What is an Ofsted rating?

An Ofsted rating is the grade given to a school in England following an inspection by Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education). Schools are rated Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, or Inadequate based on the quality of education, behaviour, leadership, and early years provision.

How are schools graded by Ofsted?

Ofsted inspectors visit schools and assess four key areas: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management. Each area is graded, and the grades combine into an overall judgement: Outstanding (1), Good (2), Requires Improvement (3), or Inadequate (4).

What is the difference between Outstanding and Good in Ofsted?

An Outstanding school significantly exceeds national expectations across all areas — teaching is consistently excellent, outcomes are high, and leadership is exceptional. A Good school meets the high standards Ofsted expects and provides a strong education. The majority of London schools are rated Good.

How do I find my local school's Ofsted rating?

Use the search on ofsted.london to find any London school by name, postcode, or borough. Each school page shows the current Ofsted rating, the date of the last inspection, and a link to the full inspection report on the Ofsted website.

What does KS2 mean in school data?

KS2 stands for Key Stage 2, which covers Years 3–6 (ages 7–11) in primary school. KS2 results typically refer to the SATs taken at the end of Year 6. The headline measure is the percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in Reading, Writing, and Maths (RWM).

What does FSM mean for schools?

FSM stands for Free School Meals. The percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals is used as a measure of deprivation. A higher FSM percentage indicates a school serving a more economically disadvantaged community. Schools with high FSM rates and strong Ofsted ratings are often highlighted as 'beating the odds'.

Which London borough has the best Ofsted ratings?

Across London, boroughs such as Richmond upon Thames, Sutton, and Kingston upon Thames consistently have high proportions of Outstanding and Good schools. Inner-city boroughs including Tower Hamlets have made significant improvements and often perform above expectations relative to their levels of deprivation.

How often are schools inspected by Ofsted?

Outstanding schools were historically exempt from routine inspection but new rules introduced in 2023 mean all schools are inspected regularly. Good schools are typically inspected every four to five years. Schools rated Requires Improvement or Inadequate are inspected more frequently — often within one to two years.

Explainer · Private schools

Do private schools have Ofsted inspections?

Updated July 2026 · 6 min read

Short answer: some do, most of the well-known ones don't. Every registered independent school in England is inspected against the same legal standards, but the body doing the inspecting depends on the school. Schools belonging to the associations of the Independent Schools Council (ISC) — which includes most established London prep and senior schools — are inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI). Independent schools outside those associations are inspected by Ofsted. This split is the single most common source of confusion for parents comparing private and state schools, and it explains why many private schools appear on this site without an Ofsted rating.

3

London private schools in our data

3

With an Ofsted judgement

0

ISI-inspected or not yet rated

Two inspectorates, one set of standards

All independent schools must be registered with the Department for Education and must meet the Independent School Standards — legal requirements covering the quality of education, pupils' welfare, safeguarding, premises, and leadership. What differs is who checks. The ISI is a government-approved inspectorate whose work is itself monitored by Ofsted on behalf of the DfE, so an ISI inspection is not a soft option: it examines the same statutory requirements, and a school that fails them faces the same regulatory consequences, up to and including deregistration.

In practice, the division looks like this. The famous names of London private education — the large preps and the academically selective senior schools — are overwhelmingly ISC-association members and therefore ISI-inspected. Ofsted's independent-school caseload is mostly the rest of the sector: smaller proprietorial schools, many independent faith schools, special schools outside the associations, and newly registered schools that haven't joined an association.

How to read an ISI report

ISI reports don't use Ofsted's historic four-grade scale, so you can't line them up side by side with old Ofsted judgements. Under the ISI's current framework, reports state whether a school meets the standards, and separately evaluate outcomes for pupils in their own terms — with the ability to flag significant strengths. When reading one, focus on three things: whether all standards are met (any unmet standard is a serious flag), what the report says about pupils' achievement and progress, and the date — like Ofsted judgements, ISI findings age.

It's also worth knowing that Ofsted itself has moved away from single-word overall judgements for the schools it inspects. Since September 2024, state school inspections have not produced an overall effectiveness grade, and Ofsted has since introduced a report-card style of reporting. So the era of comparing schools by a single word is ending across the board — for state and private schools alike, the substance of the most recent report matters more than any label.

What this means when you're comparing schools

First, a missing Ofsted rating is not a warning sign for a private school — it usually just means the school is ISI-inspected. Check the ISI website or the school's own site for the latest report, which schools are required to make available to parents.

Second, private schools don't appear in DfE performance tables. Independent schools are not required to sit KS2 SATs, and most don't, so the KS2 comparisons that work well for state primaries simply aren't available. For senior schools, look at the school's own published GCSE and A-level results, bearing in mind that selective intakes flatter raw results.

Third, if you're weighing a private school against a strong state alternative, it's worth looking at the state schools achieving excellent results in the same borough — our private schools directory and Beating the Odds tool are designed for exactly that comparison, and our guide to London private school fees covers what the private route now costs after VAT.

Frequently asked questions

Do private schools get Ofsted inspections?

Some do. Independent schools that belong to an Independent Schools Council (ISC) association are inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) instead of Ofsted. Independent schools outside those associations — often smaller schools, faith schools and special schools — are inspected by Ofsted.

What is the ISI and is it as rigorous as Ofsted?

The Independent Schools Inspectorate is a government-approved inspectorate that inspects association independent schools against the same legal Independent School Standards that Ofsted uses for non-association schools. Its framework and terminology differ, but it is monitored by Ofsted on behalf of the Department for Education.

Why does a private school show no Ofsted rating on ofsted.london?

Usually because it is ISI-inspected, so Ofsted has never issued it a judgement. Check the school's own website or the ISI website for its latest inspection report.

Do private schools publish exam or KS2 results like state schools?

Private schools are not required to sit KS2 SATs or appear in DfE performance tables, and most do not. Comparing a private primary with a state primary on KS2 data is therefore usually impossible — you need to rely on inspection reports and the school's own published results.

School counts on this page are computed from our dataset of London schools and update automatically as the data refreshes. See our methodology for sources.