It also carries contextual information about the school — such as whether pupil numbers, SEND prevalence and deprivation are above or below average — and a separate met or not met decision on safeguarding.
What a report card contains
- A colour-coded summary at the top showing how many evaluation areas fell into each grade.
- A grade per evaluation area on the five-point scale.
- A narrative explanation for each grade — several paragraphs of reasoning, expandable per area.
- Safeguarding, reported separately as met or not met.
- Contextual information about the school, including whether pupil numbers, SEND prevalence and deprivation sit above or below average.
- Additional evaluations for early years and post-16 provision where the school has them.
Ofsted has also said report cards are designed to be more accessible and mobile-friendly, which matters more than it sounds: the audience that actually reads them is parents on a phone.
The grading scale
| Grade | What it signals |
|---|---|
| Exceptional | Practice that stands out nationally and is worth sharing widely. Intentionally rare. All “strong standard” criteria must be met first. |
| Strong standard | Consistent, embedded and highly impactful practice that goes meaningfully beyond expectations. |
| Expected standard | The baseline. Reflects the statutory, professional and non-statutory guidance schools are already expected to follow. |
| Needs attention | Work to do to reach the expected standard. Normally triggers a full reinspection within around 12 months. |
| Urgent improvement | The lowest grade. Ofsted has indicated monitoring inspections each term following publication of the report card. |
The context panel changes the conversation
The inclusion of contextual information is a quiet but significant shift. Under the old system a school in a high-deprivation area with a high SEND cohort received the same single word as a school with neither, and parents comparing two schools had no way to see the difference.
Ofsted has said inspectors will consider a provider’s circumstances and local context. Whether that translates in practice is the open question, and school leaders are right to be sceptical until enough report cards have been published to judge. But the context panel at least puts the information in front of the reader.
What data sits behind each area
Every grade is a judgement made from evidence gathered on inspection. The school does not control the judgement, but it does control whether the evidence is findable. This is where a school’s systems either help or hurt.
| Evaluation area | Evidence a school should be able to produce quickly |
|---|---|
| Curriculum and teaching | Curriculum sequencing and coverage by year and subject; adaptation for pupils with SEND; what has been taught and what has been assessed |
| Achievement | Attainment and progress by cohort and group, including disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND; gaps and their trajectory |
| Inclusion | Identification, provision and impact for pupils with SEND and disadvantaged pupils; who is receiving what, and whether it is working |
| Personal development and wellbeing | Enrichment and participation records, including who is not participating; careers provision; pastoral records |
| Attendance and behaviour | Attendance, persistent and severe absence by group; the intervention record; behaviour incidents, suspensions and their distribution |
| Leadership and governance | Strategic priorities and their evidence base; CPD records; workload actions; governance minutes showing challenge |
The retrievability problem
Most schools have the practice. What they often lack is the ability to produce the evidence at short notice in a form an inspector can follow.
The pattern is familiar. Attendance data lives in the MIS, intervention records live in a spreadsheet a pastoral lead maintains, SEND provision lives in the SENCO’s own system, curriculum coverage lives in departmental schemes of work, and nothing joins them. Answering “what did you do for this group of pupils, and did it work?” then requires three people and an afternoon.
Edves is built to hold these on one pupil record so that the join already exists. See MIS and school management.
Self-evaluation against the report card
The most useful preparation is not a mock inspection. It is running your own self-evaluation in the shape of the report card, and being honest about the weakest criterion in each area rather than the strongest.
Under secure fit, your grade in an area is effectively set by your weakest met standard. A self-evaluation that showcases best practice is answering the wrong question.
Talking to parents
Schools receiving one of the first report cards face a communication problem the old system did not create: parents have no reference point. Six grades and a paragraph each is more information than a single word, and more information is harder to summarise.
Worth preparing in advance: a short explanation of the scale, the point that the grades are not comparable to old judgements, and a plain statement of what the school is doing about any area below the expected standard. Schools that wait until publication end up writing that letter in a hurry.