Ofsted reforms need to be paused

Credit: Mat Wright for UCL IOE.

1 July 2025

By Jane Perryman and Alice Bradbury

In June, Ofsted announced a delay in the publication of its formal response to the 2025 consultation on inspection reforms, until September. Despite this, the inspectorate is pressing ahead with its plan to introduce new ‘report card’-style inspections in November. Originally, Ofsted was expected to publish its response during the summer term, giving schools a full term to digest and prepare for the new framework. Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver has cited the ‘scale of feedback’ as the reason for the delay.

As authors of the Beyond Ofsted inquiry report, we have joined teachers, leaders and education unions in a call for a pause to the process – the latest such call being a joint letter to the Secretary of State from four unions. As a reminder, this reform came as a direct response to an inquest which concluded that Ofsted inspection had contributed to the mental health deterioration and death of a headteacher, Ruth Perry. Perry had committed suicide whilst awaiting publication of an inspection report downgrading her previously ‘outstanding’ school to ‘requires improvement’. Her suicide brought to the forefront of public discourse concerns about Ofsted and its effects.

Our aforementioned research involved a large-scale survey of teachers and school leaders, exploring their views on how inspection is experienced, as well as their opinions about potential alternatives. The headline findings of the report revealed several issues with inspection, including the overall experience of inspection and the work involved in preparing for it, with many describing the regime as “toxic” and “brutal”.

We have recently published a series of articles from this research. The first reports on issues around teacher retention. One of our findings was that 76% of our survey respondents thought Ofsted had a negative effect on retention, with 30% themselves considering leaving as a result of their most recent inspection. We found many reasons for this: the overall experience of inspection, the work in preparing for inspection, and many, as noted, describing the regime with words such as toxic and brutal. The theme of toxicity is explored further in another paper, which asks the question: ‘What it is about the inspection process that produces toxicity?’ It identifies four unresolvable threats in inspections: a confirmatory bias, a lack of consistency, feeling like an interrogation, and inducing a performance.

Two further papers examine the specific impact on primary schools and schools in deprived areas. We argue that primary teachers experience Ofsted in multiple negative ways. There is the increased pressure and stress and higher workloads both during and between inspections. However, these teachers also experience additional pressures arising from the use of a generic inspection framework which does not take into account the smaller staff teams in primary schools. They find the use of inspectors without primary expertise problematic, as the gendered perception of primary schools as lower status is revealed. We also argue that school improvement for the most vulnerable schools is incompatible with a culture of fear and deficit model of accountability. Finally, in an article about inspection and leadership we report on headteachers’ views on their unique position in terms of inspection, shouldering the responsibility for the school and the community, and the consequent fear of failure. They describe the crunch points and the inevitable rise in workload and stress, which for some had negative effects on well-being and caused some to leave their job. They suggested that any future changes to inspection should include a more supportive and less high-stakes system.

All our findings point to the need for fundamental reform. As well as a recommendation for a more humane system with self-evaluation as its focus, we suggested an immediate pause to allow time for genuine reform. Instead, with no break in the inspection cycle, Ofsted launched a consultation into a set of proposals for a new framework to be launched in 2025. The main changes proposed included the introduction of a report card, the separation of safeguarding from the main judgements, and different ‘toolkits’ for different parts of the sector.

The new report card and its five-point colour-coded scale have aroused considerable controversy. Under the proposed system, schools, nurseries and colleges would be assessed in eight distinct categories on this scale, from ‘causing concern’ to ‘exemplary’. Ofsted argues this removes the pressure of the ‘single grade judgement’ and gives more information to parents and other stakeholders. However, ASCL, for one, has said moving to a five-point scale would leave “leaders in a worse position than they are now” and “undermine trust in the inspection process”.

It is argued that increasing the number of sub-categories would worsen workload and stress. Julia Walters, Ruth Perry’s sister, commented: “This proposal appears to have fed those single-word judgments through an online thesaurus. Other elements of the report card design are ill thought through and potentially dangerous.” We would also argue that even though schools might now be given multiple grades for different characteristics, the inspection process and its consequences remain the same.

Given the criticism of the proposed changes, the sector awaited the results of the consultation with bated breath, hoping concerns had been addressed. There was even the hope that perhaps there would be the realisation that fundamental reform could only be achieved by pausing inspection and taking the time to properly consider true systemic change. The news that, instead, proposals will be announced at the start of the autumn term and enacted just two months later is deeply worrying. With the clock ticking toward November, schools are left in a precarious position: awaiting critical details of a new system they will be expected to implement almost immediately. If our proposed pause cannot happen, we – and many others in the sector – would expect as a minimum a delay in the rollout, to allow for proper preparation and training.