10/Towards the future of Jewish day schooling

Jewish day school education in the United Kingdom has never been more popular than it is today. Since 1950, while the UK Jewish population has declined by over 25 per cent, the number of children in full-time Jewish day school education has increased by around 500 per cent, with over 50 per cent of primary age Jewish children now enrolling in such schools. For communal leaders and the sponsors and supporters of Jewish day schools this is a tremendous success story, especially considering the many fears expressed over the past thirty years of a threat to the very survival of British Jewry. However, despite the growth in the take-up of full-time Jewish education and the tens of millions of pounds that have been, and continue to be, invested in Jewish schools, there has been little attempt until now to assess the strengths and weaknesses of current provision. This report has set out to do just that: assess the provision of education and performance of primary and secondary Jewish day school pupils in general and Judaic subjects, assess key strategic issues facing Jewish day schools, and analyse the 'market' needs and wants of parents. Along the way, it has also explained how Jewish day school education operates, placing it within wider concerns about the role and effectiveness of faith-based education in the United Kingdom. This chapter draws this material together: first, by answering the key policy question of whether Jewish schools— as an example of faith-based education—work; second, by summarizing the key strategic issues facing Jewish day schools; third, by raising key questions about future developments in full-time Jewish day school education in the United Kingdom; and, finally, by considering future research needs and long-term planning for Jewish schooling.

The effectiveness of a faith-based provision of day school education

As this report has shown, Jewish day schools are extremely diverse, ranging from well-established and well-run voluntary-aided state schools to a number of non-selective, independent strictly Orthodox schools that operate on the very edge of the UK education system. Thus, as Chapter 3 explained, Jewish day schools cannot be judged as a whole, but rather as a series of interconnected systems. Moreover, judging the effectiveness of Jewish day school education depends on what the different stakeholders—government, sponsors, communal leaders, parents and pupils—really want from schools.

Government policy is currently to increase the number of faith-based schools because they are seen as producing greater 'educational returns', compared to the national average, in terms of high academic standards and positive school ethos. Schools with these attributes will, in theory at least, produce a highly educated, skilled and socially responsible future workforce. According to David Blunkett when he was Secretary of State for Education, these attributes should be promoted by an education service that provides 'a common understanding of the knowledge base on which our society rests, promotes appreciation of the values which hold our communities together and generates the aspiration to learn from the past in order to contribute to the future'.(1) 

According to government criteria, Jewish schools—as an example of faith-based education—can be judged successful only if they achieve both good academic results and pupils leave the institutions well adjusted, tolerant and able to contribute 'positively' to British society.

For the sponsors of Jewish schools, however, the principal aim of these educational institutions is that pupils should leave with a knowledge, understanding, appreciation and 'love' of Judaism. This is often articulated in measurable outputs, such as young people having higher rates of synagogue attendance, observing kosher food laws and having the ability to converse in Hebrew with Israelis. While many sponsors will obviously highly value other aspects of schools, such as general academic standards, their principal reason for financially supporting Jewish schools is, almost without exception, the promotion or defence of Judaism (however defined or understood). What matters for most sponsors are Jewish schools rather than schools for Jews. In this respect, there is little current debate about the legitimacy of taxpayer support for faith-based state-sector schools, which necessarily have a particularist religious agenda.

Parents typically value two aspects of Jewish day schools above all: first, academic standards (which for some parents were considered 'the bottom line') and, second, the socialization of children in the ways of Judaism. How parents want their children to be 'Jewishly' educated varies principally according to their own levels of religious observance, which in turn reflect differing emphases on the importance of social, cultural and religious aspects of Judaism. Parents may also appreciate other 'added values' of schools, such as sport, music, IT facilities and provisions for children with special educational needs. These factors are typically seen as the additional qualities of good schools, rather than their defining features. However, these issues are increasingly being recognized by governmental policy-makers who are concerned with, for example, how current lifestyles of children will affect the health of the population in later years. Moreover, such 'added values' will become increasingly important for schools wanting to demonstrate their commitment to pupils' well-rounded education. ]

Thus, there are four overall principal criteria for judging the effectiveness of Jewish day school education—academic standards, Judaic education, added values and social, cultural and moral development— with the various stakeholders valuing these aspects in differing ways.

Academic standards
As an overall average, pupils in Jewish day schools achieve academic examination results that are consistently higher than the national average. In all tests and examinations from key stage one at age 7 through to A levels at age 18, Jewish day school pupils out-perform pupils in national state-sector schools (see Chapter 4). Nevertheless, pupils in Jewish day schools do not achieve scores that are as high as those from Independent Schools Council (ISC) and JAMS schools, which largely select their pupils on the basis of academic ability. Moreover, a number of strictly Orthodox schools do not enter their pupils for public examinations because of a heavy prioritization of Judaic teaching over secular, general curriculum studies. Indeed, the language of instruction in a number of these schools is Yiddish.

Details of examination results are of little value without an understanding of the reasons why Jewish day school pupils achieve these results. Typically, educationalists assume a strong relationship between academic results and socio-economic status, so that middle-class children are traditionally expected to achieve higher scores on average than those from deprived backgrounds. State-sector Jewish day schools have on average a far lower proportion of children coming from deprived socio-economic backgrounds—as measured by the percentage of children eligible for free school meals—which would seem to support this link. Nevertheless, pupils in a number of Jewish day schools located in deprived areas still achieve academic results that are much higher than the national average, suggesting that other factors are at work. In particular, the commitment, expectations and cultural/religious values of parents and pupils—as reflected in a traditional respect for the value of learning— seem to give Jewish pupils a clear academic advantage compared to the national average. These educational expectations help create the ethos of schools, which OFSTED inspectors almost universally praise and which are often seen as being integral parts of the community, especially in the strictly Orthodox sector. Together with a range of other factors, such as slightly smaller class sizes and financial sponsorship, these values help pupils achieve high academic standards. Nevertheless, the overall message for the government is clear: the real key to achieving academic success is the socialization of children and (crucially) families in the value of education at the earliest age possible.

Judaic education
Paradoxically, the weakest link in some Jewish day schools is Judaic education. Despite the raison d'être of most Jewish day schools being to 'Jewishly' educate their pupils, this aspect of education receives most criticism from parents, rabbis and communal figures, with OFSTED inspectors labelling the teaching of modern Hebrew (Ivrit) as weak in two of the five state-sector Jewish secondary schools. Moreover, the percentage of pupils continuing with formal Judaic education to A level is worryingly low, especially in Ivrit. The community has failed to produce fluent Hebrew-speaking graduates or a large body of Judaic specialist scholars outside of the strictly Orthodox sector. Together with human resource problems, this is potentially worrying in terms of the future quality of Judaic education. Nevertheless, the recent Pikuach report into Judaic education in Jewish day schools (see Chapter 5) suggests that teaching standards mostly meet the expectations of individual institutions. However, there is no shared basis for comparing teaching and standards at different schools, which means that parents and teachers are limited in terms of being able to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of Judaic teaching across the range of different institutions. While a unified curriculum among Jewish day schools may be impractical given the very different religious affiliations and backgrounds of parents and pupils, this does not rule out the possibility of groups of similar-ethos schools combining to create and then assess shared curricula. Beyond the direct improvement of standards in Judaic education, this would have the additional advantage of developing links between, and networks of, different institutions and teaching professionals, and allow for the sharing of experiences of best practice.

Added values
While pupils at Jewish day schools often do well academically, facilities for sport and IT in these institutions are sometimes inadequate, and have been criticized by OFSTED inspectors and parents. Problems in sporting provision have implications for the future health and well-being of children and adults, while a lack of IT facilities threatens the development of transferable skills needed for future employment. 

There are also key challenges for the provision of special educational needs, as detailed in Chapter 8, including concerns in certain independent strictly Orthodox schools relating to staff training and resources, and the integration of children with moderate learning difficulties into mainstream secondary Jewish education. This latter issue in particular raises difficult questions concerning the relative value assigned to different aspects of Jewish day school education. The Jewish community needs to consider the balance between achieving academic standards and providing services to children with special educational needs.

Social, cultural and moral development
OFSTED inspectors typically praise the ethos of state-sector Jewish day schools, in terms of community spirit, mutual respect and sound moral guidance. Interviews with parents support these views, and even the four HMI inspections of the independent strictly Orthodox schools deemed to be 'failing' (see Chapter 7) praised school ethos. There are, however, important questions that need to be answered about the impact the current growth in Jewish day school education will have on the social, cultural and moral values of future generations of Jews. Will today's Jewish day school pupils be more or less securely and consciously Jewish than their parents? What type of Jews will they become? Will current levels of 'inter-marriage' decline or increase? Will Jews become insular and less tolerant of other communities and traditions? 

The growth in the percentage of Jewish children being educated in Jewish day schools, rather than in supplementary, part-time education, will have major social, cultural and religious implications for the future of British Jewry, which will require careful and detailed study and assessment. In particular, longitudinal research questioning groups of present-day pupils—in both Jewish and non-Jewish schools—over time would begin to answer these questions. A longitudinal attitudinal and lifestyle questionnaire would help to demonstrate the social, cultural and moral effects of Jewish day school education. What impact do Jewish (or non-Jewish) day schools have on pupils five, ten or fifteen years after they have left the full-time educational system? Do the values and morals taught to Jewish children in day schools exert a long- or only a short-term influence over their future behaviour and lifestyle? Only by answering such questions can the effectiveness of Jewish day schools truly be judged.

Key strategic issues facing Jewish day schools

Beyond questions of the effectiveness of Jewish day schools, there is also a series of much more immediate concerns that individual institutions, communal leaders and educational agencies need to address. On the basis of in-depth qualitative interviews with education providers (headteachers, teachers, educational psychologists, directors of services and communal leaders) and with parents, five overall strategic concerns emerged: provision of places, human resources, financing, communication and information and provision for children with special educational needs. Nevertheless, it is important to note that these issues affect the various types of Jewish day schools in different ways, with, in particular, strictly Orthodox communities facing specific problems relating to the financing of schools in the face of rapid growth in their pupil numbers.

Provision of places
Beyond the classification of schools according to factors such as religious affiliation and sources of funding, another key characteristic of Jewish day schools is whether they are over- or under-subscribed. In 'recruiting' schools—typically located in declining regional Jewish communities like Glasgow, Birmingham and Liverpool—the key policy questions are how to maintain a particular Jewish ethos given the presence of pupils of different religious and cultural backgrounds, and how to attract Jewish pupils who may otherwise be going to private, non-Jewish institutions. In 'rationing' schools—mostly located in north-west London—the questions are whether present levels of place numbers can cater for future demand. The move and enlargement of the JFS school and plans for the construction of one or two new schools in Hertfordshire to the north of Greater London show that some Jewish communal leaders and parents believe that provision must continue to expand. 

The key message of this report is that local geography matters much more than broad statements about an over- or under- provision of places. Education is provided at the local level, especially at primary level. Making decisions on the future construction of schools requires detailed market analyses of parental wants and needs to ensure that precious communal finances are used to best effect. As Chapter 6 showed, even some schools located in densely Jewish areas have relatively stable demands for places because their ethos resonates only with particular sections of the community. Moreover, as Chapter 9 outlined, parents sometimes make educational choices according to 'fashions', trends and the advice of friends and contemporaries, rather than on a 'perfect' analysis of the available options. This makes long-term planning for Jewish day schools especially difficult. Nevertheless, information is needed as to likely future trends in the numbers of Jewish children, according to variables such as age, cohort, gender, geographical location and religious affiliation. What proportion of children, according to each of these variables, is likely to require places at Jewish day schools?

Human resources
Problems of recruiting and retaining teaching staff have been widely reported across the British educational system, of which Jewish schools are, of course, just one small part. Nevertheless, there are specifically Jewish issues that emerge from the research. With the rapid development in the Jewish day school movement, finding suitable teachers is a problem. As the 1992 Worms Report made clear, it is of little use having new Jewish schools if there are not enough high-quality teachers to work in them.(2) There are shortages of Jewish general curriculum teachers, which necessarily has an impact on the environment schools are trying to develop. If the only Jewish staff in schools are Judaic subject teachers, the message for children is arguably that a commitment to Judaism is separate from the 'real' business of general academic success. Of more immediate concern are shortages in the numbers of suitably qualified Judaic studies teachers, especially given increasing demands by government and parents for such staff to have formal qualifications, such as the Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) and/or Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). As Chapter 5 revealed, the numbers of students choosing to take Judaic subjects at A level is worryingly small, especially Modern Hebrew. In the system(s) of Jewish day school education, present-day shortages of Judaic examination candidates threaten the future teaching of these subjects. 

There are also problems relating to the recruitment and retention of senior managers in schools. Having strong leadership is key to the success of children's education, but recruiting such individuals is difficult, especially given the increased number of Jewish schools, all of which require headteachers and senior staff. With recruitment problems throughout the school system as a whole, recruiting and retaining staff at the senior level may become even more difficult. Without a large enough base of middle and junior staff, there will not be experienced individuals to take on senior management posts later in their careers. There are also issues regarding the governance of Jewish day schools to consider, such as those raised in the recent JPR report by Margaret Harris and Colin Rochester.(3) Governance is a key factor in the provision of education in Jewish day schools, with individuals able to have a major impact on standards and the environment of particular institutions, as the example of the King David High School in Manchester shows (see Chapters 4 and 6). 

Overall, it is of prime importance for communal planners to have long-term planning trajectories and a detailed statistical breakdown of staff working in Jewish schools according to variables such as age, gender, qualifications and religious affiliation, so that future problems can be minimized.

Financing
Alongside questions of human resources, another problem for Jewish day schools is financing. Almost every aspect of running an educational establishment inevitably comes down to questions of money, with several headteachers identifying lack of funds as the biggest problem they face. In the state sector, a shortage of money for schools—despite recent government initiatives—has been a long-running national problem, whether it is for purchasing new books, carrying out school repairs or employing enough suitably qualified teachers and assistants. There are questions about how the community will cope with the costs of providing high-quality educational services. Will individual parents pay—and if so, how much— for a level and a type of Jewish education that is beyond what is currently available? 

In the independent sector—which includes the majority of Jewish schools, and virtually all the strictly Orthodox schools—income is principally dependent on school fees and charitable donations. As identified by HMI, at least four schools in the strictly Orthodox community have serious problems relating to substandard, dangerous accommodation, with the shortage of money needed for building and repair work clearly of major importance. If the number of strictly Orthodox pupils continues to grow as quickly as it has been, this part of the Jewish community will need to ascertain how it can ensure educational standards within suitable and safe accommodation. Indeed, a key policy question for strictly Orthodox schools is whether or not to seek voluntary-aided status and move into the state sector. This would provide state funding for educational resources and improvements in standards and facilities, although it would also entail acceptance of the National Curriculum, and hence a vast extension in the teaching of general curriculum subjects. Many strictly Orthodox schools, and especially those catering for boys, currently view this as an unacceptable alteration to their ethos.

Communication and information
Another area of concern, particularly for parents, relates to issues of communication and information, both parent–school partnerships and the availability of information needed for making educational choices. The analysis of OFSTED inspection reports on state-sector Jewish schools suggests that parents are often happier with the academic standards of education their children are receiving than with schools' communication policies. While many parents are impressed with schools' openness and willingness to involve them in the education of their children, others consider that there is not enough feedback or partnership. These criticisms could reflect an over-demanding attitude on the part of some parents, or perhaps the difficulties of teachers and members of staff finding time within the enormous bureaucratic pressures of running and working in a modern school. However, the qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that there are issues here that schools need to examine further.

Some Jewish parents also noted difficulties in obtaining the information needed for making educational choices for their children. When choosing the 'right' school, parents—depending on the age of their child—use a variety of informational sources, such as brochures, OFSTED reports and open days, as well as the advice of friends and contemporaries. Several parents spoke of the difficulty of obtaining, from one central location, information about the various available options that could be used for comparative purposes.

Provision for children with special educational needs
The final issue concerns SEN provision in Jewish day schools. This is an area that has often been overlooked in communal reports into Jewish education, despite one in five pupils in state-sector Jewish primary schools being identified as having some form of special need, and one in ten at secondary level. From interviews with headteachers, SEN professionals and parents of children with special needs, four specifically Jewish areas of concern emerged. 

First, there are concerns relating to a gap in the provision of education to children with moderate learning difficulties (MLD) in mainstream Jewish state-sector schools, particularly at secondary level. While such schools are usually able to include children with physical disabilities or mild learning difficulties, there is an apparent lack of willingness on the part of mainstream state-sector secondary schools to include children with MLD.

Second, there are problems in the strictly Orthodox sector due to a lack of finances and experienced teaching staff, associated with the rapid growth in pupil numbers. Staffing the increasing number of strictly Orthodox schools with teachers and senior managers with the experience to identify children with special needs, and then dealing with the vagaries and complexities of local authority funding, are problematic. Moreover, with the shortage of finances associated with the majority of these schools being independent of the state, and the relatively high levels of economic deprivation in certain strictly Orthodox areas, paying for good-quality special needs provision is difficult. Again, there are policy debates to be had within this sector about the relative advantages of entering the state sector—which guarantees moneys for children with SEN—as opposed to staying independent and thus having more control over how lessons are taught and the amount of time that is spent teaching general and Judaic subjects.

Third, there are issues relating to the specialist Jewish SEN schools. These schools are able to provide 'culturally appropriate' services to Jewish children, who might otherwise be denied the chance to practise Judaism (see Chapter 8). Residential specialist schools are necessarily very expensive to run because of the need for high-quality specialist staff and facilities, raising questions as to which aspects of provision are best provided by the Jewish community and which by other organizations or the state. Key to this debate are the standards that Jewish organizations can provide, and their ability to provide 'culturally appropriate' services in ways beyond what is provided by non-Jewish agencies. 

Fourth, there are concerns about parents' awareness of, and access to, information relating to special needs and the procedures for obtaining SEN Statements. The Jewish community has specialist services for assisting parents that provide facilities in tune with individuals' cultural and religious requirements. However, evidence suggests that at least some parents are unaware of the services, and others, particularly in the strictly Orthodox community, are reluctant to use them due to fears about confidentiality and social stigma. This suggests the need to develop further communication strategies for informing Jewish parents of the communal options available, and explaining how issues of confidentiality are handled. 

Overall, the Jewish community needs to ask difficult questions about how to define the success of Jewish day schools, and what priority should be given to the provision of services for children who may not add to league table standings and academic 'success'.

The future of Jewish day schooling

The different criteria by which stakeholders judge the strengths and weaknesses of Jewish day schools point to a somewhat uneasy relationship between 'providers' and 'users' of educational services. Parents of Jewish children face a series of complex decisions about what kind of compromises to make regarding their children's education in the face of the various school options available. Despite parental wishes being theoretically central to the UK education system since the 1944 Education Act, the reality is somewhat different. For those wanting to send their child to a Jewish day school, there are a series of general and Judaic barriers—such as geographical, halachic and religious practice selection criteria, as well as problems relating to the provision of places—resulting in parental choice being often more myth than reality. The ethos of Jewish day schools, which are predominantly Orthodox in character, does not match the aims and wishes of a large percentage of parents. As Chapter 3 showed, only 7 per cent of 'secular' parents send their children to Jewish day schools, and indeed half of all Jewish day school pupils are from non-Sabbath-observant homes. This raises the question whether there are alternative models of Jewish day schools that could be promoted in order to satisfy the wishes of those who currently reject Jewish day school education or who use current facilities because of a lack of choice. 

One possible future model is the development of non-denominational 'community' Jewish day schools, similar to those in Argentina, Canada and Israel. Such schools emphasize language, culture and traditions rather than a particular religious approach (in contrast to all primary and secondary UK Jewish day schools). Such schools would potentially be much more appealing to 'secular' Jews, whose children could receive a Jewish education but without an enforced denominational religious element. With the government set to decrease the amount of money that groups need to start a voluntary-aided school (see Chapter 1), the development of such schools need not necessarily be under the auspices of existing synagogues or communal organizations but might be through the actions of groups of like-minded parents. This model is already applied in part in the strictly Orthodox community, where parents have established niche independent schools to cater for similar groups of children, typically from specific Hasidic sects. Such an approach potentially allows parents a much greater say and involvement in the running of their schools than current models in which parental say is often limited to Parent-Teacher Associations or small groups of governors.(4)

Jewish day schools are also likely to become much more communal in the future in terms of the services they offer. As key infrastructural elements, schools are able to provide services to the community twenty-four hours a day, thus maximizing the benefit of communal capital expenditure. As 'organizations of learning', schools can potentially offer services to both children and adults, so that education can be carried on throughout individuals' lifetimes.(5) 

Finally, education in Jewish day schools is still primarily delivered in a classical manner, in particular places at particular times. As methods of 'Jewishly' educating children, day schools are necessarily an expensive option, requiring the teaching of not just Judaic studies but secular subjects as well. For state-sector schools most of this cost is met by the state, and for those interested in socializing children in the ways of Judaism, the global environment of a Jewish day school (at least during school hours, if not always at home) is clearly advantageous. Nevertheless, with the changing demography of the UK Jewish population, other models of 'Jewishly' educating children may also usefully be considered. In particular, developing the role of the Internet to reach out to pupils in very small or declining Jewish populations—as well as to those in more densely populated Jewish areas—may allow networks of pupils to receive a high-quality Judaic education and to develop links with other children across the country. New technology can help to overcome teaching and material shortages and problems in Jewish education.

There are also possibilities of developing the Internet to create a 'one-stop' educational website. Such a site could provide much of the information parents need to make educational choices, such as lists of the different schools, with links to their brochures, to OFSTED reports and to parent groups who can offer advice and information. This site could also be a gateway to finding out about special educational needs services and informal education opportunities. The planning of such Internet services—by means, for example, of a feasibility study—should be initiated as early as possible, given the potential and relatively cost-efficient benefits.

The research agenda for long-term planning for Jewish schooling

For Jewish day school education to meet future needs, wants and requirements of government, sponsors, community leaders, parents and pupils, a constant awareness of current and potential challenges, informed by suitable research, is required. Some of the key policy questions raised in this report will be tackled by the JPR research programme, Long-term Planning for British Jewry (LTP), which, when complete, will provide an overall strategic assessment of the UK Jewish voluntary sector. Central to the LTP programme is the 'national market survey', a postal questionnaire of the Jewish public that will provide information on the attitudes to communal services and the perceived needs of the Jewish community: that is, the potential market for services such as schools, sheltered housing and care homes for older people. Overall, LTP will provide information on key variables ranging from finances to service delivery, governance, and likely future market needs and demands. It will help the community to make difficult decisions on how to distribute scarce resources among those in the voluntary sector making competing demands, whether involved in education or welfare for older people. However, while LTP will provide much needed information, further specialist educational research is also required. 

There is a need for longitudinal research into the long-term effects of Jewish day school education, and how this will change the nature of future UK Jewish communities. There is also a need for research into areas such as human resources, including a comprehensive breakdown of the teachers, assistants, managers and other members of staff who work in Jewish day schools, in order to identify present and future gaps. Specialist research is also urgently required into the future development of SEN provision in the community, into areas such as the mental and physical health of children (and adults) and in the role of IT.

Overall, this assessment of Jewish day school education shows many positive aspects, especially considering the fears of community leaders even only a decade ago. Pupil numbers are increasing across the religious spectrum (most dramatically in the strictly Orthodox sector) and examination results are generally good or very good for those schools that enter pupils. Nevertheless, the sector faces key strategic choices and questions as to how it should best develop in the future. The purpose of this report has been to raise these issues as a basis for communal debate on the future directions of Jewish day schooling. This debate should involve not only those already immersed in Jewish education, but also those specialists in the educational, policy and academic worlds with the expertise to help plan for the future. There is a need to harness the talents and expertise of people who have until now not been part of the discussion, principally because they have never been asked. For those with an interest in the future of Jewish day schools, there is already an excellent foundation, but there are also many areas that should be improved, developed or rethought.

Notes

1 David Blunkett, 'Foreword', in DfEE, Building on Success, 3.

2 JEDT.

3 Harris and Rochester.

4 See Tom Bentley, 'It's democracy, stupid: an agenda for self-government', New Statesman, 12 March 2001.