The Birmingham schools which lost their ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating in 2022

Three schools in Birmingham which were previously handed ‘oustanding’ Ofsted ratings 10 years ago have now been told they require improvement following new inspections in 2022.

Hundreds of previously ‘outstanding’ English schools have been downgraded by Ofsted after their first inspection in many years.

Schools judged outstanding had been exempt from routine inspection, but this rule was lifted in 2020.

Since then, Ofsted has inspected 371 of the schools, with more than 80% losing their outstanding status, including three Birmingham schools - although two of the schools maintained their impressive inspection results from 2011.

Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, said: “Regular inspection gives parents confidence in the quality of their child’s school. Exempting outstanding schools deprived parents of up-to-date information. It also left a lot of schools without the constructive challenge that regular inspection provides.

“The exemption was a policy founded on the hope that high standards, once achieved, would never drop, and that freedom from inspection might drive them even higher. These outcomes show that removing a school from scrutiny does not make it better.”

In 2012, the Department for Education made outstanding primary and secondary schools exempt from routine inspection, in an attempt to remove the burden of inspection from highly performing state-funded schools.

The exemption was scrapped in 2020. Of the 3,400 schools graded outstanding at that point, 43% had not had a graded inspection for at least 10 academic years, and a further 38% had gone between five and 10 academic years.

We’ve taken a look at the five Birmingham schools which were handed ‘outstanding’ Ofsted ratings in 2011 and which have been reinspected this year.

Let’s see which schools have maintained their ‘outstanding’ rating and which ones have lost theirs.