A Muslim secondary school has scrapped a policy appearing to ban male and female pupils from “free mixing” after it was wrongly accused of suspending a teenage boy for speaking to a girl.

The Department for Education last month asked Ofsted inspectors to investigate Al-Khair School in Cherry Orchard Road, Croydon, after the Sunday Times claimed it removed the pupil from classes for breaching its “Islamic ethos”.

But the school vehemently denied the newspaper’s report, which it described as “totally misleading”, and said the boy had been suspended for “something far more serious”.

LAST WEEK: Islamic school denies suspending pupil for speaking to member of opposite sex

Ofsted subsequently cleared Al-Khair of any wrongdoing, ruling the school had acted in “appropriate manner” over behaviour that left the girl feeling “exceptionally uncomfortable and vulnerable”.

In a letter to education secretary Nicky Morgan, Ofsted chief inspector Michael Wilshaw, said: “Inspectors established that the exclusion followed a series of lesser sanctions which proved unsuccessful in deterring this boy.”

But he was concerned the school’s behavioural policy ranked “free mixing” as a “high level” offence alongside arson, racism and bullying and dispatched inspectors to ensure Al-Khair complied with the Indepedent School Standards.

Al-Khair headteacher Aisha Chaudhry said the school had since deleted that section of its policy, adding: “We are one of the best-performing schools in the country and to suggest we don’t treat the sexes equally is deeply offensive. We have never and would never ban harmless communication between members of the opposite sex. The clause related only to harassment.

“It is very sad that anyone would think that way so as a result we have removed the policy relating to free mixing completely.”

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