Evaluation areas, toolkits and operating guides
Use the toolkits and operating guides to get to know the six core evaluation areas, allocating responsibility for different evaluation areas across your team where you have the capacity to do so.
Judgements and self-evaluation
Use self-evaluation to build a sense of where you believe your school should fit on the report card, identifying particular strengths and areas for development and be prepared to argue for this.
Data and context
Ofsted inspectors will use your school’s Inspection Data Summary Report to inform their evaluations. This includes data on school characteristics (such as percentage of students with SEND and deprivation among your pupil base), absence and attendance, entries to qualifications and pupil achievement. It also includes a “similar schools” comparison, to show how pupils in your school are achieving compared to schools in a similar context.
Understand your data and be ready to share the story that it tells, outlining how it informs your practice, and be sure that inspectors understand your context and your community, both at the level of the school and the locality.
Inclusion and engagement
Focus on inclusion in each of the evaluation areas, concentrating your attention on educational experiences and outcomes for those who might be deemed vulnerable, especially those cohorts identified by Ofsted.
Wellbeing and workload
Be able to demonstrate how you pro-actively address wellbeing and workload issues for staff and wellbeing and development needs of pupils, identifying how you capture evidence on this and actions that you have taken to address any identified wellbeing challenges.
Organisation and curriculum delivery
Given that full inspections will ordinarily be notified on a Monday and take place on a Tuesday and Wednesday, ensure that you have a sense of what you wish to showcase on these days – think about subjects, year groups, curriculum enrichment and extra-curricular activities that you want to showcase through the ‘learning walk’ (the methodology replacing ‘deep dives’ and where lesson visits will take place.)
Governors and trustees
Work with the Chair of your governing board to clarify the role that you need the governing (and, where applicable, trust) board to play in the inspection process and ensure that individual governors and trustees understand how the inspection process works and their part in supporting the school during an inspection. They might need training on this and a clear understanding of what could be asked, in order for governors to feel confident to participate.
Remind governors and trustees that the former ‘Leadership and Management’ evaluation area is now framed as ‘Leadership and Governance’. Under this evaluation area, governors are expected to “ensure that the school’s provision enables every pupil to thrive” and show commitment to “raising standards of education and care” for all pupils.
Knowledge and networking
Draw on the Ofsted materials posted in the Ofsted Academy portal and liaise with those in leadership roles in other local schools to build an understanding of how inspection is being delivered and experienced ‘on the ground’.
Preparation and readiness
Identify, in advance, who you wish to engage in the pre-inspection planning call (which is likely now to be a video rather than phone call), the key issues that you intend to raise in this call, the individual who you plan to identify as the link with the inspectors during the inspection (the ‘nominee’ role), and where you will base the inspectors during the inspection. Feel empowered to show your expertise and explain your strategy and planning. In particular, you should be prepared to speak about:
- The nature and impact of your school’s context during the phone call, including any ‘low visibility’ aspects of context that may not be revealed by Ofsted’s pre-inspection data analysis.
- How you understand and are acting on any issues that may have emerged through Ofsted’s data analysis, such as differences in outcomes or attendance for disadvantaged students,
- How schools in similar contexts are performing, and how the performance of your school compares with others, locally and nationally.
The call is also an opportunity to point inspectors towards data sets and trends that may not have emerged in the inspectors’ pre-inspection analysis.
Outlook and orientation
Be inspection-aware but not inspection-driven. Utilise the prospect of inspection as a development opportunity. Take Sir Martyn Oliver at his word, that “inspection should be done with and not to schools”.
During the inspection
Promoting the Parent View survey
After you’ve been notified about inspection, inspectors will ask you to notify parents and invite them to complete Ofsted’s parent view survey. This will allow parents to share their own feedback on your school with Ofsted. Inspectors may use survey responses to shape their initial discussion with you and other school leaders and review the responses at various points during the inspection.
Requesting a reasonable adjustment
If any of your staff members who will be involved in the inspection process require a reasonable adjustment or adaption during the inspection, you should raise this during the planning call. Inspectors have a statutory obligation to consider making reasonable adjustments for any disabled person involved in an inspection, or adaptions for someone who may otherwise be put at a disadvantage because of a protected characteristic where there is no objective justification for refusing to make the adaptation.
Deferring an inspection
You can ask to defer an inspection under limited and exceptional circumstances, such as where your wellbeing would be severely impacted and there is no other senior leader who could step in, or if there’s been a serious incident at your school.
You should make your deferral request as soon as possible to the inspection support administrator or the inspector who has notified you. The request should be confirmed in writing.
You can read more on deferring an inspection here.
Raising concerns during the inspection
You or your staff may have concerns during the inspection process. Concerns could relate to inspectors’ code of conduct, lack of clear communication, or a sense that inspectors are not accurately evaluating your school.
You should calmly and directly raise any concerns with the lead inspector as soon as possible. You can read more on raising a complaint here.
If your concern is not resolved through speaking to the lead inspector on-site, you can also telephone Ofsted with the number provided to you as part of the notification process.
If your concern remains unresolved, you may wish to make a complaint after you receive the draft inspection report. You can read more on this below.
The grading meeting and final feedback meeting
You should be invited to attend the inspectors’ grading meeting. Here, inspectors should:
- Check on your wellbeing
- Allow you to raise any concerns or seek clarification, including on the conduct of inspectors
- Reflect on the efficacy of any reasonable adjustments and/or adaptions and ask if you’d like to make any changes for the meeting.
At the final feedback meeting, the lead inspectors should explain their provisional grades for each evaluation area. They should provide feedback and highlight any priorities for improvement.
Ofsted may change their provisional grades for your school during their internal quality assurance process. This is more likely to happen under the new inspection framework than prior to November 2025, due to the secure fit grading model.
Commenting on the draft report
Ofsted should send you their draft report card within 18 working days of the end of inspection. You will have 5 working days to comment on the report card, where you may wish to highlight minor points relating to clarity and/or factual accuracy. However, if you have a serious issue with the inspection process that was not resolved during inspection, you should raise a formal complaint.
Raising a formal complaint
If you have a concern or complaint regarding the inspection process that was not resolved during inspection, you can raise a formal complaint. This must be done within five working days of receiving Ofsted’s draft report. You can read more on submitting a complaint here.
