A Visual Guide to the New OfSTED Framework – now updated to include both Outstanding & Good descriptors for Primary and Secondary

UPDATE: Due to popular demand, I have created my visual guides to OfSTED for Outstanding and Good in Primary, and Outstanding and Good in Secondary.

For those of you who are expecting OfSTED, or who just want to get your heads around the new OfSTED framework, I’ve produced a visual guide of the ‘Good’ grade descriptors. I did this for three reasons:

1. For those of us who like documents to be more visual, and who use shapes and colours to help us take in information, you should find these grade descriptors much easier to read than the way they are currently laid out in the OfSTED handbook.
2. This “mind map” style representation would make a really great display in the staff room/training room as part of CPD. It would even be possible to add Post-it notes, documents and photos to it, to build up a picture of how your school meets the criteria (both formal and non-formal observations). Used in this way, I would encourage anybody to add to it – teaching staff, lunchtime staff, governors, visitors – as well as SLT.
3. It’s a really useful tool for when you are doing a book scrutiny or learning walk, or as a quick reference guide for leadership conversations.

Some things to note:

1. I have written this as the Primary version, and as such haven’t included references about Secondary schools UPDATE: A Visual Guide to the New OfSTED Framework has been updated to include Primary, Secondary and Outstanding
2. Some of the OfSTED handbook statements have been shortened to capture their essence, so please always make sure to refer back to the original for the full picture
3. I have numbered each box to make it easier to facilitate conversations around the document, and to make it easier to collect and label evidence following a book scrutiny, learning walk etc

I hope you find this useful – I have had positive feedback from schools that I have trialled this with, and would love to hear from you too if you implement it in your school. And if you want any support with reviewing, revamping or re-energising your curriculum, please do get in touch.

Click here to download the Primary version of the Visual Guide to the New OFSTED Framework

Click here to download the Secondary version of the Visual Guide to the New OFSTED Framework