The former head of the Manchester Beth Din has said members of the strictly Orthodox community should rather “give up one's life” than comply with the government’s demands on religious and sex education.

Dayan Gavriel Krausz has urged the community to stand “firm as a rock” in the face of “the terrible decree”.

MPs by a huge majority earlier this year approved the new RSE policy, which comes into effect in September 2020.

It says children before the end of secondary school should have been taught about the existence of same-sex relations.

A notice highlighting statements made by Dayan Krausz to a recent protest meeting is being circulated to Charedi schools.

In bold letters, it states “We are obliged to give up one's life rather than comply, as our ancestors did throughout the generations."

Even if schools are closed and people who defy the law are imprisoned, “one is not allowed to give in one iota,” he said.

He said if “we capitulate and give in, we can chas vashalom [“Heaven forbid”] say goodbye to the next generation”.

A state-aided Charedi girls’ high school in Salford, Beis Yaakov, was told that it must teach pupils about same-sex relationships in an Ofsted report published a few days ago. However, it was rated as a school which “requires improvement” rather than given the lowest “inadequate” grade.

Another strictly Orthodox girls’ school, Beis Trana in Stamford Hill, which is independent and teaches pupils from three to 16, satisfied equality requirements, according to Ofsted – although the report did not go into detail about precisely what was taught.