Hundreds of schools that had a graded inspection last year did not retain their outstanding grade, an Ofsted report has revealed.
Schools that had been judged outstanding by the watchdog were legally exempt from further regular inspection in 2012, unless specific concerns were raised. The exemption was lifted in 2020.
A commentary on inspection outcomes for previously exempt outstanding schools reinspected in 2021/22 has revealed that over 80% (308) of these schools did not retain the outstanding grade.
Published today, the commentary showed that while the majority of the schools were judged to be good, around a fifth were rated requires improvement (17%) or inadequate (4%).
There were 3,900 outstanding primary and secondary schools when the exemption was introduced, and 3,400 were outstanding when it ended.
Ofsted’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, said: ‘Regular inspection gives parents confidence in the quality of their child’s school. Exempting outstanding schools deprived parents of up-to-date information. It also left a lot of schools without the constructive challenge that regular inspection provides.
‘The exemption was a policy founded on the hope that high standards, once achieved, would never drop, and that freedom from inspection might drive them even higher. These outcomes show that removing a school from scrutiny does not make it better.’
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: 'Schools judged as "outstanding" by Ofsted were previously exempted from inspections because the government decided that would be a good idea.
'It has since changed its mind and Ofsted is now inspecting schools that have not been inspected for many years and were previously inspected under a different inspection framework with different criteria.
'Unsurprisingly, all this shifting of goalposts is leading to changes in the graded judgements of these schools.
'Most are still rated as either good or outstanding, but some are now rated as less than good, and this will be a very challenging situation.'
'Ofsted graded judgements are a woefully blunt tool and where these are negative it is often stigmatising and makes improvement harder to secure,' Mr Barton added.
'We need to move towards a more supportive and less punitive inspection system as this would clearly be in the best interests of the children and young people served by these schools.'
