ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences

An Orthodox Jewish school must stop asking parents about their sex lives during its admissions process, the schools watchdog has ruled.

Questions about “family purity” rules could be considered “embarrassing” and “intrusive”, the government’s schools adjudicator Phil Whiffing said.

He added the answers would be impossible to back up with evidence.

Hasmonean High School in Barnet, north-west London, asks on one form: “Does your family observe the laws of family purity?”

Orthodox Jewish women are required to abstain from sex during their period and for seven days after it ends, followed by a ritual bath.

Mr Whiffing’s ruling says: “While the school and its religious authority may think that to be asked such a question would not embarrass an observant orthodox Jew, there remains the possibility that some parents applying for places at the school may find it embarrassing or intrusive.”

It adds: “While the Rabbi may be aware that a woman is using the mikvah [ritual bath] regularly I do not see how they can be certain that the more intimate requirements of the laws are being observed other than by trusting the word of the applicant.

“I have concluded that it would not be possible to objectively assess whether or not a family observes the laws of family purity.”

Nationwide rules governing admission codes says criteria used to allocate school places must be objectively judged, meaning this requirement could not be defended, last week’s report adds.

The investigation followed a complaint from a member of the public.

But, the report adds, the complainant is “not […] a member of the community which the school aims to serve”.

Theresa May addressed the school’s annual fundraising dinner earlier this year, vowing to help protect the Jewish community from hate crime.

Hasmonean High School teaches boys and girls separately. It withdrew from local authority control in 2011 following criticism from the schools adjudicator for not admitting pupils of other faiths.

It must change its admissions policy to reflect the latest ruling by February 2016.

A spokesperson from Hasmonean High School said: “We are reviewing and updating our admissions policies to ensure that we abide by the current regulations governing admissions, that our school’s ethos is upheld and that we reflect the needs of the Orthodox Jewish Community.”