What an Ofsted grade does and does not tell you

An inspection is a judgement made on two days by a small team, against a framework that changes every few years. It is genuine evidence, but it is a snapshot, and the gap to the next visit can run to several years. A grade from 2016 describes a school that may have changed leadership twice since.

Read the trajectory, not the label

Two schools both graded Good can be moving in opposite directions. A school that went Requires Improvement, then Good, with rising attainment, is a different proposition from one drifting down from Outstanding with falling attendance. Inspection history plus the published performance trend tells you far more than the current word.

What inspection does not measure well

• How a specific child with specific needs will be supported day to day.
• Stretch at the top of the ability range, which sits in attainment data instead.
• Enrichment breadth, which you see in the school's own published offer.
• Cohort volatility in small year groups, where a few children move the percentages.

How SpotWise uses it

The Ofsted grade is one input among several, weighted by the inspection date and shown alongside the school's full inspection history. It never overrides the published attainment, absence and staffing figures; it sits next to them so you can see when the label and the numbers disagree.