Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills v The Interim Executive Board of Al-Hijrah School: CA 13 Oct 2017

Single Sex Schooling failed to prepare for life

The Chief Inspector appealed from a decision that it was discriminatory under the 2010 Act to educate girls and boys in the same school but under a system providing effective complete separation of the sexes.
Held: The action was discriminatory. However, the scheme operated against individuals, both girls and boys. Such subjects of a possible discrimination needed to be looked at as individuals and not as groups: ‘An individual girl pupil cannot socialise and intermix with a boy pupil because, and only because, of her sex; and an individual boy pupil cannot socialise and intermix with a girl pupil because, and only because, of his sex. Each is, therefore, treated less favourably than would be the case if their sex was different.’

Sir Terence Etherton MR, Glostr, Beatson LJJ
[2017] EWCA Civ 1426, [2018] ELR 25, [2017] WLR(D) 664, [2018] IRLR 334, [2018] 1 WLR 1471, [2018] 1 All ER 1024
Bailii, Judiciary, Summary – Judiciary, WLRD
Equality Act 2010 13 85
England and Wales
Citing:
See AlsoThe Interim Executive Board of X, Regina (on The Application of) v OFSTED Admn 1-Aug-2016
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Appeal fromThe Interim Executive Board of X School v Chief Inspector of Education, Childrens Services and Skills Admn 8-Nov-2016
The School sought judicial review of a decision of the Inspector that their school policy of separating girls and boys within the school was discriminatory. . .
CitedMinistry of Defence v Jeremiah CA 1980
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Lord Justice . .
CitedGill v El Vino Co Ltd CA 1983
The plaintiffs, who were both women, wanted to stand and drink at the bar in the defendants’ wine bar but the barman refused to serve them and said that, if they sat at a table, the drinks would be brought to them. That was because only men were . .
CitedRegina v Birmingham City Council ex parte Equal Opportunities Commission HL 1989
At the council’s independent, single-sex grammar schools there were more places available for boys than girls. Consequently the council were obliged to set a higher pass mark for girls than boys in the grammar school entrance examination.
CitedSmyth v Croft Inns Ltd 1996
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Held: That was discrimination ‘on the ground of religious belief’ within the section. The . .
CitedTower Boot Company Limited v Jones CA 11-Dec-1996
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E complained that his exclusion from admission to the school had been racially discriminatory. The school applied an Orthodox Jewish religious test which did not count him as Jewish because of his family history.
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The defendant appealed against an order made on the claimant’s assertion that there were due to it substantial underpayments of royalties over many years. The issues were as to the construction of licensing agreements particularly in the context of . .
DistinguishedSmith v Safeway Plc CA 5-Mar-1996
The appellant, a male delicatessen assistant, was dismissed by his employers because his hair, which he wore in a ponytail style, breached the employers’ rules for male staff, which stipulated tidy hair not below collar length and no unconventional . .
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CitedRegina v Westminster City Council Ex Parte Ermakov CA 14-Nov-1995
The applicant, having moved here from Greece, applied for emergency housing. The Council received no reply to its requests for corroboration sent to Greece. Housing was refused, but the officer later suggested that the real reason was that the . .
CitedGhaidan v Godin-Mendoza HL 21-Jun-2004
Same Sex Partner Entitled to tenancy Succession
The protected tenant had died. His same-sex partner sought a statutory inheritance of the tenancy.
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The claimant said that a scheme drawn by the defendant for compensating British civilians interned by the Japanese during the second world war was indirectly discriminatory on racial grounds by requiring a national origin link with the UK. She had . .
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CitedColl, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for Justice SC 24-May-2017
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Education, Discrimination

Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.596086