Why some schools have an Ofsted grade and others do not

In September 2024 Ofsted stopped giving schools a single-word overall grade. That change is why school listings across the web now look inconsistent.

What changed

Until summer 2024, a graded inspection ended with one of four overall judgements: Outstanding, Good, Requires improvement or Inadequate. From September 2024 that overall grade was withdrawn. Inspections still happen and reports still say what inspectors found, but no single word is attached to the school.

What that means in practice

• 13,405 schools still carry a one-word grade. Every one of those was awarded in July 2024 or earlier. It stays attached to the school until its next inspection, and that inspection will not replace it with another word — it will simply remove it.
• 7,372 schools have been inspected under the current framework. They have a recent report and no overall grade. A school with no grade has not been skipped; in many cases it has been inspected more recently than one still showing "Outstanding".
• 3,114 have no published outcome — mostly schools that opened recently, and independent schools inspected by ISI rather than Ofsted.

How to read it

A grade with an old date is weaker evidence than a recent report with no grade. Some "Outstanding" schools on this site were last graded years ago, before a change of head, a change of trust, or a change in intake. The date matters at least as much as the word, which is why we never show one without the other.

Ofsted's report for any school is linked from that school's page, and is the authority on what inspectors actually said.