CYP Now - We need to rethink how we measure inspection success

We shouldn’t underestimate how fundamental a change the scrapping of single-phrase Ofsted judgments will be for all services for children, young people and families – and the practitioners that work in them.

Derren Hayes: 'Moving to a ‘report card’ system should remove the stigma that came with being branded inadequate' - Lucie Carlier

The move will come into effect for schools immediately, before being extended to childcare providers and children’s services departments over the next 18 months.

Sector leaders have argued for years that assigning one of the four single-phrase judgments to summarise the strengths and weaknesses of a school, children’s services department or childcare setting is unfair and facile.

Receiving an “inadequate” judgment from Ofsted can have far-reaching consequences – it has been used as a lever to hand over running of schools and children’s services departments to independent trusts and resulted in commercial providers such as nurseries and children’s homes losing contracts and income. For system leaders it can be career ending.

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