Ofsted warns Leeds school over equality law ‘breach’

Ofsted has told a small independent Jewish school in Leeds that it could be in breach of equality law for teaching boys differently from girls in Jewish studies.

Leeds Menorah, a mixed primary with just 27 pupils, was downgraded in 2019 from good to inadequate.

In a recently published follow-up report, the inspectorate noted that whereas boys were taught about “Jewish criminal and civil law”, girls were not. According to Ofsted, “leaders said this is because the subject will help the boys and is ‘less relevant’ to the girls, as the boys will need this for their higher education”. They “could not provide evidence that girls had been offered access to these classes”.

Although relatively small in scale, “this separation by sex appears to be in breach of the Equality Act 2010. Staff say that although this is not a written policy, boys and girls are expected to sit separately in lessons.”

Until recently, faith schools believed they had the freedom to organise religious classes according to the dictates of their faith. But court rulings on equality have begun to call this into question.

Ofsted was also critical of other aspects of the school, including a “weak culture of safeguarding” and an unsafe bike shed whose roof was at risk of collapse.

Although the chairman of governors told Ofsted that he had written a policy on relationships and sex education, staff said they were unaware of it.

Ofsted told the JC this week that it had conducted a fresh inspection of the school at the request of the Department for Education with the findings published in “due course”.