Giving Compass' Take:

· Ofsted has admitted that some schools previously ranked outstanding may not still hold that ranking after they were exempt from regular school inspections years ago. BBC questioned Ofsted's director of corporate strategy, Luke Tryl, and reported his input on the level of education from those schools. 

· How are regular school inspections an important part of maintaining an outstanding level of education?

· Learn more about the realities of global school rankings.

A National Audit Office report found 1,620 schools, mostly outstanding, had not been inspected for six years or more, and 290 for a decade or more. Outstanding schools were decreed exempt from routine inspections in 2011, and Ofsted bosses said there was no way of telling if these schools had since fallen into a "mediocre" category.

Although inspections can be triggered at any school if a safeguarding concern is raised, or if there is a significant drop in results, it no longer goes into these top-rated schools on a regular basis.

Ofsted's director of corporate strategy, Luke Tryl, said: "What we can't tell is if the levels of education in those schools judged outstanding 10 years ago are the same or whether it has changed to become middling, or mediocre or coasting." When asked by reporters if he was saying that some "outstanding schools aren't really outstanding", he replied: "Yes."

However, many schools will have their "outstanding" label highlighted on their websites and on banners outside their premises, and many parents base at least their initial views of such schools on these Ofsted rankings.

Read the full article about Ofsted rankings and school inspections by Hannah Richardson at BBC News.