An unregistered Chasidic school in Hackney, North London where Yiddish is the only spoken language is to close today on the orders of the Department for Education.

Talmud Torah Tashbar, a school for 248 boys from three to 13 which has been operating for 40 years, was told to shut in December after a damning report from Ofsted inspectors three months earlier.

It is the first time the authorities have carried out a threat of closure against a Charedi school and part of a wider crackdown against unlicensed schools.

A DFE spokesman said today that the school had told the authorities that it was not appealing but that the building might continue to be used for religious purposes.

The DFE rejected the school’s application to register following a fourth Ofsted visit in three years.
In their latest report, inspectors said that the vast majority of the day was spent on learning Torah and while this incorporated some aspects of secular studies, these were “extremely limited”.

The education encouraged “cultural and ethnic insularity” with no opportunity to learn about fundamental British values, Ofsted said.

The building was in an “appalling state of disrepair” with broken windows and exposed electrical cables.