Ofsted report cards on your nursery website
Short answer: since November 2025, Ofsted gives nurseries and childminders a report card with a grade for each area, not one overall grade. When you get yours, remove any Ofsted “Outstanding” or “Good” logo, link to the report card, and quote your grades area by area. You can’t call the whole setting “Outstanding” any more.
Updated 29 October 2026 from Ofsted guidance on GOV.UK. For settings on the Early Years Register in England.
The new grades
Each area is graded on a five-point scale. Safeguarding is graded separately, as met or not met.
| Grade | What it means |
|---|---|
| Exceptional | Among the very best nationally |
| Strong standard | Excellent, consistent work |
| Expected standard | Meets all the expected standards |
| Needs attention | Usually reinspected within 12 months |
| Urgent improvement | Usually reinspected within 6 months |
The areas graded for early years settings are:
- Inclusion
- Curriculum and teaching
- Achievement
- Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines
- Children’s welfare and wellbeing
- Leadership and governance
If no children of early years age are present or on roll, only leadership and governance is graded. Settings graded expected standard or above in every area are usually inspected again within four years.
What to change on your website
- Take down the old logo once you have a report card. Ofsted’s rules say settings previously judged Outstanding or Good must remove those logos from websites, banners and marketing after their next inspection.
- Stop using one-word summaries. Swap “Ofsted Outstanding nursery” for what the report card actually says, such as “Curriculum and teaching: strong standard”.
- Link to the full report card on the Ofsted reports website, with the inspection date.
- Use the QR code badge for print. Ofsted asks that printed content from your report card appears with its official QR code badge, downloadable from your page on the reports website.
- Check your Google listing and social media. Old “Outstanding” wording often lives on in a Google Business Profile, Facebook bio or directory listing.
- Never use “Ofsted approved” or “Ofsted registered” badges. Ofsted says these are unofficial and shouldn’t be used.
Group of nurseries? Any old logo must sit only on the page for the setting it belongs to, never in a header or footer shared with settings that don’t hold that grade.
Still showing a pre-November 2025 grade?
That’s fine. Settings judged Outstanding or Good before November 2025 can keep using that logo until their next graded inspection. Make sure it links to the report and shows the date, so parents can see how recent it is.
Questions
What are the new Ofsted grades for nurseries?
Since 10 November 2025, Ofsted grades nurseries and childminders on a five-point scale: exceptional, strong standard, expected standard, needs attention and urgent improvement, for each evaluation area. Safeguarding is graded met or not met. There is no longer an overall grade.
Can we keep our Ofsted Outstanding or Good logo?
Only until your next graded inspection. Once you receive a report card you must remove the Outstanding or Good logo from your website, banners and marketing, because report cards don’t give an overall grade.
How should a nursery show its report card on its website?
Link to your page on the Ofsted reports website, give the inspection date, and quote your grades accurately, area by area. Ofsted asks that printed content from your report card is shown alongside its official QR code badge, which links to the full report.
Can we say we are ‘Ofsted Outstanding’ after a report card inspection?
No. Report cards don’t award an overall grade, so you can’t describe the whole setting with one Ofsted word. You can say, for example, that curriculum and teaching was graded ‘strong standard’.
Do report card grades compare to the old grades?
No. Ofsted says the new grades can’t be compared with the old ones, because it’s a different approach to inspection.
Sources
- Education inspection framework: for use from November 2025, Ofsted
- Understanding Ofsted report cards and grades, Ofsted
- Early years inspection information, Ofsted, for use from September 2026
- Using Ofsted logos and copyright, Ofsted, updated 17 April 2026
More on what belongs on your site: what a nursery website must include and EYFS changes from September 2026.
Just had your report card?
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