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A strict Muslim school still forces girls to wait until the boys have finished before they can eat their lunch, an Ofsted chief told MPs.

Al-Hijrah school in Birmingham was ordered to stop the unlawful practice by the Court of Appeal in 2017.

However, it is believed the school is still enforcing “very strict gender segregation” and not allowing girls to eat until after the boys.

Luke Tryl, director of corporate strategy at Ofsted, also said that the school continues to teach from "very discriminatory texts... encouraging violence against women".

Mr Tryl told MPs: "The Court of Appeal rightly said that schools needed a transition period where they were segregating and yet still we have not just Al-Hijrah but we have countless other schools, mixed schools which are segregating on the basis of sex.

"Similarly other schools who have refused to teach about sexual orientation issues. We have commented on reports but we haven't seen a change there.

(Image: Birmingham Post and Mail)

"This is where I talk about the isolation. We go out there. We make these tough decisions and we often take quite a lot of criticism for the stance we take but we don't always see the enforcement action we would like to see."

According to the Birmingham Mail , Ofsted rated the school as 'inadequate' in 2016.

Court of Appeal judges ruled a year ago that city council-funded Al-Hijrah, which is in special measures, was discriminating against its pupils contrary to the Equality Act 2010.

In the letter, sent on October 3, Ofsted said: "We noted that the school continues to operate an unlawful discriminatory policy of strict segregation by sex in the secondary phase.

(Image: Birmingham Post and Mail)

"Plans for the school’s future and current practice take some account of the need to address this practice.

"However, having considered all the evidence I am of the opinion that at this time - leaders and managers are not taking effective action towards the removal of special measures.”

A spokesperson for Birmingham City Council said: “The IEB [Interim Executive Board] is proposing that from September 2019 Al-Hijrah will offer mixed gender primary education only, on a new site, converting to an academy following a directive academy order from the department for education.