OFSTED’S proposed new schools inspection toolkit has been criticised by school leaders and Department for Education (DfE) officials after being leaked to the Guardian.

Its latest plans for swapping single-word summary inspection grades with a “report card” format were branded “cosmetic, vague and potentially out of date.”

Ofsted’s management is set to approve them tomorrow.

Summary grades like “inadequate” have been criticised by teaching unions following the death of headteacher Ruth Perry in 2023, which a coroner said was “contributed to by an Ofsted inspection.”

According to the leak, the inspectorate has renamed its proposed gradings system and cut the number of evaluation areas from nine to seven, by combining the teaching and curriculum areas into one, and merging the attendance and behaviour areas. 

The top grade will reportedly go from “exemplary” to “exceptional,” the “strong” grade to “strong standard,” the “secure” grade, which was criticised for being confusing, will become “expected standard” and the lowest “causing concern” grade to “urgent improvement.”

The latest plans also revise the report card’s “traffic light” colour codes for grades, with the top exceptional grade to be blue instead of dark green.

School leaders described the proposals as “a pick-and-mix” framework containing ill-defined language.

Teachers’ union NASUWT general secretary Matt Wrack said: “When Ofsted wants answers, teachers are forced to comply.  But when teachers want answers, Ofsted is silent.

“Our position remains that the DfE and Ofsted's current plan to introduce a revised inspection framework by November is not only unmanageable but also undermines the integrity of what we were promised would be a meaningful, good faith consultation on Ofsted's proposals.

“Clearly, considerable concern persists about these proposals and it is important that sufficient time is made available so that these concerns can be addressed.”

DfE officials raised concerns that the proposals fail to take account of the government’s plans to have mainstream schools open more units for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send), according to the Guardian.

Ofsted, which is to publish its full proposals in September, said that it is “not out of step with government proposals.”

The DfE said that it is “working closely with Ofsted” on its Send reform plans for more early intervention in mainstream schools.