Ofsted report cards could give parents the information they actually want about schools

A number of changes are taking place at Ofsted, which inspects early years providers, schools, colleges, training and apprenticeships in England on behalf of the Department for Education.

The most striking, and potentially significant, change is the immediate abolition of single-word judgments for schools, to be replaced – from September 2025 – with a new “report card” system.

While the four UK nations have markedly different approaches to inspecting schools, with England’s model being the least connected to school improvement. The inspectors are not involved in any follow up work, and none of them use report cards to complement inspections.

But when we look internationally, there are many examples of countries which have used report cards as part of their broader school accountability models.

Research into these systems can help us understand how report cards might improve our knowledge of how schools perform in England – and whether they will bring England into greater alignment with the way other nations inspect schools.

The bigger picture

When we examined why different countries introduced report cards to supplement other forms of information about schools, we found they wanted to move away from relying on either the results of tests and examinations, or the judgments from brief inspections.

In the US, administrations wanted to capture a more balanced approach to schools’ progress, looking at the direction of travel rather than a snapshot in time. They wanted parents to have a deeper understanding of schools rather than relying on narrow inspection reports. This could be a crucial improvement on the current English system, which has been heavily criticised for its high-stakes approach, which can result in schools being taken over by academy trusts and headlines in the local press.

Additionally, administrations in the US put a big emphasis on how pupils from particular groups – such as those from different ethnic groups – were doing at a school when compared against local and national norms. This gives information that can go beyond the topline scores.

States in the US and Australia also introduced report cards in a bid to capture information about schools that might otherwise go unexplored.

This included the physical and emotional wellbeing of students, and how much pupils learnt at school beyond standard subjects, such as the skills needed in adult society. They wanted to find out about how much schools invested in teachers’ continuous professional development, as well as schools’ engagement in self-evaluation activities and improvement-tracking.

Report cards are not merely vehicles that set out more detailed versions of a school’s test or exam results. International research tells us that where they have been introduced successfully, they are an element of accountability that helps parents find the information they really want to know about their children’s school.

Happiness and communication

There has already been research in the UK about what parents would like see included in a report card on schools. This took place when they were suggested for use in England in 2009.

This research found that parents wanted to know how happy pupils and parents at a school are, and about non-academic achievements. They wanted to know how kind the pupils and teachers are – for example, if the school takes part in voluntary work in the local community.

They also wanted to know about the stability of the school: what the staff turnover is like, and if major changes, such as building works, are planned. And they wanted to know about the quality of communication between staff and parents, and how approachable and available the staff are.

At that time, most parents had no objection to a single grade summarising the school, but wanted to know much more beyond its traditional Ofsted report.

Ofsted’s chief inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver, has already indicated that report cards will include metrics about how inclusive schools are. He said that schools would be downgraded if they refused to take pupils with high levels of additional need, or subsequently removed them from the school register. But no precise metrics are yet available.

Now is certainly the right time to radically reform Ofsted. When Ofsted and its original report system were introduced at the same time in 1992, there was far too much variation in the quality of education in England. Standards have improved massively since then, and Ofsted’s way of inspecting schools should change to reflect this new landscape. There is little point in lightweight, 48-hour inspections trawling around all schools every four years or so.

A new system could inspect proportionately as part of a programme which looks at schools’ performance data such as test and exam results. And report cards could form a key element in informing this system. After all, the real barometer of how a school is performing is the voice of its parents and the experiences of its pupils.

UK teenagers are reporting the lowest levels of life satisfaction in Europe. This comes after 14 years of education policy which ignored all but the narrowest of school performance measures. It’s time to bring young people and their parents into the frame. Report cards could be the way to bring England into line with advanced international practice.