Her Majesty’s chief inspector of schools Amanda Spielman made a disastrous start on University Challenge last night when she wrongly answered an early question for which the answer was “Christmas crackers.”

Captaining a team from her former university, Clare College, Cambridge, the answer left them with a negative score of five points.

And they ended up losing with a total of just 55 points to rivals the University of Leeds, who scored 205 in the special Christmas episode of the BBC2 quiz show hosted by Jeremy Paxman.

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Introducing Clare College, he said: “We might choose to imagine their captain tonight as someone whose visits to the classroom are met with some trepidation.”

Ms Spielman, who graduated in maths and law from Clare College in 1982, was first to the buzzer on the question: “A thin layer of the unstable compound silver fulminate and a layer of abrasive material are placed in contact during the usual manufacture of which common seasonal items?”

“Fireworks,” she said, but was met with silence from Paxman - upon which she realised the true answer and said: “Crackers - oh God,” but he was forced to take her first answer.

Amanda Spielman at Clare College

Minutes later, she tried her luck on bonus questions on exhibitions at the Tate Modern in 2019 when her team had to name the artist from the description.

“Seurat,” said the Ofsted chief, when her team could offer no suggestions following a description of an artist who died in 1974, whose work included “Nude in the Bath” and “Stairs in the Artist’s Garden”, whose exhibition had been called “The Colour of Memory”.

But the correct answer was Pierre Bonnard.

The Clare team fought back by correctly answering three bonus questions on cellists.

Yet soon after they were stumped with three bonus questions on the 2019 British Book Awards, answering just one of them correctly.

When Tes revealed her appearance last week, Ms Spielman said she had ” jumped at the chance” to take part in what was “a fun Saturday”.

Her team included newspaper columnist Allison Pearson, novelist and broadcaster Marcel Theroux, and singer Elin Manahan Thomas.

The Leeds team featured Radio 4 presenter the Rev Richard Coles, formerly part of 1980s’ pop band The Communards, and photographer Tim Allen.