The principal of the British school ranked top in the world in the international baccalaureate diploma has launched a passionate attack on Michael Gove's education reforms. Tricia Kelleher accused the education secretary of "pressing the rewind button" and warned that attempts to chase global education-league rankings will lead schools into a creativity-free "cul-de-sac" of learning.

The head of the independent Stephen Perse Foundation in Cambridge said Gove was living in a parallel universe in which he bulldozed through reforms to qualifications and failed to recognise the importance of learning itself, including the role of new digital technologies in the classroom.

Stephen Perse equips each secondary-age pupil with an iPad and is working with Apple to publish its own curriculum apps. It is also contemplating abandoning handwriting in favour of screen-only working.

Kelleher rejected Gove's recent ridiculing of the use of popular cultural references, such as Mr Men and Disney, as learning tools: "Why not, if they contribute to understanding and learning?"

She said modern pupils had a hugely varied cultural landscape. "I think the sober study of classic literature and dry narrative history do not register highly. Young people need an approach which connects with them and the values in their world."

Kelleher's criticisms come just days after the headmaster of Eton college, Tony Little, warned that a relentless focus on exams and assessment targets in schools risks turning teachers into "functionaries in a service industry". He had never seen a generation of teachers who defined "their purpose as teachers in such a limited way".

Calls from the private sector – unbound by the national curriculum and other restrictions affecting state-sector colleagues – for less central intervention and greater trust in teachers' professionalism come against a backdrop of continuing, far-reaching educational reform. Gove is pushing through a programme combining structural change – creating academies and free schools – sweeping qualification reform and revision of the national curriculum.

Focus on the UK's education performance was renewed last week as the latest Programme for International Student Achievement (Pisa), published by the OECD, showed Britain languishing mid-table in reading, maths and science tests taken by 15-year-olds. The league table, whose UK results reflect the performance of children educated mainly under the last Labour government, was topped by east Asian countries, including China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

Kelleher, whose school recorded the joint top score worldwide in the international baccalaureate diploma in the Sunday Times table published last month, urged Gove not to narrow education goals to the pursuit of Pisa scores: "My worry is we are now going to be driven towards Pisa because Pisa becomes the next altar we worship at. But it is really a cul-de-sac in learning terms."

She said Pisa took no account of individual countries' cultural differences, including the unrelenting pressure on pupils in top-performing countries, nor did they recognise the creativity of British learning. "If Michael Gove is saying we should just value what is in Pisa, then we might as well just collapse the curriculum and teach what will come top."

Acknowledging the privileged position of her £5,000-a-term selective school, many of whose pupils are the children of Cambridge academics, Kelleher insisted that an approach focusing on sparking the imaginations of children applied across the schools landscape.

In a recent personal blogpost – she also blogs for the Guardian – Kelleher cited her own experience as a 13-year-old, when a BBC mini-series of War and Peace inspired her to read Tolstoy's epic work, awakening a life-long love of history. "I am sure Gove would approve of such cultural aspiration from a working-class daughter of Irish immigrants, yet I should never have even considered reading such a vast tome without the stimulus of the TV series," she wrote. "Just as the medium of television opened up the world of Tolstoy to me, today television is just one of a multitude of possibilities for engaging the young."

Gove's dismissal of "low-brow" cultural references missed the point, she argued. "The digital world is a game-changer, and we must change with it. If Angry Birds, the staple digital game of many youngsters, inspires a young person to learn coding, surely that is a desirable outcome?

"If the GarageBand app provides a creative platform for an aspiring young musician, isn't this to be applauded? We are on the nursery slopes of digital learning. The potential for transformation of the conventional educational paradigm is extraordinary. Yet none of this registers in the world of the secretary of state for education. It strikes me that Gove's well-meaning attempt to promote excellence for all young people is being enacted in a parallel universe."

Angry Birds had not featured on her curriculum, Kelleher said, though pupils were queuing up to learn computer coding in other ways. But music teaching included the use of GarageBand to enable non-musicians to arrange music. The school also encouraged pupils to submit some homework as films, and teachers gave some feedback via audio rather than writing, while geography course materials were all screen-based.

Handwriting would be maintained while exam boards continued to require it, but its use would be reassessed if that changed.

Kelleher added her voice to concerns over the revised history curriculum, which will focus on a chronological account of Britain's "island story".

"Imagine if you taught children history without Mandela, for example. Of course we should understand what happened in this country, because it is part of the cultural core that brings us together, but not to be looking around the world is just foolhardy. Our children are global citizens.

"Michael Gove is looking back to the past: he is hitting the rewind button because he says that is raising standards. But it should be about improving learning."

A Department for Education spokesperson said: "The simple fact is our education system is not keeping up with the rest of the world. Our reforms will reverse this situation and give our young people the best chance of success.

"Through academies and free schools we are giving thousands of brilliant heads and teachers the freedom to innovate on their curriculums and teach in more creative ways than ever to inspire their pupils.

"We are reforming teacher training to attract the brightest, most innovative graduates, ending grade inflation and introducing demanding qualifications which match the world's best."