Guidance

Section 8 school inspection handbook

Guidance for Ofsted inspectors carrying out school inspections under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

From:
Ofsted
Published
14 May 2019
Last updated
11 July 2022 — See all updates

This publication was withdrawn on

We have merged the former section 5 and section 8 handbooks into a new school inspection handbook, which covers graded, ungraded and urgent inspections, and a monitoring handbook for monitoring inspections.

Applies to England

Documents

School inspection handbook: section 8

HTML

Summary of changes

HTML

Details

Section 8 inspections do not fall under section 5 of the Education Act 2005 (read the section 5 handbook). These include:

  • inspections of schools previously judged to be good (unless they’ve changed significantly or are flagged by our risk assessment process)
  • inspections of special schools, pupil referral units and maintained nursery schools previously judged to be outstanding
  • monitoring inspections for schools previously judged inadequate or requires improvement
  • inspections where we have a particular cause for concern (for example, about behaviour and attitudes, safeguarding or leadership)

Updates to this page

Published 14 May 2019
Last updated 11 July 2022 + show all updates

  1. Clarified that the section 5 and section 8 handbooks have now been merged into a new school inspection handbook and a school monitoring handbook, effective from September 2022. See 'summary of changes' for more details.

  2. See 'Summary of changes' for details.

  3. Removed old guidance: the September 2021 handbook is now in force.

  4. See 'Summary of changes' document.

  5. Edits throughout: see 'Summary of changes' for details.

  6. Updated with minor changes following the launch of the education inspection framework (EIF).

  7. Updated with minor changes as we launch the education inspection framework (EIF).

  8. First published.

Sign up for emails or print this page

Related content