Over the past couple of years, Eli Spitzer has emerged as an increasingly influential voice from London’s Charedi community. The headteacher of an independent boys’ school rated good by Ofsted, Talmud Torah Tiferes Shlomo in Hendon, he has been open in his blog about some of the shortcomings of Charedi schools while eloquently defending the community’s core values.

So when he bagged as the first guest on his new podcast none other than Amanda Spielman, chief inspector of Ofsted, it was a bold choice. Given the friction between Charedi schools and the inspectorate in recent years, it could have proved a tense encounter.

Instead their nearly 50-minute face-to-face conversation (which can be watched on YouTube) proved a thoughtful exchange of views on the limits of parental choice and the role of the state.

On the contentious issues of sex education and LGBT relationships, Ofsted’s head argued why it could not budge; it was simply applying the law.

While recognising the “depths of discomfort” around the subject, she said, there was “nothing more that I can do to be flexible. I do not have the discretion”.

What Charedi schools sought was “a group opt-out from the law” she said.

But the hands of Charedi heads were tied too, the ever-polite Mr Spitzer countered, since parents insisted sex education was not a subject they wanted taught.

Turning to education more generally, he cited Ofsted’s report last year that three out of every five Jewish independent schools were rated as inadequate or requiring improvement, compared to a minority of Christian or Muslim independents.

While acknowledging some schools still had a long way to go to raise standards, he suggested the current inspection framework was too rigid.

If children had once been three years behind national standards in literacy but were now only one and a half years behind, that was not yet good enough, he said, but the school had made “a significant amount of progress”.

Such schools might be taken out of the regular inspection cycle for a while, he suggested, and instead assessed by a “remedial framework” that recognised what progress they had made.

Finding a model that worked for everyone was a “rocky path”, Mrs Spielman concluded, but offered assurances that “we will always work constructively with your community”.