Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) and is a non-ministerial department of the UK government.

The services Ofsted inspects or regulates include: local services, child-minding, child day care, children’s centres, children’s social care, CAFCASS, state schools, independent schools and teacher training providers, colleges, and learning and skills providers in England.

They will visits a setting and review the school, the teachers and how the pupils are working to ensure that the education being offered is at the level it should be. Ofsted inspections are made up of a number of elements and each setting is then graded on these elements. At the end of the Ofsted the setting is given a level such as “Good” or “Satisfactory”. If the school is marked as satisfactory or below then they may be given a limited time to improve before Ofsted return to inspect them again.