Ofsted has been described as imposing “a reign of terror” by Dame Alison Peacock, the chief executive of the Chartered College of Teaching.

She told the Times Education Commission that the inspectors “pretty much have a script” and suggested that chief inspector Amanda Spielman believes teachers “should be like robots”.

Dame Alison also criticised the chief inspector over comments she made about schools’ focus on delivering food parcels and visiting disadvantaged pupils affecting their capacity to deliver education for all at the onset of the lockdown.

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The Chartered College of Teaching chief executive made the comments during a Commission evidence session focused on school teaching.

The discussion also heard calls for Ofsted to be replaced, from author and former teacher Ryan Wilson.

Dame Alison warned that “teaching in 2021 is all about compliance”.

She added: “Teachers are constantly looking over their shoulder, whether it’s about Ofsted judgements, whether it’s about attainment, whether it’s about workload, you know, teachers are being driven.

“And, from my point of view, we need teachers to be inspired, we need them to be joyful, we need them to love working with children, we need them to feel that the reason they come to work every day is because they can make a difference and that they can contribute to society. You know, we saw that at the beginning of the pandemic.

“There were many, many schools, many, many school leaders and teachers who stepped forward, who provided food in the pandemic to their local communities, who went out and visited houses and did everything they could to keep their community safe.

“And how were they thanked? Well, they were thanked by a chief inspector who told them, ‘Well, they should have been focusing on teaching maths and not worrying about whether the children were hungry.’

Dame Alison was referring to comments made by Ms Spielman at Institute for Government think tank event last month.

At the time, the chief inspector said: “Another thing I saw was that, in a lot of schools, it felt as though their attention went very rapidly to the most disadvantaged children, into sort of making food parcels, going out visiting.

“They put a great deal of attention into the children with greatest difficulties, which is admirable but, in some cases, that probably got prioritised...which may have meant that they didn’t have the capacity left to make sure that there was some kind of education offer for all children.

“And I think, in those first few weeks, when it looked as though it might just be sort of three or four weeks, it was less obvious to some that they really did need to start assembling as a full remote education offering.”

Dame Alison also called on schools to look beyond what Ofsted expects of them.

She added: “So, what we’re trying to do at the Chartered College is to enable teachers to go beyond the kind of requirements that Ofsted are saying they need.

“You know, Ofsted, frankly, it’s a reign of terror. They come in, they start to talk in highfalutin language about research outcomes and so on and curriculum coherence. It’s designed to put people on the backfoot.

She added: “I think the issue with Ofsted is that they pretty much have a script - a set of things they have to follow. And they do that; even HMI when they lead online training, it’s all to the script because it will have been checked by Amanda [Spielman]. It’s pretty difficult, you know.

“And I think she thinks teachers just ought to be like that, we should just be like robots, and then we would all stick to the script and it would all be fine and anyone who couldn’t control themselves would just have to be chucked out. But that doesn’t work at scale.”

During the discussion, Mr Wilson called for the inspectorate to be replaced.

He said: “The one thing is that I would get rid of Ofsted. You know, I’m happy for there to be an inspection system - of course there has to be accountability in the education system, of course there does.

“But, in my view, Ofsted has become a toxic brand, if you like. It’s become synonymous with stress and sort of a punitive approach to inspection…I just feel it needs to be replaced with a different system and the stakes need to be lowered. People shouldn’t be in fear that their jobs are at stake if a particular child doesn’t get a particular result.”

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “We are unapologetic about having high standards for children’s education. And teachers and school leaders on the ground are overwhelmingly supportive of our focus on the curriculum and our use of research evidence.”