Ofsted accused of promoting "knowledge-rich" curriculum agenda of Nick Gibb

Two sources said "progressive" primary teaching such as work on the Romans was unfairly caricatured in an Ofsted workshop

Concerns have been raised that Ofsted is promoting a curriculum approach in schools which is too close to that espoused by the traditionalist schools minister, Nick Gibb, without acknowledging that the research evidence on which it is based is complex and contested.

Sources who have attended the inspectorate’s recent curriculum workshops have told Education Uncovered that they went away worried about the content of the presentations, feeling that Ofsted was advocating a particular view which went beyond that supported by sufficiently detailed research.

Two attendees of one workshop, in west London in late October, mentioned unprompted that they were concerned that non-traditionalist views of primary teaching were unfairly caricatured.

Both stated that they were alarmed that the research of E.D. Hirsch, a US educationist whose work was not widely discussed in England until receiving backing from Gibb and the former education secretary Michael Gove, were being endorsed by the inspectorate.