Shadow Education Secretary makes first Jewish school visit
Faith schools can play an important part in our school system
V SHADOW EDUCATION Secretary Bridget Phillipson has paid her first visit to a Jewish faith school since being appointed to the role last November.
Accompanied by Shadow Schools Minister Stephen Morgan, she was shown around Akiva Primary in Finchley on Wednesday in a tour arranged by the Jewish Leadership Council and the Jewish schools’ network, PaJeS.
Year 6 pupils were eager to share their thoughts on a variety of topics including online safety. “We have so many sessions on it,” said one girl.
Ms Phillipson described Akiva as “a fantastic school” before going into a closed discussion with representatives from a number of Jewish educational and communal bodies including the Board of Deputies, CST, Antisemitism Policy Trust, Holocaust Educational Trust, UJS and University Jewish Chaplaincy, along with Hasmonean High School for Boys head Debbie Lebrett.
Topics covered included antisemitism in schools and on campus, Holocaust education and funding of school security.
According to one source, Ms Phillipson said it was “sobering” to see security at a Jewish schools.
“Faith schools can play an important part in our school system,” she told the JC. “I want every child to be able to achieve and to thrive and to receive a first-class education.”
Ms Phillipson indicated that Labour
had no plans to change policy towards faith schools. The priority for education should be catching up on “lost learning” caused by the pandemic. Major structural change was “not what’s required now”.
But the party’s plan to remove charitable status from independent schools, which would deprive them of tax relief, would “apply across the board”, she said.
Asked if Labour might exempt the kind of independent community religious schools that serve the Charedi community — as opposed to elite public schools — she replied that she was “always happy to discuss the impact of the policy”.