A Strictly Orthodox nursery in Gateshead has been criticised by Ofsted for “unlawfully” segregating girls and boys.
Teaching girls and boys in separate classes at Gateshead Jewish Nursery School had a “detrimental impact” on their personal and social development, while adults at the school often reinforced gender stereotypes when speaking to children, the inspection service said.
The inspection report illustrates the increasing pressure of equality law on religious schools - following an Appeal Court ruling in 2017 that went against a Muslim state school which segregated girls and boys entirely.
Leaders of the Gateshead nursery were “unable to provide evidence to support the purported educational or social benefits to girls or to boys of segregation by sex,” Ofsted reported.
Some adults, it said, had “higher expectations of what children can achieve than others and this is sometimes based on the sex of the children. For example, during the inspection, reception-age girls were making basic shapes out of pasta while the children in the boys’ class were discussing a complex story.
“Teachers too often base their expectations on the sex of a group of children. When children are more studious, adults comment ‘Well, they’re girls’. When boys and girls do not play outside together, adults explain ‘Boys dominate the bikes’.”
Inspectors were also critical of variable teaching but noted that, although development levels of children leaving the nursery were below national expectations in 2016 and 2017, they had improved to national levels in 2018.
Ofsted said children enjoyed coming to school and adults took great care to make them feel safe.
But the school, which teaches 222 children, was downgraded from the good status it achieved in 2014 to inadequate.
