The Covid-19 crisis could turn out to be Ofsted’s “demise”, a teachers’ leader has suggested.

The watchdog is “irrelevant at the moment”, as schools battle to keep their environments safe with a “skeleton amount of staff”, according to the head of the Chartered College of Teaching.

Addressing the NAHT school leaders’ union conference this afternoon, Dame Alison Peacock, chief executive of the Chartered College, will say Ofsted is “lower down” on schools’ priority lists, which may be “what needs to happen” as “for too long we have been driven by worrying about what they are worrying about”.

Her comments come with the watchdog already facing significant criticism for going ahead with “visits” to schools this term. 

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“I don’t think this is the time to be doing lesson monitoring; I don’t think is this is the time to be preparing for Ofsted. I think Ofsted, quite frankly, are irrelevant at the moment,” Dame Alison will say.

“And interestingly, this might just be their demise. Because if you are more worried about keeping your school safe and doing everything you need to do with a skeleton amount of staff, actually Ofsted arriving is kind of almost the last of your worries. It’s lower down on your priority list.

“And maybe that’s what needs to happen - because for too long we have been driven by worrying about what they are worrying about, and actually our principles come to the fore when we think about what really matters.”

Ofsted has been approached for comment.