Charedi girls’ secondary to open in NW London

A NEW independent girls’ secondary school is set to open next month in North-West London in response to the growing Charedi community.

Shiras Devorah will be similar in ethos to the Beis Soroh Schneirer Primary School in Hendon, combining intensive Jewish studies with a broad secular curriculum. Initially, the plan had been to base it at Finchley United Synagogue but another local US community is now set to house it.

“Due to the expansion of the community, there were a number of girls without school places last year,” explained Lee Isaacs, a director of Shiras Devorah, along with Akiva Adler, who runs Beis Soroh Schneirer.

“There was a request from the askonim [activists] of the kehillah [community] to open another school.”

The school has been registered and anticipates an initial intake of nine to ten girls.

Mr Isaacs — who is also a director of an independent boys’ school, Elyon, in Hendon — added that it would have been too difficult at Finchley to meet safeguarding requirements.

“We could have implemented a number of measures but it wouldn’t have made sense financially or practically.”

However, the shul had been helpful in finding alternative premises. “They set it up for us very quickly.”

A Finchley spokesman con- firmed the synagogue had explored “the possibility of having a newlyformed secondary school on our site.

“Due to a number of safeguarding issues presented by Ofsted connected with the large number of people using our building throughout the week, the decision was made to look for alternative appropriate accommodation.”