Ofsted’s top ‘exceptional’ grade is not out of reach for independent training providers, the inspectorate’s new FE chief has said, despite only one provider achieving the feat since the new regime launched eight months ago. Jonathan Childs, Ofsted’s deputy director for post-16 education and skills, told FE Week he was “sure and confident” that “plenty more providers” would secure the highest judgment as more inspections are completed. His comments, made during an interview at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ national conference, come after concerns from independent training providers that the new grade is proving virtually impossible to achieve. Since Ofsted introduced report cards and its new five-point grading scale in November, just one of more than 150 published independent provider inspection reports has included an ‘exceptional’ judgment. This was for adult achievement for a relatively lower number of skills bootcamp learners. More than 120 exceptional grades have been handed to schools over the same timeframe, but there have been more than 1,300 school reports. Childs acknowledged that exceptional grades have been “relatively few” across the post-16 sector so far, but argued this was because the inspectorate had intentionally set an “extremely high bar”. “We are eight months in, so we definitely don’t have a representative view yet. But the exceptional grade is designed for any provider to be able to reach,” he said. “It is definitely not out of reach for any provider type. It is about you doing the very best job that you could be doing with your learners, that is having a transformational impact on their outcomes and is sustained over time.” ‘Transformational impact’ Under Ofsted’s new framework, providers must first meet the requirements for a ‘strong’ judgment before being considered for exceptional. Multiple providers, including Kleek last week and Corndel in March, have received ‘strong standards’ across the board and were left frustrated at missing out on exceptional. Childs said exceptional was intended to identify “the really best sector-leading provision that is out there”. “Where we see that we want to celebrate and share it so others can learn from it.” He rejected suggestions that the grade may be harder for certain provider types to achieve. Instead, Childs argued exceptional performance would look different depending on the learners being served. “Exceptional will look different depending on who your cohort of learners are. When I talk about achievement I talk about distance from starting points. It is not just about exam results or whatever. “Transformational is like that. If you are taking a group of disengaged young people who are not really involved in education, not attending, and you take them to a place where they are attending all the time, they are achieving high levels and exceeding expectations, going on to fantastic outcomes afterwards, that is what exceptional might look like.” Challenged on whether “transformational impact” is too subjective, Childs said: “We’ve tried to be clear in the toolkit about what we think exceptional looks like, but I accept that there will always be different views as to whether someone has met that level or not. Inspectors are humans; we are an organisation of lots of humans who will go out and make decisions. The toolkit tends to make that much more consistent process.” Earlier in his speech, he said Ofsted’s drive for greater consistency does not end on inspection. “Every inspection is quality assured – both in real time and after the event – to give us confidence that the evidence gathered supports the grades given and the standards in our toolkit,” Childs explained. “Where we need to, we will do a further review of the evidence or even return to gather additional evidence, and where necessary we will amend a grade. And before every report card is published, we will review it to make sure it fairly and accurately tells the story of the provider and the quality of their provision. “These quality assurance processes are there to ensure fairness and consistency. And of course, if a provider remains dissatisfied with their inspection, we have a rigorous complaints procedure that they can follow.” No plans to change framework While insisting the framework will continue to be monitored, Childs said there were currently “no plans” to amend the criteria despite the scarcity of exceptional grades. “We’re in a relatively early stage here,” he said. “If there were bits of our toolkits … that we didn’t think were working well enough, then we would think about changing them, but that’s not where we are.” However, he left open the possibility of future changes if inspection evidence suggests the system is not operating as intended. “If it’s not [working], then we will think about adjustments that we need to make.” No achievement rate trigger for ‘urgent improvement’ Childs also dismissed suggestions that Ofsted uses apprenticeship achievement rates as automatic triggers for poor inspection outcomes. Four providers have so far received the lowest ‘urgent improvement’ rating for apprenticeship achievement – their qualification achievement rates ranged from 16 per cent to 39 per cent. FE Week analysis found one provider that scored ‘needs improvement’ for apprenticeship achievement despite a QAR in 2025-26 of 28 per cent. Asked whether there was a performance threshold that would lead inspectors towards an urgent improvement judgment, he said: “Absolutely not.” “We definitely don’t have criteria that says if your achievement rates are at this level or that level, it equates to a certain grade.” He said inspectors use performance data only as a starting point before examining wider evidence during inspection visits. “We wouldn’t want to be in a position where you could anticipate, predict or give out inspection grades from a desk-based exercise looking at the data.”