The charedim went to war with Ofsted
WHILE MANY Jews grappled with the possibility of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party coming to power, for one section of the community there was a more clear and present danger. The ongoing clash between Ofsted and Charedi schools over teaching about LGBT issues came to a head earlier this year when one of the leading Strictly Orthodox rabbis, the Gateshead Rav, Rabbi Shraga Feivel Zimmerman, delivered a stark warning. British Jews, he said, faced potentially their most serious threat since Edward I expelled the Jewish community in 1290 and if Ofsted did not row back, Jews again might have to leave the country.
According to Ofsted, in order to comply with equality law, schools must refer to people of same-sex orientation as part of the requirement to teach “British values” of respect and tolerance for others.
But Charedi leaders believe the inspection service is demanding more than the letter of the law and they should not have to specifically mention LGBT people in class. Although some strictly Orthodox schools have found a way to negotiate the inspection hurdles, others continued this year to fall foul of Ofsted .
In summer, the Charedi campaign to defend their education system culminated in the launch of Chinuch UK, an umbrella group that was meant to represent the spectrum of Charedi schools across the country. But unity doesn’t come easily in the Jewish community and despite the emergence of the new body, others continued to go to government on their own behalf. At one point, there seemed to be a revolving door at the Department for Education with one Charedi lobbyist following another to plead their cause.
While one or two recent inspections suggest that Ofsted may be listening more, to strictly Orthodox leaders, a permanent solution has yet to be found.
Elsewhere, in May Rachel Fink returned to her alma mater, JFS, where she was head girl, to be its headteacher, while Hannele Reece took the reins at another United Synagogue school, Kantor King Solomon, showing that education is one area in the community where women have been able to rise to the top.
The mental health of pupils has increasingly become an important issue in education and, despite the general squeeze on budgets, schools are endeavouring to improve their pastoral care. In the autumn, Partnerships for Jewish Schools, the Jewish Leadership Council’s education division, launched a pilot programme by supporting the recruitment of “wellbeing practitioners” in five Jewish schools.
But whatever the investment in Jewish schooling, a new report published at the year suggests on its own it is not enough. The more highly educated Jews were, with postgraduate degrees, the less likely they were to be engaged with the Jewish community. We can debate the reasons, but we appear to be losing hearts and minds on campus.