The boss of the Government’s school standards watchdog has ordered a crackdown on Islamic schools that separate girls and boys – but has defended single-sex education.

Ofsted’s Chief Inspector of Schools, Amanda Spielman, warned that schools that practise ‘rigid gender segregation’ must change, even if it upsets the local community. But in an exclusive article for The Mail on Sunday, she defended all-girls schools.

The Ofsted boss argued that single-sex schools were justified as they helped girls overcome the discrimination they still faced in modern Britain.

Amanda Spielman's intervention followed a Court of Appeal ruling last Friday that a mixed-sex Islamic school was breaching equality laws by keeping boys and girls apart

Her intervention followed a Court of Appeal ruling last Friday that a mixed-sex Islamic school was breaching equality laws by keeping boys and girls apart.

Al-Hijrah school in Birmingham was told that its segregation policy on religious grounds was illegal sex discrimination.

Ms Spielman said such ‘systematic segregation’ undermined British values.

But she said single-sex schools could encourage girls to tackle subjects they would not normally choose, while boys at all-male institutions may be more willing to take more interest in the arts.

She said: ‘If women are to take their full place in a world which is, to some degree, loaded against them, then it is reasonable for parents to choose single-sex schools, to stop girls from selecting themselves out of some areas of education.’

Read Amanda Spielman’s full article online at mailonsunday.co.uk/spielman