Fifty new school places needed

LONDON’S JEWISH state-aided secondary schools may have to find an additional 50 places in the next few years but demand is unlikely to be high enough to need a new school.

That is the conclusion of a report into school places published this week by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and the Jewish Leadership Council’s education division, Partnerships for Jewish Schools.

Its author, L. Daniel Staetsky, said in practice this would mean existing schools being ready “to open an extra class, as and when required, rather than to open an entirely new school.”

JPR’s assessment was that “about 50 additional places will be required across the entire Jewish secondary school system in London”.

The report appears as the Department for Education is still considering an application for a new Jewish secondary free school to be located in South Hertfordshire.

Jewish schools have already demonstrated flexibility with JCoSS adding an extra class over the past two years, JFS accepting a few more pupils above its official limit of 300 and Yavneh offering a bulge class in 2016. If Hasmonean’s redevelopment plans were to come to fruition, it would be in a position to offer 20 or so more places than at present.

As the JC reported last year, JPR projects

Applications to state funded mainstream Jewish secondary schools in London: past and present

that first-preference applications to these four schools along with Kantor King Solomon will rise from 1,075 in 2017 to 1,193 in 2018 (when last September’s numbers are finally processed): and then to 1,183 this autumn and a peak of 1,239 in 2020. But they will drop to around 1,092 in 2022 (see graph above, where average projections are in green).

In 2017, there were 132 more firstchoice applications than places offered at the five schools. But that does not mean many Jewish pupils were left in the lurch without a place at a Jewish school — the application figure includes a significant number who would have gone to the fee-paying Immanuel College or non-Jewish independent schools.

JPR calculates that if applications exceed places by less than 150, then that signals actual demand for Jewish secondary state schools is being “adequately met”.

Its predictions are based on 85 per cent of pupils in Jewish primaries going on to a Jewish secondary school, and 37 per cent of Jewish pupils in non-Jewish primaries.

If those percentages were to rise, then applications could jump to a high of 1,302 by 2020 (and a potential shortfall of more than 100 places).