Changes to Ofsted inspections of Early Years settings 2025

Inspections of Early Years settings from November, 2025

In their accompanying guidance, Ofsted state that, "The foundations of our renewed inspections are:

• Children and pupils first – high expectations with a focus on outcomes and experiences.
• The care and well-being of those we inspect – through collaborative working with settings and building positive relationships with leaders and staff.
• A provider's unique context – evidence is evaluated in the light of each setting's strengths, challenges and priorities for improvement, and how well it identifies and meets the needs of significant groups of children.
• The lens of the toolkit – the toolkit sets out the grading standards, supporting shared professional dialogue.
• Quality and impact – evidence-based decisions focus on the quality and the impact of leaders' choices and actions on children, reflected in the grading standards."

What are Ofsted's new grades for Early Years settings?

Instead of the headline, one-word grade for overall effectiveness of a provision, Ofsted will now award grades across areas of the provision, to form the end "Report Card". The new possible grading settings will be evaluated as are:

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

Safeguarding will be judged as 'met' or 'not met'.

[The Exceptional] grade is for settings where the evidence shows that standards are not only strong, but truly transformational. That means everything in the strong standard is already being met securely and consistently. Leaders are making a sustained difference for children and should share this practice beyond their own setting.

Wendy Ratcliff, Principal Officer for Early Education in the Schools and Early Education Policy Team, Ofsted

What does the new Ofsted report card look like for Early Years settings?

Which areas of Early Years provision will Ofsted inspect?

As stated in the new Early Years Inspection Toolkits, Early Years settings will be graded across the following areas:

• Inclusion
• Curriculum and teaching
• Achievement  
• Behaviour, attitudes, and establishing routines
• Children's welfare and well-being
• Leadership and governance, including how well providers support and promote leader and staff well-being.

Inspectors are looking to understand how well children:

• Achieve – develop the knowledge, skills and confidence they need
• Belong – feel safe, welcomed and valued
• Thrive – benefit from the right systems, processes and levels of oversight so that they are kept safe and are able to flourish, whatever their background or individual needs

Some key aspects underpin our renewed approach. We want inspections to look and feel different. We've absolutely moved towards a supportive, empathic approach to inspections in which the starting point will be "Expected standard", which is a reflection from the EYFS of high quality care and education. We will always take each setting's context into account. We will adopt a more collaborative approach. We have extensively tested our inspection methodology and revised our approach to make inspections feel like a more collaborative process.

Jayne Coward, Deputy Director of Early Years Regulatory Policy and Practice, Ofsted

How will Ofsted inspectors gather evidence in Early Years settings?

Let's see what the new Early Years Toolkit says...

• Inspectors collect first-hand evidence of how the setting typically operates, mainly through professional conversations and observing, often alongside leaders, the day-to-day work of the setting.
• Inspectors are required to view specific documentation. This should be limited to documents relating to the setting's statutory requirements or documents it produces as part of its normal business processes.
• Inspectors do not need information to be presented in any specific format, as long as it is easily accessible. We do not need leaders to produce documents specifically for an Ofsted inspection of their setting. This would create unnecessary workload.
• Inspectors will be proportionate in weighing up the evidence they gather, balancing the extent of any strengths or areas for development in each of the evaluation areas. This will support grading and allow specific features of practice, whether strengths or areas for development, to be reported clearly.

Each area of provision described in the Early Years Toolkit now contains a "Gathering evidence about..." section to show settings exactly what inspectors will be looking for.

Most of the evidence we gather will be through shared observations with leaders and ongoing discussions with leaders and practitioners. And as part of those shared observations, inspectors will track the experiences of a case sample (a child or children) relative to the size of your setting. They want to focus on the outcomes and experiences of children, especially those who are disadvantaged, have SEND, or who have identified as being particularly vulnerable. We'll observe children at their play and in their daily routines and importantly, those important interactions between you, any staff and children.

Now, as inspectors, we will take regular times for reflection on our own before joining you for collaborative, reflective discussions about what we've seen and heard in those shared observations. So working together and as part of those discussions, inspectors will encourage you to reflect on those shared observations and whether they've observed what the setting is typically like. They'll discuss whether any inspection activity needs to be adapted in light of any emerging evidence. So very much that collaborative nature to inspection.

Wendy Ratcliff, Principal Officer for Early Education in the Schools and Early Education Policy Team, Ofsted

When will Ofsted inspect Early Years settings?

According to the guidance, 'Early years inspection information', settings registered on the Early Years Register will be inspected once every 4 years, if all evaluation areas are graded 'expected standard' or above. However, settings can expect to receive a visit from Ofsted within 12 months,  if any evaluation area is graded as 'needs attention', or 6 months if any evaluation area is graded as 'urgent improvement'. The guidance also states that, "We reserve the right to inspect without notice, where necessary."

Watch the full Ofsted webinar here