This summer had the most inadequate judgements since 2022
Between July and September, Ofsted published 1,361 full inspections of children's homes. Almost one in eleven of them ended in an inadequate judgement, the highest share for any quarter since the end of 2022.
Most of what we write on this blog is about patterns that hold steady from year to year. This post is about one that has changed. The share of full inspections judged inadequate has gone up in each of the last two periods of three months. This summer's figure is well above anything we saw in 2024 or 2025.
120 full inspections were judged inadequate, July to September 2026.
Comparing like with like
Inspection results change with the time of year. So we compare each summer with earlier summers, not with the spring. For example, about 17 in every 100 reports published between January and March are Outstanding. Between July and September, it is only about 6 in every 100. That pattern has held for the last three years.
Compared with previous summers, this one stands out. The inadequate share has more than doubled since the summer of 2024, and it is now close to the levels last seen in the second half of 2022.
Full inspections judged inadequate, July to September each year
Share of full inspections published in the quarter
The rise did not start in the summer. Between April and June the figure was already 6.7%. That was higher than any three month period in 2024 or 2025. The share of homes judged as requiring improvement to be good also climbed, from about 15 in every 100 last summer to 17 in every 100 this summer.
Read the rest of this post
Join the free Weekly Bulletin and the rest of this post appears straight away.
