An Orthodox Jewish school censored bare wrists and ankles in its textbooks, Ofsted inspectors found as they downgraded it to “inadequate”.

Teachers at Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls School in Hackney, east London also redacted passages from texts including Sherlock Holmes and a historical book titled Elizabethan England.

The state school, which has been put into special measures following a damning Ofsted report, blacked out paintings by Picasso and pictures where men and women appeared together.

Inspectors said that the redactions were “detrimental to pupils’ learning” and meant they were disadvantaged compared to their peers at other schools.

The school’s safeguarding record was also criticised, as helpline numbers – meant for students seeking independent confidential advice - had been redacted from books. Sex and relationship education was also not provided by the school, and most of the personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) lessons were taught through a religious curriculum, inspectors said.

Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls School, which educates girls from the ultra-Orthodox Charedi community in Stamford Hill, does not prepare pupils adequately for life in modern Britain, Ofsted found.

Staff had "systematically gone through every book to blank out any bare skin on ankles, wrists or necks", inspectors said.