9 October 2026
When Sir Martyn Oliver became His Majesty’s Chief Inspector in January 2024, many school leaders felt a sense of optimism. Here was someone who had led schools himself, understood the realities of headship and appeared committed to rebuilding trust between Ofsted and the profession.
What followed looked significant. The Ofsted Big Listen invited feedback from across education. It generated 132 actions designed to improve inspection, strengthen relationships with schools and reduce unnecessary pressure. Consultation followed, leading to the introduction of the new report card system.
Yet less than a year after the reforms were introduced nationally, a striking question remains: why are so many school leaders still asking whether Ofsted is fit for purpose?
The answer may lie in the difference between changing a framework and changing a culture.
The problem may never have been the single-word judgement
The Big Listen identified widespread concern about headline grades. Ofsted’s solution was to remove the overall effectiveness judgement and replace it with a report card containing multiple graded areas. The intention was clear: provide parents with more information and create a fuller picture of school performance. From Ofsted’s perspective, this was a substantial reform.
Many school leaders, however, appear to have been worried about something different altogether. Their concern was not simply that inspections produced a single grade. It was that inspection itself had become a high-stakes process carrying significant professional, emotional and organisational consequences.
This distinction matters. If the problem is a single-word judgement, replacing it with multiple grades makes sense. If the problem is the pressure attached to inspection, adding more graded categories may simply create more opportunities for schools to feel they have fallen short.
The NAHT’s recent survey suggests many leaders believe exactly that. Among more than 5,300 respondents, 72 per cent felt inspection had worsened over the previous year, while only 7 per cent believed it had improved. Whether one agrees with that assessment or not, those figures are difficult to ignore.
More grades do not automatically create more trust
Supporters of report cards argue that they provide greater nuance. A school may perform exceptionally in some areas while needing support in others. Parents gain a richer understanding than they would from a single overall label. That argument has merit.
The difficulty is that grading still sits at the heart of the system. Schools are now judged across several categories rather than one. Leaders who worried about the consequences of inspection have not necessarily seen the stakes reduced. Some believe they have simply been redistributed.
James Pope, founder of HeadsUp4HTs, captured this concern neatly when he argued that education has removed one-word judgements without removing one-word thinking.
The phrase resonates because it highlights a deeper issue. Accountability is not only shaped by the labels that appear in reports. It is shaped by how inspectors gather evidence, how schools experience the process and how findings are interpreted by parents, media and policymakers. Changing the format of a report is relatively straightforward. Changing perceptions built over decades is much harder.
Inspection culture matters as much as inspection framework
Many leaders are not arguing against accountability. Few people in education would suggest publicly funded institutions should operate without scrutiny. The real debate centres on what effective accountability looks like.
A recurring concern is that inspections can feel driven by compliance rather than professional dialogue. Where schools perceive inspectors as arriving with an emerging narrative already in mind, trust quickly disappears. Any accountability system becomes problematic if leaders believe evidence is being used primarily to confirm conclusions rather than explore them.
This concern surfaced in NAHT testimony, where some leaders felt inspectors were reluctant to engage with evidence that challenged their initial views. Whether that perception is always accurate is almost beside the point. Trust depends not only on fairness but also on schools feeling that fairness exists.
Experience suggests that schools respond best when challenge is accompanied by curiosity. A supportive external review should uncover strengths that data alone cannot reveal, while also identifying weaknesses that require attention. That balance is difficult to achieve when the process begins with suspicion.
Schools are more than examination outcomes
Inspection debates often return to results because results are measurable. Yet schools accomplish far more than delivering examination grades. They build confidence. They develop character. They create opportunities. They support families. They help young people discover talents, interests and ambitions that may shape the rest of their lives.
Academic achievement remains important. Strong literacy, numeracy and subject knowledge open doors. No sensible accountability system would ignore these outcomes. The challenge comes when educational success becomes narrowly defined.
A school serving a highly disadvantaged community may transform life chances in ways that are not fully captured by performance measures. Another may excel at inclusion, attendance, wellbeing or community engagement. These achievements matter enormously, even when they are harder to quantify.
This is why many leaders continue to argue that context must play a larger role in inspection. A fair system should recognise not only what a school achieves, but also the circumstances in which those achievements occur.
The wellbeing question refuses to go away
Perhaps the most uncomfortable aspect of the debate is that it continues to return to wellbeing. The reforms were intended to make inspection less damaging. The Big Listen specifically identified the need for greater empathy, stronger inspector training and a more collaborative approach. Yet the latest feedback suggests many leaders remain unconvinced.
The issue extends beyond individual inspections. Leadership capacity is finite. When accountability systems consume excessive amounts of time and emotional energy, they can unintentionally weaken the very schools they are designed to strengthen. Ofsted argue it is not meant to be like that, leaders should just be continuing their day-to-day work, nothing extra, nothing special. It’s not like that.
No profession should accept severe psychological harm as the unavoidable cost of accountability. That does not mean lowering standards. It means recognising that sustainable improvement depends on healthy people leading healthy organisations.
Looking beyond grades
Other parts of the UK already offer alternative approaches. Estyn in Wales uses narrative reporting rather than summary grades. Northern Ireland’s inspectorate follows a similar model. These systems focus more heavily on strengths, development needs and professional improvement. They are not perfect. No accountability model is.
However, they prompt an important question. If teachers routinely provide pupils with detailed feedback rather than relying solely on grades, why should school accountability operate differently? A narrative report can still be rigorous. It can still identify weaknesses. It can still demand improvement. What it may avoid is reducing a complex organisation to a collection of labels.
The question that still needs answering
The lasting challenge for Ofsted is not whether it listened. The Big Listen clearly demonstrated that concerns were heard. Significant changes followed. The real question is whether the reforms addressed the causes of dissatisfaction or merely the symptoms.
Many school leaders wanted lower stakes, greater trust and a culture built on improvement rather than compliance. Ofsted concluded that parents wanted clearer information and more detailed reporting. Both perspectives can be valid. The difficulty is that they lead to different solutions.
As the debate continues, perhaps the most useful question is not how inspections should be graded, structured or colour-coded. Instead, it is this:
What kind of accountability system genuinely helps schools become better places for the children and communities they serve?
Until the profession and policymakers can agree on the answer, the conversation about Ofsted is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.
Want to know more? Catch us on ‘At the chalk face’ where we go into more detail.
