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Jewish school told: Take in pupils of other faiths
Tim Ross, Education Correspondent31 Oct 2008
A JEWISH school has been criticised by the admissions watchdog for not offering places to children of other faiths.
The schools adjudicator uncovered a series of flaws in the admissions policy of Hasmonean High School in Barnet.
The Orthodox Jewish secondary is the latest school to fall foul of the Government's new statutory code on allocating places. But it is not the first time it has been criticised over its admissions.
The 1,300-pupil school which teaches boys and girls but on separate sites was one of the worst offenders in London identified in a recent report by Children's Secretary Ed Balls on unlawful admissions practices.
Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said state-funded schools must lose the right to select pupils on the basis of faith.
"Minority schools fail cohesion," he said. "Their very existence reduces the diversity of community schools. The answer is to have no religious discrimination in admissions to any publicly funded schools.
"Nobody is forcing Hasmonean to abide by the admissions code. If they don't want to follow the code they don't need to take the public money."
Barnet council complained to the schools adjudicator the government watchdog on admissions about Hasmonean High's policies.
The adjudicator, Richard Lindley, ruled that Hasmonean failed to make places available to "children who are not of the Orthodox Jewish faith". Mr Lindley ordered Hasmonean to change its rules to make it clear that "other children" were also entitled to attend if spaces were available. He ordered the school to make 12 further changes to its admissions rules.
The 64-year-old school has been praised by Ofsted. Hasmonean High School declined to comment on the adjudicator's report.
It follows a legal battle this week in which the watchdog itself was severely criticised. In the first case of its kind, the High Court quashed a ruling against Drayton Manor High in Ealing. The school had been accused of unfairly refusing to give places to poor children but the High Court said adjudicator Andrew Baxter had failed to give adequate reasons for his decision.
Solicitors representing Drayton Manor blamed Mr Balls for unleashing a tidal wave of complaints when he accused hundreds of faith schools of flouting the new admissions code. Complaints to the adjudicators have more than doubled since Mr Balls's comments, two thirds of which have been upheld.
Reader views (18)
The Minister of Education in his deliberations is now subject in all his decisions to the will of the majority of voters in this country as well as in other democracies.
The Common Law in the past century has changed beyond recognition,and has based its law on the basis, that this world created itself, the pendulum of non thinking has swung too far to the left and a correction is imminent.
Democracy is good but only if it is taken as part of a thinking process, you cannot vote to abandon the most important part of a human being, and that is that mind will always be above body, that is the purpose of education, and no majority can take that away.
The lack of thinking I.E. the "thinking crunch" will eventually be sorted out, and the British public will most probably be in the forefront to fight against this disease, we are not amused.
The problem with regards to faith schools is only the tip of the iceberg.
S.B.E. Berger
- Shmeel Binyumin Eliezer Berger, LONDON, U.K., 05/11/2008 13:33
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If you're not Jewish or muslim then why would you even consider sending your child there? A lot of parents send their children to these schools because they don't want their child to be the only jew/muslim in the class/school. Maybe the only reason a parent would want to do so is because invariably they are better performing schools. It's quite a reversal....years ago jews couldn't get into golf clubs, because of anti-semitism, and had to start up their own clubs around the country. Now there are people complaining because they can't get the child into a jewish school.... you couldn't make that up! That is pretty damn funny.
- David, Barkingside, Essex, 03/11/2008 14:24
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It's very depressing that none of the three of main political parties in this Country is willing to wake up to the fact that the idea of faith schooling does not find favour with the majority of citizens. I can't help wishing that the UK had had an Enlightenment/ anti-clerical revolution (as did France and the US) rather than a clerical civil war some 150 years earlier. If we had then perhaps we would also have a strict separation between religion and the State.
- Alan, London, 03/11/2008 14:16
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I used to be a supporter of faith schools until I recently moved to the London Borough of Redbridge. The borough has 2 Jewish primary schools and one Jewish secondary school. As a result there are is now such a tiny monority of white children in the schools, perhaps as few as 1 per class. 2 of these schools were opened only since the influx of asians to the area and I truely believe they were to create white only schools on the pretext of being faith schools. One of them doesn't even have a Jewish Studies teacher, so cannot really be considered as a faith school it's more of an apartheid school. I have addmission form for one of the primary schools and I an shocked that not only do they ask parent's occupations but a completed Direct Debit mandate must be returned with the application form before your sdmission will even be considered.
- Jane Bewick, London, 03/11/2008 11:04
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Faith schools are inherantly bigotted and insular. Thats why they were set up in the first place. They should not be supported by public money. If someone wants to run a faith school it should only be privately funded.
- Mark Clark, Rainham kent UK, 03/11/2008 10:48
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Who decided that "diversity" was a good thing? And what lofty individual took it upon him/herself to decide this? Throw the "public money" back in their faces.
Here, in Wisconsin, we pay property taxes to fund the public school system, and we pay privately to educate our children in private religious schools.
An educator from another town near here,took it upon herself to "diversify" our town. Then she moved away. She should be made to live her remaining years in the same neighborhood she's responsible for "diversifying."
Is there a down side for our legislators enacting law for the "public good?" There ought to be.
- Laura B., Central Wisconsin, USA, 03/11/2008 01:17
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There is a simple answer. Ban all faith schools.
- Kerry Trubee, Purley, 31/10/2008 16:52
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A now for the truth - as the school is oversubscribed there was not a single student disadvantaged by the schools policy.
This whole process has cost £1000's and is totally irrelevant as the school remains oversubscribed - but the waiting list just got longer!
- David, London, 31/10/2008 15:40
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If there's no demand from outside the Jewish community, then what's the problem? The same goes for Muslim schools. But as usual, the authorities go for the soft target.
- Hughie, Surrey, UK, 31/10/2008 14:09
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Nu Labor will not be satisfied until they have utterly destroyed the entire school system.
- James Ritchie, New Malden, Surrey, 31/10/2008 13:58
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Faith schools are divisive, elitist and should be banned and certainly not receive any state funds
- Andy, London, 31/10/2008 13:45
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All religion should be taken off the curriculum of government funded schools, and, only taught as part of a history course.(which would address the role of religion in the world objectively) If you as a parent wish your children to be indoctrinated into any particular religion, you can make your own arrangements privately, in your own time, and, at your own expense! One thing I am sure of is that religious schools do not make a contribution to a nations citizens living in harmony!
- Kevin Sullivan, Roehampton, London., 31/10/2008 13:36
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Do the parents pay their taxes? Why are they picking on this Jewish school, Is it because they getting better results. I had the good fortune to attend a Catholic school and taught mostly by nuns, our faith was at the centre of everything we did. People of no faith like Ed Balls would not understand this.
- Maggie, London, 31/10/2008 13:28
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What about Muslim schools, are they providing spaces for non Muslim pupils? I highly doubt it! The goverment has been obsessed with enforcing multiculturism in white achools while allowing non white faith schools to discriminate. I am sick of the one way street with race in the country i.e. People of colour are given special treatment / priority over whites.
- Brandon Thomas, London UK, 31/10/2008 12:19
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I attended two Roman Catholic schools in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time there was no requirement to be a Catholic, children from all faiths were welcomed. What has happened in the intervening thirty years that we now need a code?
- Mark Wright, Milan, Italy, 31/10/2008 11:13
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If a school takes public money then it should be open to all, regardess of faith.
- Jonathan, London, 31/10/2008 11:08
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If a school takes public money then it should be open to all, regardess of faith.
- Jonathan, London, 31/10/2008 11:08
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>>Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said state-funded schools must lose the right to select pupils on the basis of faith
Then they won't be faith school any more.
- Adam, Harrow, UK, 31/10/2008 11:03
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