School inspections will resume from November 10.

When inspections resume, Ofsted will prioritise volunteers for full inspections in the weeks between November 10 and Christmas. There will be no inspections in the final week of term.

Ofsted will return to the normal schedule for state-funded schools, with full inspections every four years from December 1st 2025.

All inspections will be full inspections (so no graded and ungraded anymore). Ofsted has also committed to ensuring that all inspections will be led by an HMI (or an OI who has recently been an HMI (within 3 years)) to ensure more consistency across schools. Full inspections will last for two days.

Schools will be inspected approximately once every 4 years, unless they are part of a monitoring programme.

There is a stronger emphasis on leadership as a driver of sustained improvement, and on inclusion. 

There will be no deep dives. They are replaced by learning walks with the "relevant leader". Learning walks will focus on inclusion/curriculum, teaching and achievement/leadership and their impact. Learning walks will also include "case sampling". You can see a description of whar acse sampling means here.

There will be no overall single word judgement.

Monitoring inspections will be carried out in schools where Ofsted have identified a "need for improvement".

Ofsted may monitor a school if:

•  any evaluation area has been graded as ‘needs attention’
• the school received a grade of ‘requires improvement’ for its overall effectiveness or for any key judgement at its last inspection before November 2025
• the school is in a category of concern

Focused monitoring inspections are also a possibility. These were previously known as urgent inspections, inspections with no formal designation and unannounced behaviour inspections. Ofsted use focused monitoring inspections to follow up concerns about schools that are not in a formal category of concern but that have been brought to our attention, for example through a qualifying complaint.

Inspectors will consider what leaders are aiming to achieve, how well they are doing it and how they know it is working (intent, implementation, impact).

Throughout the inspection, inspectors will give particular attention to the experiences and outcomes of disadvantaged pupils, pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), pupils known or previously known to children’s social care and those who face other barriers to their learning and/or well-being. Inclusion is a new and separate judgement, but it also weaved into every other area...

Notification of an inspection will still be via a phone call on a Monday morning. Following a bank holiday, or in the first week after the Christmas or Easter holidays, the lead inspector may contact the school on a Tuesday. In the autumn term Ofsted can inspect 5 school days after the first day that pupils attend.

The planning call (the 90 minute phone call) is expected to be a video call, "unless technology does not allow this".

If it is a previously deferred inspection or a monitoring inspection, the lead inspector may notify the school on any day of the working week.

Ofsted do not expect leaders to produce written evidence to support each standard in each evaluation area of the toolkit.

Ofsted do not expect schools to have completed any formal self-evaluation using the toolkit. However, "schools may wish to use the toolkit to support continuous improvement. In the planning call with leaders, we will ask where they see themselves against the 5-point scale of each evaluation area".

Inspectors are looking for the extent to which pupils:

• • achieve – academically and personally
  • belong – feel that they belong to and are valued as part of the school community, so that they attend, behave and contribute positively to what the school offers
  • thrive – benefit from the right systems, processes and levels of oversight, so that they are kept safe and are able to flourish, whatever their background or individual needs

Any area that is graded "needs attention" will be subject to monitoring visits focussed on that area. One inspector will be linked to the school for the duration of that monitoring.

School with any ‘urgent improvement’ evaluation areas could either be placed in ‘special measures’, ‘requires significant improvement’ or ‘no category of concern’

Schools that require significant improvement will receive up to 5 inspections within 18 months of the last full inspection.

Schools that require special measures will receive up to 6 inspections within 24 months of the last full inspection.