Pre-school Education: Inspections

(asked on 10th July 2025) - View Source
Questioner
Tom Morrison Portrait
Tom Morrison
(Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of Ofsted inspections of early years settings have been unannounced in each of the last five years.

Answered by
Stephen Morgan Portrait
Stephen Morgan
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This question was answered on 23rd July 2025

Ofsted paused routine inspections in mid-March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Full Early Years Register inspections restarted in May 2021, including a number of unannounced inspections detailed below.

  • Between 1 April 2021 - 31 March 2022 there were 1,200 unannounced inspections (19%).
  • Between 1 April 2022 - 31 March 2023 there were 2,100 unannounced inspections (16%).
  • Between 1 April 2023 - 31 March 2024 there were 2,200 unannounced inspections (24%).
  • Between 1 April 2024 - 31 March 2025 there were 1,400 unannounced inspections (16%).
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