How do inspectors arrive at their judgements about the quality of a school? On the one hand, inspectors are guided by explicit and standardised rules on how to carry out inspections. On the other hand, they conduct inspections at schools with a unique trajectory which is embedded in a local community. This tension between central regulation, local practice and the inspector as a mediating figure has been discussed in the literature on school inspection. This paper contributes to the discourse by presenting preliminary findings on how inspectors draw on regulating inspection policy, their insight into local practice of an inspected school, as well as their professional background when negotiating their judgements to reach a consensus within an inspection team. The empirical evidence consists of recordings of inspection talk, field notes, and interviews. It has been gathered at six external school evaluations. Three inspections in Lower Saxony and three in Thuringia; two German federal states with distinct school evaluation systems. The results will be linked to and discussed in the context of previous research concerned with inspectorial judgements within the English school system.