Amanda Spielman has given further details of Ofsted’s review of the curriculum at a recent speech at the Festival of Education.

Advised by a group of experts, including Cambridge Assessment’s Tim Oates, the project is looking at curriculum practice in hundreds of schools across the country from all phases of education from early years through to colleges.

Whilst acknowledging the importance of qualifications and good exam results, Ms Spielman believes that we have lost sight of the substance of education asking “what is the body of knowledge that we want to give to young people?”.   “We have a full and coherent national curriculum” she added “and it seems to me a huge waste not to use it properly”.

Once the first wave of evidence has been collected, Ofsted will consider whether routine inspection needs “rebalancing in favour of the curriculum”, and if so, this could be reflected in the new inspection framework being developed for 2019.