Primary schools which are teaching “the spirit and words” of the national curriculum, will be viewed as excellent by Ofsted under its new framework, according to a senior official.

Heather Fearn, the inspectorate’s lead for inspection, curriculum and development gave the assurance today at the Northern Lights conference in Carlisle.

Ms Fearn said: “There isn’t a preferred curriculum and, to reassure you, if you are a primary school and you are teaching the national curriculum and you are teaching it in spirit as well as in words, then you already have an excellent curriculum and you are already doing what you need to do as far as Ofsted is concerned.”

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She added that the national curriculum had high-level goals and schools would need to have done the thinking that underpinned achieving those goals.

The curriculum is at the centre of Ofsted’s plans for a new inspection framework.

The inspectorate is proposing to remove teaching and learning and outcomes for pupils as separate inspection judgements and instead have an overall quality of education judgement.

This will include school curriculum, which will be measured by Ofsted in terms of its intent, implementation and impact.

Ms Fearn acknowledged that there was a tension in curriculum planning between delivering breadth and depth in subjects.

She said that Ofsted would not be looking only at the curriculum offer but also at the quality of curriculum the school was providing.

Yesterday, Ofsted revealed that it will use conversations with children to help judge the effectiveness of a school’s curriculum under reformed inspections.

Matthew Purves, the inspectorate’s deputy schools director, also told attendees at a Westminster Education Forum meeting that conversation with teachers was “integral” to the new approach.

He said that pilots of the new framework had shown “the new approach gives a lot more space to sit down and talk to classroom teachers”.

Ofsted’s new inspection framework also includes plans for the lead inspector to arrive at a school at a morning’s notice to begin on-site preparation.

The inspectorate has said that this is designed to ensure the inspection is not too data-driven by allowing the lead inspector to have face-to-face discussions before the formal inspection starts the next day.

However, it has said that this idea could be dropped if it there was a “tidal wave of negativity” about it.