Ofsted questions for governors: what inspectors ask and how to prepare the board

Reviewed by Ben Parnell, former headteacher and trust chief executive. Last reviewed 25 September 2026.

Ofsted does not publish a list of questions for governors. It publishes the school inspection toolkit, which sets out what inspectors consider when they evaluate leadership and governance, and an operating guide that tells inspectors who to meet and what to explore. The questions in this guide follow from those criteria. They are our reading of the toolkit, not an official Ofsted list, and inspectors will frame their own questions around your school.

Will Ofsted meet the governors or trustees?

Yes. The operating guide for inspectors, for use from September 2026, tells the lead inspector to find a suitable time on either day 1 or day 2 to meet those responsible for governance, on a call if necessary. Contact details for governance are collected on the notification call: the chair of governors in a maintained school, or the CEO and chair of the trust board in an academy, plus the interim executive board (IEB) if there is one.

Who counts as "those responsible for governance" depends on the type of school:

In a maintained school, it is the governing board. If the school is in a federation, inspectors evaluate how that affects the individual school. If an IEB is in place, they establish how its members are taking responsibility for all governance.
In an academy, it is the board of trustees. Inspectors should always meet the chair of trustees (or their delegate) and as many trustees as are available. If no trustees were available during the inspection, the inspector must record this in the report card.

How does the governor meeting work?

The operating guide says these meetings should usually take place without school and trust leaders present, unless there are exceptional circumstances that have been discussed with the inspector. That wording sits in its section on academies, so in a maintained school it is worth agreeing the arrangement with the lead inspector. In a trust, at least part of the meeting with trustees should happen without the CEO, including where the CEO is also a trustee, although inspectors can decide it is appropriate for the CEO to be present given the trust's structure. Where a trust employs a governance professional, inspectors may meet them too.

The operating guide tells inspectors to:

explore how governors or trustees carry out their functions, particularly in shaping and supporting the school's vision, ethos and strategic direction, and the impact this has on day-to-day decisions
consider whether the way they support and challenge leaders helps the school provide a high-quality education
consider how effective processes and policies are, and how governors assure themselves that these are understood and implemented across the school

In an academy, the meeting with the chair of trustees is expected to cover governance oversight and arrangements for areas such as safeguarding, behaviour and curriculum. Separately, as part of evaluating safeguarding, inspectors discuss with the chair of governors, or a trustee in an academy, how the board manages safeguarding concerns or allegations about the headteacher.

What does the toolkit say inspectors look for in governance?

The leadership and governance area of the toolkit lists what inspectors consider when gathering evidence about governance. In summary, the extent to which governors or trustees:

are knowledgeable about their statutory duties and carry them out effectively
support and challenge leaders effectively, using the best methods to assure themselves of the quality and impact of the school's work
understand their role as the responsible body, where applicable, in considering and addressing leaders' workload and wellbeing
assure themselves that leaders understand the school's context accurately and are prioritising the actions that will have the greatest impact on pupils
ensure that monitoring and quality assurance systems are fair, valid and constructive, and give staff high-quality feedback
hold leaders to account for the impact of the professional learning programme
hold leaders to account for provision for disadvantaged pupils, pupils with SEND, pupils known (or previously known) to children's social care, and those facing other barriers to learning or wellbeing

Governance also appears elsewhere. The safeguarding area treats "leaders and those responsible for governance" together, and the inclusion area expects leaders, alongside governors or trustees, to have developed and published an inclusion strategy.

What do Ofsted ask governors? Questions that follow from the toolkit

These are not Ofsted's wording. Each is built from a toolkit criterion, so a board that can answer them honestly, with examples, is well placed for the conversation.

Statutory duties and strategic direction

How do you know the board is meeting its statutory duties, and who checks?
How did the board shape the school's vision, ethos and strategic direction, and how does that show up in day-to-day decisions?

Knowing the school

What are the school's current improvement priorities, and why those rather than others?
How do you check that leaders' picture of the school's context is accurate, rather than taking it on trust?

Support, challenge and assurance

Give an example of a time the board challenged leaders. What changed as a result?
Beyond reports from the headteacher, how do you assure yourselves about the quality of the school's work?
How do you know that monitoring and quality assurance are fair to staff and useful to them?

Pupils who face the most barriers

What do you know about how disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND are doing here, and how do you hold leaders to account for it?
What do you know about pupils known to children's social care, and about any pupils the school places in alternative provision?
How was the inclusion strategy developed, and what part did the board play?

Staff, workload and wellbeing

How does the board consider the headteacher's workload and wellbeing, and who is responsible for it day to day?
How do you know staff workload is manageable, and what have you done when it was not?
How do you hold leaders to account for the impact of professional learning?

Safeguarding

How does the board get strategic oversight of safeguarding without seeing confidential case detail?
What would happen if an allegation were made about the headteacher, and who would handle it?

What does the expected standard look like for governance?

Leadership and governance is graded on the same five-point scale as the other evaluation areas, from exceptional to urgent improvement (see report card grades).

For governors, the toolkit's expected standard says they ensure that the vision, ethos and strategic direction of the school are clearly defined, take account of context, and make sure resources, including digital technologies, are used effectively. They typically support and challenge leaders appropriately, giving due regard to leaders' and staff wellbeing and workload.

The needs attention indicators describe governors who understand their broad roles and responsibilities but do not typically support or challenge leaders well, and whose assurance does not give them a precise picture of the impact of leaders' work. At the strong standard, governors use their knowledge and expertise to provide consistent support and challenge across all aspects of the school's work.

Urgent improvement indicators include governors not carrying out their statutory core functions, where the breaches are serious because of their actual or potential impact on pupils, and a responsible body that is unclear about its statutory duties on leaders' wellbeing or does not support leaders appropriately. The governance indicator is one of the four leadership capacity indicators the operating guide uses when deciding whether a school is failing to demonstrate the capacity to improve, which feeds into decisions about a category of concern.

Which governors should take part in a multi-academy trust?

Where a trust has local governing bodies, sometimes called academy committees, inspectors must establish who has overall responsibility for governance and whether the trust has delegated specific responsibilities to the local tier or whether it is purely advisory. The operating guide notes that where an LGB's powers are delegated from trust leaders, the LGB is part of the school's management, not its governance. If the LGB holds no responsibility for any area relevant to the toolkit, inspectors do not need to speak with it. Our guide for trust leaders covers the scheme of delegation in more detail.

How should the board prepare?

By 8am on the first day, schools must make available minutes of governing body meetings (or, in an academy, board of trustees' meetings) and other strategic governance documents, alongside the school improvement priorities. The toolkit is clear that Ofsted does not need leaders to produce documents specifically for inspection, so the job is to make sure what exists is easy to find and that governors know what it says.

Practical steps:

Agree now who could meet inspectors at short notice on day 1 or day 2, in person or on a call, and make sure the chair or a named delegate is reachable.
Make sure the chair, or a named trustee in an academy, can explain the process for handling an allegation about the headteacher.
Check that governors can speak to the current improvement priorities and the school's self-evaluation, in their own words.
Ask each link governor what they saw first-hand in their area, not only what they read in reports.
Review recent minutes for examples of challenge and what followed from it. If the minutes do not show challenge that did happen, improve the minuting for the future rather than rewriting the past.
Know who is responsible for the headteacher's wellbeing day to day, which inspectors ask on the planning call.

Avoid scripted answers. A rehearsed line that does not match the minutes or what staff say will not help.

Can governors attend the final feedback meeting?

Yes. For a maintained school, the chair and as many governors as are available may attend, and the clerk (or equivalent) may take notes. For an academy, the chair of trustees or their delegate and as many trustees as are available may attend, with the clerk to the board or equivalent taking notes. Leaders should share the findings with all governors or trustees, but the information must not be made public or shared with parents until the final report card arrives.

The school then has 5 working days to comment on the draft report card, limited to minor points of clarity and factual accuracy. Our factual accuracy check guide covers that stage.

If you want a structured way to check governance evidence against the toolkit before the call comes, InspectReady maps a school's existing documents to each evaluation area. Our inspection preparation guide covers the wider picture.

Frequently asked questions

Does Ofsted publish a list of questions for governors? No. Ofsted publishes the school inspection toolkit, which sets out what inspectors consider when they evaluate governance, and an operating guide that says who inspectors meet and what they explore. Any list of governor questions, including the one in this guide, is an interpretation of those documents rather than an official script.

Will inspectors definitely meet governors or trustees? Inspectors are told to meet those responsible for governance, on a call if necessary, at a suitable time on day 1 or day 2. In an academy they should always meet the chair of trustees or their delegate and as many trustees as are available. If no trustees were available, that has to be recorded in the report card.

Can the headteacher sit in on the governor meeting? In an academy, usually not. The operating guide says meetings with trustees should usually take place without school and trust leaders present unless there are exceptional circumstances that have been discussed with the inspector. It does not spell this out for maintained schools, so agree the arrangement with the lead inspector. In a trust, at least part of the meeting with trustees should happen without the CEO, even if the CEO is also a trustee.

Do local governing bodies in a trust get interviewed? It depends on what the trust has delegated to them. Inspectors establish whether the local governing body holds specific responsibilities or is purely advisory. If it holds no responsibility for areas relevant to the toolkit, inspectors do not need to speak with it.

Should governors write anything new before the inspection? No. The toolkit says Ofsted does not need leaders to produce documents specifically for an inspection. Inspectors ask for existing minutes and strategic governance documents by 8am on the first day, so the useful work is making sure those are accessible and that governors can talk about what is in them.

Can governors attend the final feedback meeting? Yes. The chair and as many governors or trustees as are available may attend, and the clerk (or equivalent) or their delegate may attend to take notes. The findings must not be made public or shared with parents until the school receives the final report card.

Sources

School inspection: toolkit, operating guides and information, GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-toolkit-operating-guide-and-information
State-funded school inspection toolkit, updated June 2026 (v2.0), for use from 7 September 2026, GOV.UK: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a915d1c01bbff0bf8f97b51/Schools_inspection_toolkit.pdf
School inspection operating guide for inspectors: for use from September 2026, GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-toolkit-operating-guide-and-information/school-inspection-operating-guide-for-inspectors-for-use-from-september-2026
Inspection information for state-funded schools: for use from September 2026, GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-toolkit-operating-guide-and-information/inspection-information-for-state-funded-schools-for-use-from-september-2026
Summary of changes, GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-toolkit-operating-guide-and-information/summary-of-changes
Glossary: education inspection terminology, GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/glossary-education-inspection-terminology

Questions school leaders ask

Does Ofsted publish a list of questions for governors?: No. Ofsted publishes the school inspection toolkit, which sets out what inspectors consider when they evaluate governance, and an operating guide that says who inspectors meet and what they explore. Any list of governor questions, including the one in this guide, is an interpretation of those documents rather than an official script.
Will inspectors definitely meet governors or trustees?: Inspectors are told to meet those responsible for governance, on a call if necessary, at a suitable time on day 1 or day 2. In an academy they should always meet the chair of trustees or their delegate and as many trustees as are available. If no trustees were available, that has to be recorded in the report card.
Can the headteacher sit in on the governor meeting?: In an academy, usually not. The operating guide says meetings with trustees should usually take place without school and trust leaders present unless there are exceptional circumstances that have been discussed with the inspector. It does not spell this out for maintained schools, so agree the arrangement with the lead inspector. In a trust, at least part of the meeting with trustees should happen without the CEO, even if the CEO is also a trustee.
Do local governing bodies in a trust get interviewed?: It depends on what the trust has delegated to them. Inspectors establish whether the local governing body holds specific responsibilities or is purely advisory. If it holds no responsibility for areas relevant to the toolkit, inspectors do not need to speak with it.
Should governors write anything new before the inspection?: No. The toolkit says Ofsted does not need leaders to produce documents specifically for an inspection. Inspectors ask for existing minutes and strategic governance documents by 8am on the first day, so the useful work is making sure those are accessible and that governors can talk about what is in them.
Can governors attend the final feedback meeting?: Yes. The chair and as many governors or trustees as are available may attend, and the clerk (or equivalent) or their delegate may attend to take notes. The findings must not be made public or shared with parents until the school receives the final report card.