Does the new Ofsted framework take adequate account of pupil characteristics?
11th September 2026 by Timo Hannay [link]
Update 11th September 2026: See also this coverage from Tes.
Since last November, Ofsted has employed a new inspection framework. The concept of overall grades had already been banished more than a year earlier, but now the old four-point scale (running from Outstanding to Inadequate) was replaced with a five-point scale (from Exceptional to Urgent improvement) and half a dozen or more newly defined evaluation areas.
Importantly, inspections were also to be "grounded in a clear understanding of each provider's unique circumstances," with inspectors to "reflect on a provider's context and priorities." Is this working? The following analysis, based on more than 2,000 inspection reports published so far, suggests perhaps not.
Grade distributions
First, let's look at the way that grades have been apportioned across all schools. These are shown in Figure 1.
It is immediately clear that the new 'Exceptional' grade (leftmost column) is vanishingly rare: around 1% of schools so far, compared to more like 5-10% for the previous 'Outstanding' grade – though that proportion had tended to fall in more recent years (see our previous analysis). The new 'Strong standard' straddles the old 'Outstanding' and 'Good' grades, accounting for around 15-35% of schools, depending on the inspection area. 'Expected standard' makes up about 55-65% of schools, which roughly corresponds to the rest of the schools that would have been 'Good' in old money. 'Needs attention' (≈'Requires improvement') and 'Urgent improvement' (≈'Inadequate') more or less map onto the two lowest grades under the previous framework.
Note also that there is some variation by phase: see primary, secondary and all schools together. And there are even bigger differences by evaluation area. See: 'Leadership and governance', 'Curriculum and teaching', 'Achievement', 'Attendance and behaviour', 'Personal development and wellbeing' and 'Inclusion'.
(Use the menus below to view different school phases and evaluation areas. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values.)
Figure 1: Distribution of Ofsted grades by phase and inspection area.
Disadvantaged?
How, if at all, does all this relate to the pupil composition of each school?
Figure 2 shows how the mean percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) varies by Ofsted grade. This reveals somewhat different patterns by phase. Primary schools sometimes show very high FSM levels among the small numbers of 'Exceptional' schools, especially in 'Leadership', 'Curriculum' and 'Inclusion'. This makes a certain sense if schools serving poorer communities have more opportunities to demonstrate genuine excellence in those areas. Nevertheless, it's interesting to observe that for other grades the proportions of FSM pupils tends to rise as the grade gets worse. Furthermore, the trend for 'Achievement' and 'Attendance' don't show such a huge FSM spike among 'Exceptional' schools. Again, this could be justified given that academic performance and absences really do tend to be worse among schools with greater numbers of disadvantaged pupils – though it still makes you wonder how much Ofsted is really taking school context into account. ('Development' doesn't show much of a pattern at all, which is arguably what we would hope to see for all areas if school context was being fully reflected in the judgements.)
The picture for secondary schools is less ambiguous: across all inspection areas, schools with worse inspection grades tend to have higher proportions of FSM-eligible pupils (though most show a slight FSM bump for 'Exceptional' schools). This is arguably a bit less understandable, especially for 'Leadership': are we to to conclude that secondary schools with higher proportions of poor pupils are systematically less well led, or simply that Ofsted rates them more harshly? (Show all schools again.)
(Use the menus below to view different school phases and evaluation areas. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values.)
Figure 2: Mean FSM level by Ofsted grade
Special cases
Figure 3 shows the average proportions of pupils receiving support for special educational needs (SEN), once again segmented by Ofsted grade. The trends here are clearer still: across both phases (see primary and secondary) and all inspection areas (see 'Leadership and governance', 'Curriculum and teaching', 'Achievement', 'Attendance and behaviour', 'Personal development and wellbeing' and 'Inclusion'), schools with lower Ofsted ratings almost invariably have higher incidences of SEN. Why should this be? (Show all schools again.)
(Use the menus below to view different school phases and evaluation areas. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values.)
Figure 3: Mean SEN level by Ofsted grade
Finally, Figure 4 shows that similar patterns hold true for pupils with Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans, who constitute the relatively small (but growing) proportion assessed to have particularly serious educational needs. It might seem inevitable that this will show the same patterns as SEN in Figure 3, but that's not necessarily the case because the SEN and EHC pupil categories don't exactly co-correlate in schools. For example schools in more affluent areas tend to show lower levels of SEN but higher proportions of pupils on EHC plans (sometimes attributed, rightly or wrongly, to sharp-elbowed middle-class parents being better able to secure the necessary diagnoses). Yet sure enough, across primary and secondary schools, and most inspection areas, the worse the grade the higher the proportions of EHC plan pupils. Once again, this is perhaps hardest to justify for 'Leadership', where the trend is particularly stark for primary schools. (Show all schools again.)
(Use the menus below to view different school phases and evaluation areas. Hover over the columns to see corresponding data values.)
Figure 4: Mean EHC level by Ofsted grade
So, relatively speaking, schools that receive low Ofsted grades are more likely to have high proportions of SEN and EHC plan pupils (and, especially in the case of secondary schools, high FSM levels). It is important to bear in mind that the sample sizes for very high- and low-graded schools are currently small, so the effects seen at the extremes should, for now, be taken with a pinch of salt. Nevertheless, the overall patterns are thought-provoking, especially when it comes to Ofsted's assessment of school leadership amidst claims of greater attention to context. Is it that schools with higher SEN levels are genuinely more likely to be badly run, or simply that Ofsted is not taking adequate account of pupil characteristics when judging school leaders? It could even be a bit of both. Unfortunately we can't tell from the available data, so resolving this important distinction is left as an exercise for our ever-thoughtful readers. We'd love to hear your thoughts: [email protected].
