Ofsted presses Charedi school over LGBT issue

V ANOTHER CHAREDI school has run into problems with Ofsted for refusing to talk about LGBT people in class.

Ofsted said Gateshead Jewish Primary School, now known as Keser Torah Boys’ School, did not meet independent school standards because its leadership confirmed that “pupils would not be taught about different sexual orientations or gender identity”.

The school, which was ranked good by Ofsted four years ago, previously taught boys and girls on separate sites but has recently split into two schools to comply with equality law. The girls’ school is called Keser Girls’ School.

Keser Torah Boy is the fifth strictly Orthodox school in little over a month that Ofsted said was falling down on LGBT issues.

But Charedi leaders believed that last year’s revised independent school guidelines exempted at least primary schools from having to deal with some topics if the schools thought they were not “age appropriate”.

Ofsted found the boys’ school did comply with equality regulations in providing an “in confidence box” where pupils could “share any concerns they may have in complete confidence. This includes if they are questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity. This box is being used by pupils”. School leaders said they would seek “appropriate external support” for any pupil who wished to discuss their sexual orientation.

Ofsted found Keser boys had recently helped at food banks and visited non-Jewish schools, where they had taken part in non-religious assemblies.

But inspectors concluded that “although pupils know that other people have religions and beliefs that differ from their own… they are not knowledgeable about what those beliefs are”.

Meanwhile, rabbis and activists who want to see a stronger Charedi challenge to demands from the state have met in London to launch a new campaign group.

Rabbi Yechezkel Schlesinger, head of a yeshivah in Stamford Hill who is on the organising committee, said, “Our chinuch [education] is in big danger.”

Pupils would not be taught about different sexual orientations’