• Find a school inspection report
• Understanding a school inspection report
• Types of school Ofsted inspects
• Inspecting schools
  • Inspecting maintained schools
    • Before a maintained school inspection
    • During a maintained school inspection
    • After a maintained school inspection
      • School post-inspection survey questions: maintained and independent schools
      • Monitoring inspections for maintained schools
      • Risk assessment of maintained schools and academies
    • Main inspection documents for inspectors
  • Inspecting independent schools
  • Inspecting boarding and residential special schools
  • Inspecting initial teacher education
• Safeguarding children
• About our survey reports
• How to complain

After a maintained school inspection

The lead inspector must make sure that the school understands:

• the grades awarded for each judgement
• that the grades awarded may be subject to change following feedback
• that the main points provided during the feedback will be included in the inspection report
• the recommendations for improvement
• the procedures for the publication of the report
• how to complain about the inspection
• where relevant, the implications of the inspection deciding that the school needs special measures, a notice to improve, or is judged satisfactory or better overall.

The lead inspector explains the inspection’s conclusions to one or more members of the governing body and the senior leadership team. This will include explaining any aspects that have been judged inadequate, or where the judgement is different from what the school might have expected.

The lead inspector writes the inspection report and sends the draft of the report to the headteacher for comment. However, judgements cannot be changed unless any factual errors or missing information have a significant bearing on them.

The final report begins with the names of the inspection team, followed by information about the school. It then sets out the grade for the overall effectiveness of the school, plus the grades for the four key inspection judgements. The report then has a summary of the key findings of the inspection and outlines what the school needs to do to improve further. The findings under the four key judgements are then set out in more detail in the main report section. The grades are:

• grade 1 (outstanding)
• grade 2 (good)
• grade 3 (satisfactory)
• grade 4 (inadequate).

The inspection report ends with a letter to pupils. It covers what the inspectors found out about the school.

The school receives its report within 15 working days of the end of the on-site inspection. At the same time, the school will be invited to fill in our post-inspection survey.

The school has to send a copy of the report to parents and carers within five working days.

After that, we publish the report on our website.

The school has to make a copy of the report available upon request to members of the public.

Most schools do well in their inspections, but if a school's overall effectiveness is judged inadequate, inspectors must decide whether it requires special measures, or a notice to improve. For more information, go to the Monitoring inspections for maintained schools page.