How Ofsted inspects leadership and governance

Understand how Ofsted will inspect leadership and governance in your school, and the key evidence inspectors will consider. Use our self-evaluation tool to review your current provision.

Last reviewed on 16 September 2025See updates
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Contents
  1. Leadership and governance is evaluated on a 5-point scale
  2. What Ofsted is looking for
  3. How you'll be graded
  4. How Ofsted will gather evidence
  5. Use our self-evaluation tool to review your provision against the framework
  6. Next steps

Leadership and governance is evaluated on a 5-point scale

It's 1 of the evaluation areas that will appear on your school’s inspection report card. 

Each evaluation area will be graded using Ofsted’s new 5-point grading system, with Ofsted expecting most schools to attain at least an ‘expected standard’ in each evaluation area. The exception is safeguarding, which is either 'met' or 'not met'.

During the planning call, the lead inspector will ask you to evaluate your school's strengths and successes and priorities for improvement, including where you believe you currently sit on the 5-point grading scale for each evaluation area.

The grades are:

  • Exceptional
  • Strong standard
  • Expected standard
  • Needs attention
  • Urgent improvement

Your requirements won’t have significantly changed from previous inspections. In practice, Ofsted will look at similar aspects across this evaluation area to previous inspections. You don’t need to create new or specific types of evidence