Ofsted - how often do they inspect academies?

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

I have no direct interest in schools any more, as my children are now in their 20s, but out of nosiness I just looked up a local school which is now an academy. The last inspection appears to have been in 2008. Why would this be? Am I missing something?

If outstanding then it can go years without and inspection. Also, schools have a grace period of seven terms after they have academised before OFSTED can inspect.

Thanks, allinclusive. There's an academy conversion letter on the Ofsted site from 2012. It was outstanding in 2008, but that's a very long time ago now, and there's been at least one change of head since then. I had no idea inspections could have such long gaps now. As far as I can make out from its KS2 results, they're good but not stellar.

Yes, OFSTED are apparently stretched and outstanding schools are bottom of the list for inspections. It's not ideal. An outstanding rating from that long ago should be taken with a pinch of salt.

allinclusive Our soon to be secondary school became an academy in Sept 2012 and had an Ofsted inspection in Feb 2014 so less than seven terms. Is the seven term grace period a new thing? At the time we thought a year and a half wasn't really enough time to improve.

I think they class an academy converter as a new school and do not usually inspect until 3rd year of forming. Hence they can come on the 7th term after academisation.

I think that's the latest update but could change as always, and if they
Can come anytime if they have serious concerns or there's been a significant incident.

Thanks allinclusive
Results dropped significantly one year so that may have triggered the inspection. I wouldn't know if there had been any safeguarding issues as I don't know much about this school yet but good to be aware something may have happened. Lots of questions for parents with kids at this school then.
Sorry for hijacking the thread