Ofsted Ratings Explained
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Ofsted reports each school inspection under the framework in use at the time, so schools in England are rated in three different ways today. Of the 24,544 schools on this site, 2,619 have a report card as their latest outcome, 3,268 have key judgements with no overall grade, 16,869 have an overall grade from an older inspection and 1,788 have no Ofsted outcome. The figures here come from Ofsted's files published to 31 August 2026.
Ofsted report cards
Report cards come from the renewed education inspection framework, used for state-funded schools inspected from 10 November 2025 and for non-association independent schools from 26 January 2026. A report card grades six evaluation areas: inclusion; curriculum and teaching; achievement; attendance and behaviour; personal development and wellbeing; leadership and governance. Early years and post-16 provision are graded as well where a school has them, and safeguarding is either met or not met.
Each area gets one of five grades, from exceptional at the top to urgent improvement at the bottom. A report card has no single overall grade.
| Report card grade | Area grades given |
|---|---|
| Exceptional | 219 |
| Strong standard | 3,978 |
| Expected standard | 8,980 |
| Needs attention | 2,276 |
| Urgent improvement | 260 |
The table counts the grades in the six core areas across all 2,619 report cards. Safeguarding was met at 2,600 of these schools and not met at 19. School pages show every graded area with its grade, and safeguarding as met or not met.
Ofsted key judgements with no overall grade
From September 2024 until report cards began, graded inspections of state-funded schools gave no overall effectiveness grade. Inspectors graded four key judgements instead: quality of education; behaviour and attitudes; personal development; leadership and management, each as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate. In Ofsted's files these inspections run from 24 September 2024 to 30 September 2025.
| Key judgement grade | Grades given |
|---|---|
| Outstanding | 3,304 |
| Good | 8,521 |
| Requires improvement | 1,127 |
| Inadequate | 120 |
The table counts the four key judgements across all 3,268 schools whose latest outcome is one of these inspections. School pages show each key judgement with its grade.
Ofsted ratings: outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate
Before September 2024, a graded inspection gave each school an overall effectiveness grade: outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate. Non-association independent schools kept the overall grade until report cards started for them on 26 January 2026. 16,869 schools still have one of these grades as their latest outcome, from inspections as far back as 2009.
| Overall grade | Schools |
|---|---|
| Outstanding | 2,014 |
| Good | 13,892 |
| Requires improvement | 812 |
| Inadequate | 151 |
School pages show the overall grade together with the key judgements from the same inspection, where Ofsted graded them.
Ungraded Ofsted inspections
Ofsted also carries out ungraded inspections, which check whether a school is still at the grade from its last graded inspection. An ungraded inspection does not change that grade, so each school page shows the outcome of the latest graded inspection or report card.
Schools with no Ofsted outcome
1,788 schools have no Ofsted outcome on file. 1,520 of them are independent schools, mostly members of associations inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate rather than Ofsted, and 268 are state-funded schools, mostly new schools with no inspection yet.
How Ofsted outcomes count in the school rankings
Every framework converts to one scale from 1 to 4 points, and the Ofsted outcome makes up 40% of each school's score in the primary school league tables and the secondary school league tables.
Find a school's Ofsted report
Search by postcode, town or school name with the school finder to see a school's latest Ofsted outcome, then follow the link on its page to the full report on the Ofsted website.