• Find a children and families services inspection report
• Understanding a children and families services inspection report
• Types of children and families services Ofsted inspects
• Inspecting children and families services
• Types of children and families services Ofsted regulates
• Regulating children and families services
• Statistics for children and families services
• About our survey reports
• How to complain

Understanding a children and families services inspection report

This page explains what is in an inspection report.

Ofsted inspects many different kinds of provision which are used by children and families, from residential colleges to fostering and adoption services.

There are different types of inspection – a boarding school inspection, for instance, will be different from one carried out at a local authority – so the contents and length of the reports differ too.

Our inspection reports have a lot of information gathered by the inspectors during their inspection.

Inspection findings may include:

• information about the provision
• how many children or young people use it
• what the facilities are
• how well the setting is doing its job
• key strengths and weaknesses
• what improvements and changes need to be made so it can improve.

There may be a judgement on its performance, and a grade: outstanding; good; satisfactory; inadequate.