The New Ofsted Grading Framework: What Changes for Nurseries in November 2025

In September 2025, Ofsted confirmed the replacement of the single headline grade for early years settings. From November 2025, nurseries, pre-schools, and childminders registered on the Early Years Register receive a report card with multiple sub-judgements instead of a single word verdict. The old system of Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, and Inadequate is gone. In its place is a five-grade scale applied across several distinct areas, with a narrative summary that parents are expected to read rather than scan for a single word.

This is not a minor rebrand. It changes what inspectors look for, how they weight their judgements, and what documentation you need to have ready.

The five new grades

The new grading scale replaces the old four-point system. Every sub-judgement is assessed on this scale:

The sub-judgement areas

Instead of one overall grade, nurseries receive separate assessments across multiple areas. The confirmed sub-judgement categories for early years settings are:

• Quality of education: the curriculum, how it is implemented, and what impact it has on children's learning and development
• Behaviour and attitudes: how children behave, their attitudes to learning, their emotional wellbeing, and how staff support positive behaviour
• Personal development: the wider development of children, including physical health, social skills, and readiness for the next stage
• Leadership and management: governance, self-evaluation, safeguarding, staff development, and compliance with the EYFS statutory framework
• Safeguarding: assessed as a pass/fail within leadership and management, but with its own detailed narrative in the report card

A nursery can receive different grades across different areas. A setting might achieve Grade 2 for quality of education but Grade 3 for leadership and management. Under the old system, the headline grade often masked these differences. Under the new system, they are visible to parents.

What inspectors look for under the new framework

Quality of education

Inspectors want to see a coherent curriculum that goes beyond the seven areas of learning in the EYFS. They ask: what do you want children to learn, in what order, and why? They observe whether practitioners deliver the planned curriculum in practice, and they assess whether children are making progress against the intended learning.

The documentation requirement here is a written curriculum plan (not the EYFS framework itself, but your interpretation of it for your setting), evidence of assessment against learning objectives, and records of how you adapt provision for children who are not meeting expected levels. "We follow the EYFS" is not a curriculum.

Safeguarding

Safeguarding remains the area where nurseries most commonly fail. Under the new framework, inspectors check the same fundamentals but with heightened expectations around record keeping:

• A written safeguarding policy reviewed annually, naming the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) and deputy
• Evidence that all staff have received safeguarding training at induction and refresher training at least annually, with records of dates, content, and attendance
• DBS check records for every member of staff, including volunteers, committee members, and anyone with unsupervised access to children
• A single central record (SCR) listing every person, their role, DBS check date, DBS certificate number, and any additional checks (overseas police clearance, prohibition checks)
• Concern and referral logs: a chronological record of any safeguarding concern raised about a child, the action taken, and the outcome
• Evidence of safer recruitment: interview records, reference checks, identity verification, and gaps-in-employment explanations

The single central record is the document inspectors ask for first. If it is incomplete, out of date, or missing entries for current staff, the safeguarding judgement is effectively failed before the inspector walks into a room.

Leadership and management

Under the new framework, leadership is assessed more rigorously on self-evaluation. Inspectors ask: what do you think your strengths and weaknesses are, and what evidence supports that view? A setting that cannot articulate its own areas for improvement is unlikely to achieve Grade 2 in this area.

Documentation expectations include:

• A written self-evaluation (SEF or equivalent) updated at least annually
• An improvement plan with specific, measurable actions and timescales
• Staff supervision and appraisal records
• Training records and professional development plans
• Parent feedback records and evidence of how feedback has influenced practice
• Complaints log with investigation records and outcomes
• Accident and incident records with trend analysis
• Risk assessments for the premises, outings, and specific activities

The evidence shift: continuous, not inspection-day

The most significant practical change under the new framework is the shift towards continuous evidence. Under the old system, many nurseries prepared intensively in the weeks before a known inspection window. Under the new framework, Ofsted expects to see evidence that has been collected and maintained as part of normal operations, not assembled retrospectively.

Inspectors can identify retrospective preparation. A safeguarding policy dated last week. Training records with suspiciously clustered dates. A complaints log with no entries for 18 months followed by three entries in the past fortnight. These patterns undermine confidence in the setting's governance.

Continuous evidence collection means maintaining your documentation as you go: updating the SCR when a new staff member starts (not when you hear the inspector is coming), recording safeguarding concerns on the day they arise, filing training certificates when the training happens, and reviewing risk assessments when conditions change rather than on a fixed annual cycle.

What the report card looks like to parents

Parents will see a one-page report card showing the grade for each sub-judgement area, plus a narrative summary written in plain language. Ofsted has stated that the narrative will explain what the nursery does well and what it needs to improve, without jargon.

For nurseries, this is a commercial reality. Under the old system, parents looked for "Good" or "Outstanding" and stopped reading. Under the new system, parents will see separate grades and a summary that highlights weaknesses. A nursery with Grade 2 overall but Grade 3 for safeguarding will find that Grade 3 prominently visible. Prospective parents read these reports before visiting.

Preparing for your first inspection under the new framework

If your last inspection was under the old framework, your first inspection under the new one will feel different. Inspectors will spend more time asking about your curriculum intent and your self-evaluation. They will expect to see evidence that has been maintained continuously, not assembled for the visit. And they will produce a report card that exposes strengths and weaknesses separately rather than averaging them into a single grade.

The practical preparation is straightforward:

1. Review your single central record. Ensure every current staff member is listed with complete DBS information. Remove anyone who has left.
2. Write or update your curriculum plan. Document what you want children to learn, by when, and how you assess progress.
3. Complete your self-evaluation. Be honest about weaknesses. Inspectors respect settings that know where they need to improve.
4. Check your safeguarding training records. Every staff member needs evidence of initial training and at least one refresher within the past 12 months.
5. Ensure your risk assessments are dated and reflect current conditions. A risk assessment for the garden that does not mention the new climbing frame is out of date.
6. Review your complaints and incident logs. If they are empty, that raises questions. Settings that never receive complaints are either not recording them or not listening.

Most of this work is documentation maintenance. The quality of care may already be there. The question is whether the paperwork reflects it.

NurseryPad was built to handle exactly this documentation burden: single central records, safeguarding logs, training matrices, risk assessments, curriculum plans, and self-evaluation templates. Continuous evidence collection that is ready for inspection at any time, not just the week before.