If you haven't looked at the new Ofsted inspection framework closely, there's a change in there that I think deserves more attention than it's getting. The evaluation area that used to be called "Leadership and Management" is now called "Leadership and Governance". Governance is in the title for the first time.
That might sound like a minor rewording, but I don't think it is. It signals something that's been building for a while: Ofsted is paying closer attention to how schools are governed, not just how they're led. And for anyone involved in governance, whether you're a clerk, a chair, or a school business manager organising elections, that shift has practical implications.
What's actually changed?
The new framework, in place since November 2025, replaced the old single-word Ofsted judgments with report cards. Instead of a school being labelled "Good" or "Requires Improvement" in a single headline, there's now a five-point scale across several evaluation areas: Exceptional Practice, Strong, Expected Standard, Needs Attention, and Urgent Improvement.
One of those evaluation areas is Leadership and Governance. Inspectors are now assessing whether leaders and governors collectively ensure provision enables every pupil to thrive. The criteria include things like having a clear strategic approach, a reflective understanding of the school's strengths and weaknesses, meaningful parent and community engagement, and coherent professional development.
Governance isn't graded separately from leadership, but it's explicitly part of the picture now. Inspectors will be looking at whether governors understand the school's strategic priorities, whether they provide effective oversight, and whether they support staff wellbeing. That's a broader lens than many governing bodies have been used to.
Why this matters for how you run elections
You might be wondering what this has to do with governor elections. I think the connection is more direct than it first appears.
If inspectors are now looking at the quality of governance as part of a named evaluation area, the composition of your governing body matters. How you recruit and elect governors matters. Whether your election process is documented, fair, and accessible matters. These things become part of the story of whether your governance is functioning well.
A governing body that can demonstrate a proper election process, with clear documentation, good parent participation, and a verifiable result, is telling a stronger governance story than one that can't remember when the last election happened or how it was run.
I've spoken with clerks who, when asked about their election process, can describe it in detail: when nominations opened, how parents were notified, how voting worked, what the turnout was. That's the kind of thing that holds up under scrutiny. Others shrug and say it was handled by whoever was around at the time. That's the kind of thing that doesn't.
If governance is now explicitly in the inspection spotlight, how you elect your governors is part of that governance story. It's worth making sure it's a story you're comfortable telling.
The gap between the framework and the reality
One of the interesting things about this change is that the detailed criteria for how governance will be assessed sit in the inspection toolkits, not in the framework document itself. The framework says governance is an evaluation area. The toolkit says what inspectors will actually look for.
Most governors I speak to haven't read the toolkit. That's understandable, it's a long document and governance is voluntary. But it does mean there's a gap between what Ofsted expects and what many governing bodies are preparing for. If you're a clerk or a governance professional, it's worth reading the relevant sections of the toolkit and sharing the key points with your board.
The broad themes are clear enough: inspectors want to see that governors understand the school's priorities, that they challenge and support leadership effectively, and that governance structures actually work rather than just existing on paper. Elections are part of that structure. They're how parent governors get onto the board in the first place.
What the five-point scale means in practice
Under the old system, a school that was judged "Good" overall could have governance that was quietly weak, and it wouldn't necessarily show up in the headline. The new report card format makes that harder to hide. If Leadership and Governance gets a "Needs Attention" grade while everything else is "Strong", that's visible. It's on the report card. Parents can see it. Trustees can see it.
That's actually a good thing, in my view. It means schools that invest in governance properly will get credit for it. And it means the ones that treat governance as an afterthought will find it harder to do so without consequence.
For multi-academy trusts, there's an additional dimension. Trust-level inspections are coming, likely from the 2027-28 academic year. When those arrive, the governance of individual schools within a trust will be looked at alongside the governance of the trust itself. Consistency across schools, including in how elections are run, will matter.
The new report cards make governance visible in a way it hasn't been before. If your governing body is functioning well, that will show. If it isn't, that will show too.
Three things worth doing now
If I were sitting down with a governance clerk or a school business manager this week, here's what I'd suggest.
First, read the Leadership and Governance section of the Ofsted inspection toolkit. It's the document that tells you what inspectors will actually be looking at. Share the key points with your chair and your full board at the next meeting. Don't assume everyone knows what's in there, because most people don't.
Second, review your governor election records. Can you show when your last election was held, how it was conducted, what the turnout was, and how the result was communicated? If you can, you're in good shape. If you can't, that's a gap worth closing before your next inspection.
Third, think about parent engagement more broadly. The framework explicitly mentions parent and community engagement as part of the Leadership and Governance criteria. Governor elections are one of the clearest touchpoints between a school and its parent community. A well-run election with decent turnout says something about the school's relationship with its parents. A poorly run one, or one that didn't happen, says something too.
I work with schools and trusts on making governor elections straightforward, documented, and accessible. If you'd like to talk through how that works, visit choicevoting.co.uk or drop me a message.