King Solomon High School takes a step closer to leaving Essex

THE GOVERNORS of Kantor King Solomon High in Essex are actively considering relocating the school to north London.

The United Synagogue, KKS’s foundation body, has already been exploring the possibility of moving the school as a way to solve the shortage of Jewish secondary places in that part of the capital.

Questions over King Solomon’s future have come as the intake of Jewish pupils there has dropped by around a third.

It is understood parents of KKS pupils will be asked their views before any decision is taken about its future.

But one governor, Rabbi Mordechai Wollenberg, who chairs the school’s ethos committee, believes any review should be delayed until “12 to 18 months down the line” in order to “give the school a chance”.

Speaking on behalf of local rabbis he said he had “made it clear to the United Synagogue and Chief Rabbi that we’d be concerned about the impact of any proposal unless it would preserve the ethos of the school and benefit the local community”.

Rabbi Wollenberg, minister of a local US synagogue, Woodford Forest, said he had “a lot of confidence in the headteacher, Matthew Slater, and he has a very good grasp of what a Jewish school should be”. He added the governors “genuinely care” about the fate of the school. “They are a good bunch andt hey are not going to rush into anything”.