A school leaders’ guide to 2025/26: Inspection and accountability – Part 1

What’s on the horizon in 2025/26?

As the summer sun begins to fade and we prepare to open our school gates again, the 2025/26 academic year comes into view – not just as a date in the diary, but as a critical juncture for education. 

This coming year, we will have to navigate a shifting policy landscape, as well as evolving societal expectations, and persistent operational pressures. 

For governors and trustees, school leaders, and teachers and staff, the key to success is not merely to respond, but to anticipate.

Indeed, strategic vision has never been more crucial. In a climate marked by constant change, those with foresight will be best placed to lead with clarity and conviction.

As such, this series of short blogs aims not just to summarise existing changes but to predict what’s yet to come. It’s a framework for professional curiosity; a panoramic view of the key themes likely to define the year ahead.

In this blog and the one that follows, we will explore…

8 Inspection and accountability

Part One

Ofsted has finally published its new inspection framework and supporting documents.

And suffice to say, it has divided professional opinion. 

As reported in SecEd, NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman thinks “Ofsted’s new approach poses a direct risk to the health and wellbeing of school leaders”. He added that, “by not only persisting with grading, but extending it across a larger number of areas, Ofsted is perpetuating a high-stakes punitive regime.”

Whiteman also pointed to Ofsted’s own independent wellbeing impact assessment which, he said, was “frankly damning”. 

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of ASCL, was also critical: “The planned introduction of this system is far too rushed and gives schools little time to prepare for a huge change in how they will be inspected.”

Ofsted’s own polling, however, tells a different story. In the inspectorate’s summary of responses to its consultation, they say that parents are “resoundingly positive” about the new report cards, with 67% preferring it to the previous system and 78% saying the information would be useful to them. 

Whatever your view, the new system is here and will govern inspections from 10 November. So, what’s in the new framework, what are the implications for school leaders and teachers, and how can we prepare for inspection under this new regime? 

Let’s start with the headlines…

Three principles

The inspection process is underpinned by 3 principles:

1. Achieve
2. Belong
3. Thrive

Inspectors are asked to use these principles as their guiding stars during inspection and thus school leaders and teachers would do well to adopt them as a shared language. 

Ask: 

• What do we do as a school to ensure that every pupil, regardless of background and need, is helped to achieve good academic outcomes and develop as a person so that they are prepared for the next stage of their journey? What do our outcomes look like in their broadest sense and do those with differences and disadvantages achieve in line with their peers? 
• What do we do as a school to foster a sense of belonging for all, so that every pupil is seen and heard, and valued and respected? How do we ensure our school – its social and emotional environment, and its curriculum, teaching and assessment methods – reflects our pupils’ own lives and experiences? What impact does this have on pupil attendance, behaviour, and wellbeing? 
• What do we do as a school to ensure every pupil can flourish? From policies and procedures, and systems and structures, to staff attitudes and daily actions, how do we create a culture in which children develop the knowledge and skills needed to be successful citizens of the world? Here, think about your personal development programme, extra-curricular activities, and careers education. 

As predicted, Ofsted have replaced one- or two-word judgments with a report card. There are now six evaluation areas, which is a significant reduction from the original proposal, each judged on a 5-point scale.

Six evaluation areas

The six areas are: 

1. Inclusion
2. Curriculum and teaching
3. Achievement
4. Attendance and behaviour
5. Personal development and well-being
6. Leadership and governance

There is a separate section for ‘safeguarding’ which will be judged to have been ‘met’ or ‘not met’ and separate evaluation criteria for ‘early years’ and ‘post-16’ where applicable. 

It’s worth noting that inclusion is not only a standalone evaluation area, but it also runs through the framework like the letters in a stick of Blackpool rock. Why? Because Ofsted believes that, from leadership to teaching to behaviour, all aspects of education should support children who are disadvantaged, those who have SEND, and those are known to children’s social care.

Accordingly, the report card has a section detailing ‘what it’s like to be a pupil at this school’ and inspectors are told to focus on the experiences of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in a school. In short, schools will be judged by the outcomes achieved by those with the greatest needs. 

Inspectors will evaluate whether schools are identifying and offering high-quality support for all children. This will include how schools are using targeted funding (such as the Pupil Premium) to support children who are disadvantaged, and those who have SEND or are known to children’s social care. 

Although Ofsted refer to those children who are disadvantaged, those with SEND, and those who are known to children’s social care, they acknowledge that it is for schools, not them, to ‘define’ inclusion. As such, schools would be wise to agree their own definition of ‘disadvantage’ and this, I would argue, should extend beyond funding formula. Ask: who are at risk of being excluded from school-life? Who are our most disadvantaged and vulnerable children? 

Five-point scale 

The 5-point grading system remains although the language has changed from the draft framework. 

1. ‘Causing concern’ is now ‘urgent improvement’
2. ‘Attention needed’ is now ‘needs attention’
3. ‘Secure’ is now ‘expected standard’
4. ‘Strong’ is now ‘strong standard’
5. ‘Exemplary’ is now ‘exceptional’

The methodology has also changed from a ‘best fit’ model, which allowed inspectors to award grades by determining a ‘best fit’ across a range of standards, to a ‘secure fit’ model which means that each standard within a grade must be met before it can be awarded.

The new methodology will start by gathering evidence at the ‘expected standard’ because this is what Ofsted say they’d typically expect to see on inspections. It covers the statutory, professional and non-statutory guidance that providers are already expected to follow. The ‘strong standard’, with its tighter definitions, looks for evidence of practice to be consistent, embedded and highly impactful. An evaluation area will be graded ‘needs attention’ when the ‘expected standard’ of the evaluation area is not met because weaknesses or inconsistencies in practice have a negative impact on children in general or on a particular group. 

An area graded ‘needs attention’ will be accompanied by one or more recommendations, which will describe what needs to improve (but not how to do it). 

Another change: Ofsted will no longer ask providers to submit case studies of exemplary practice to the Ofsted Academy for approval, as was suggested in the draft framework. Instead, inspectors will evaluate ‘exceptional’ practice in the same way as other grades: using their evidence and applying the toolkit during inspection.

Ofsted will grade an area as ‘urgent improvement’ when they: evaluate it to be failing overall or failing a significant group of children, or when they identify serious, critical or systemic shortcomings in practice, policy or performance, against professional/ statutory or non-statutory guidance and requirements. 

Context counts

As before, there will be a notification call between 9.30 and 10 on the Monday of the week in which a school is inspected, followed later that day by a 90-minute planning call. Inspectors will use the planning call to understand a school’s context. This includes the children’s needs and leaders’ evaluation of their school’s strengths and areas for improvement. 

Ofsted will also share data about the school’s context alongside the report card. This will include demographic and outcome information. Published summary data – the latest data available at the point when the inspection took place – will sit alongside report cards and complement the qualitative findings from inspections: this will show the profile of pupils, as well as performance and attendance data. 

As such, schools will not be judged using a ‘one size fits all’ approach, but, instead, their unique circumstances and challenges will be considered when reaching judgments. 

Next time, in part two of this deep dive into inspection and accountability, I will explore how best to prepare for inspection and – more importantly – how to avoid rehearsing a performance by making your day-to-day reality inspection ready.