58% of "Outstanding" schools were last inspected before the pandemic

Every parent has had this conversation: "What's your local primary like?" — "Oh, it's Outstanding." The badge has become shorthand. But shorthand for what, exactly?

Of the 2,281 state primaries and secondaries in England currently holding an Outstanding Ofsted judgement, we looked at when each was last actually inspected. The findings:

How old are these ratings, really?

The 12 oldest Outstanding ratings still on the books

These are all schools currently displayed on government and comparison sites with the Outstanding badge. None has had an inspection visit in this academic year, the last academic year, or many years before that:

Why this matters when you're choosing a school

1. Don't read "Outstanding" alone. Always check the inspection date alongside it. Ratings older than five years describe an entirely different leadership team, and often an entirely different cohort of pupils.
2. Look at the data the badge masks. A school can hold an Outstanding rating from 2017 while quietly running a deficit, losing half its pupil roll, or seeing its KS2 results fall every year. The badge says nothing about any of that.
3. Take live signals seriously. Workforce sickness rates, vacancy counts, capacity utilisation, financial reserves — these update annually and are far better at predicting how a school is actually doing right now than an inspection from before your child was born.