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One year on: Reflecting on Ofsted’s 2025 education inspection framework

One of the defining features of the English education system is its high-stakes school inspection regime, led by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted). Since its establishment in 1992, Ofsted has introduced a succession of inspection frameworks. Ofsted launched the new (EIF) on 10 November 2025, introducing a number of major changes including:

  • abolishing the single-phrase overall judgment
  • expanding the number of evaluation areas to provide a more granular assessment of school performance
  • replacing the inspection report with a colour-coded report card
  • introducing a standalone inclusion-focused evaluation area, placing vulnerable children at the heart of the reform
  • allowing schools a window to address safeguarding concerns and introducing measures aimed at reducing teacher stress.

A year on from the introduction of the 2025 framework, this Special Issue of the Âé¶¹ÒùÔº Blog draws on a range of stakeholder perspectives on this ongoing reform. These perspectives, written during the course of 2025 and 2026 as the framework was being implemented, are particularly significant given recent political developments. While Ofsted’s commissioned report found the renewed inspection framework to be , such findings appear to be contradicted by research undertaken by and the . Increasing concerns about the stressful nature of inspections under the new inspection framework have reportedly led Lucy Powell – who was appointed as education secretary in July 2026 under Andy Burnham’s leadership of the Labour government – to demand that Ofsted and try again. Given that the 2025 inspection framework may then be short-lived, the significance of this Special Issue is in documenting the emerging issues and concerns that arose during its development.

In the contributions to this issue:

  • Ofsted’s Research and Evaluation Team details the sometimes uneven and complex relationship between research and policymaking, and documents some of the decision-making processes which occur in these spaces
  • Melanie Ehren places Ofsted’s new framework within a global landscape of educational accountability practices
  • Joseph Mintz reflects on his time seconded to Ofsted, exploring how Ofsted’s frameworks are inevitably shaped by teachers’ values on the ground
  • Katie Kilian underscores the wider international impact of Ofsted given England’s colonial history
  • Louise Wormwell argues that Ofsted’s own history – the ghosts of Ofsted frameworks past – will inevitably imprint on teachers’ reception of the new Ofsted framework
  • Meng Tian and Karen Guldberg look at inclusion, which has become a key educational issue over the course of the 2025 EIF’s development
  • Naomi Flynn welcomes the explicit references to the inclusion of multilingual learners within the new framework, while arguing there is still further to go in supporting these students meaningfully within schools
  • Kathryn Spicksley and Jude Brady explore how teacher wellbeing is constructed in 2025 EIF inspection reports, and speculate on how this might impact on teacher workload
  • Christian Bokhove, John Jerrim and Sam Sims draw from their Nuffield-funded study Inspecting the Inspectorate to emphasise the importance of reliability in Ofsted judgments
  • Phil Nicholson and Kevin Proudfoot suggest new scholarly directions for researching the 2025 framework
  • Jane Perryman provides a brief critical history of the consultations undertaken by Ofsted which led to the 2025 EIF.

Editors

Profile picture of Meng Tian
Meng Tian, Dr

Associate Professor in Educational Leadership at University of Birmingham

Meng Tian is associate professor in educational leadership and director of global engagement for the College of Social Sciences at the University of Birmingham. Her research examines how power, policy and professional practice shape leadership...

Profile picture of Kathryn Spicksley
Kathryn Spicksley, Dr

Lecturer in Teacher Education at University of Glasgow

Kathryn Spicksley is a lecturer in teacher education at the University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on education policy related to teacher supply and its impact on teachers’ working lives. Prior to academia she worked as an early years...

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