Publishing your Ofsted report on your website is one of the DfE requirements.  Our School Website Requirements Guide outlines the details of what you need to do in order to be fully compliant.  The DfE suggest you only need to either publish your Ofsted report or provide a link to Ofsted’s website where your report sits.  However, I would recommend doing both as sometimes technology can let us down and the link to the Ofsted page could break. Having the document on your website allows you to pick out key areas which you can add to your Ofsted page to make it more friendly.

Tip: make sure that the link points directly to your schools Ofsted report rather than the search page.

Now, there is no getting away from the fact that this simple requirement is just to publish your report on your school’s website.  That’s a little bit dull and boring don’t you think?  In this blog, we’ll take a look at how you can really go above and beyond with this requirement.

First and foremost make sure you embed the most recent Ofsted report on your website.  If you’re a Schudio client you have that facility built into the software by using document groups.  If you’re not a client give some thought as to how you can best display your report.

Make your Ofsted report available!

There is no right or wrong way of making your report available to parents.  Of course, you must publish it on your website but you don’t need to provide them with a paper copy. Why wouldn’t you though? This is all about going above and beyond so you stand out.  You may wish to leave a paper copy in the school office should parents wish to read it.

Another way to go above and beyond with this would be to add a note next to your report on your website that paper copies can be given to parents upon request. Many schools will email a copy of the report to parents.  With this, you may wish to write a covering letter highlighting key parts of the report and expressing your thoughts around the report. Highlight the areas which you are most proud of.

A final way to stand out with your Ofsted report is to make it accessible to everyone. Make sure people have the option to read it on your website, the option to download and the option to view it on the Ofsted website. This gives people the option as to how they want to view the report.

Showcase your school from your Ofsted Report!

We often talk about painting your school in the best possible light.  Once you’ve published your report, you will want to make your Ofsted page stand out from the crowd.  One way of doing this could be to pick out key phrases or statements that the Inspection Team has made about your school in the report.  These could be created as a graphic or simply quotes on your webpage.  Often Inspection Teams talk about the ethos and atmosphere of the school during their visit.  You may want to comment on this as that is usually harder to put into words in a report!

Take full advantage of this report. Ofsted could be saying amazing things about your school, why keep them locked in a pdf document? Go to town on this and let everyone know how great your school is and how proud you are of it.

What should you do now?

Firstly, double-check that you have your MOST recent Ofsted report available on your website.  Then you will want to consider ways to spice up the Ofsted reports page on your website.  Perhaps you get a colleague to help you think around this.  Finally, enrol on our School Website Compliance Course where you can delve deeper into all areas of school website compliance and work through the course at your own pace.