eligible for being academised or transferred to a new trust if the school was already an academy.
Now, those schools – dubbed “struggling” by the new government – will get “support from a high performing school, helping to drive up standards quickly”. However conversions due to go ahead this term will continue.
The DfE said that “where schools are identified as struggling, government will prioritise rapidly getting plans in place to improve the education and experience of children, rather than relying purely on changing schools’ management”.
New regional improvement teams that will work with those struggling schools will be introduced “from early 2025”.
Perry family ‘delighted and relieved’
Perry’s sister, Professor Julia Waters, said her family was “delighted and relieved” headline grades had been scrapped.
But she said headline grades were “just the most visible feature of a fundamentally flawed inspection system”.
“I hope this moment marks the beginning of more extensive reform of Ofsted’s punitive inspection system, and the end of its unaccountable and defensive institutional culture. Too many people in Ofsted have mistaken nastiness for rigour and inhumanity for efficiency.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers, added: “There is much work to do now in order to design a fundamentally different long-term approach to inspection and we look forward to working with government to achieve that.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, added report cards have “the potential to provide parents with a more rounded picture of their school’s performance”.
“The big challenge now is to make sure that we get this right and that we don’t end up replacing one flawed system with another flawed system.”
