In 1992 the government established the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) with a remit to 'improve standards of achievement and quality of education through regular independent inspections of all 24,000 schools in England that are wholly or mainly state-funded'.(1) Detailed inspections were to be carried out in individual state-sector schools, with inspectors assessing everything from examination results to the standards of individual subject teaching, ethos to sports facilities, multiculturalism to provision for children with special educational needs (SEN). This chapter provides a meta- analysis of OFSTED inspection reports for 16 Jewish primary schools (5,084 pupils) and 5 Jewish secondary schools (4,225 pupils) dating from 1996 to 2000.(2)

In addition to the OFSTED inspection reports, GCSE and GNVQ examinations (taken at the end of compulsory secondary education) and GCE examinations (taken during the 'sixth form': see Chapter 2) were also analysed. The Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) publishes 'league tables' of these examination results, including results for both state-sector and independent, fee-paying schools. The DfEE has examination data for 20 Jewish secondary schools (9,258 pupils), 5 of which are state-sector voluntary-aided comprehensives (4,604 pupils) and 15 independent (4,273 pupils). Note that this does not cover the full range of Jewish secondary day schools, because around 23 strictly Orthodox independent schools do not enter children for national public examinations.

To place the GCSE and GCE results for Jewish schools in context, data are also provided showing national (English) average results, as well as results from JAMS schools (non-Jewish schools with organized Jewish activities, which tend to have relatively high numbers of Jewish pupils: see Chapter 3) and those under the remit of the ISC. Analysing OFSTED and DfEE data provides a window into the strengths and weaknesses of Jewish schools. However, this data should be studied with a number of important provisos and caveats in mind.

First, the OFSTED examination data on Jewish state schools relates to the period 1996-9, and there will inevitably be fluctuations in examination results and standards over this period.
Second, because the sample size for the Jewish school categories is very small, compared to the many thousands of other state-sector and independent schools, the figures do not exactly compare like with like. There are approximately 3,500 state and independent secondary schools in England, 600 ISC schools, 29 JAMS schools, and DfEE examination data for 20 Jewish schools. Thus, individual Jewish schools that are especially strong or weak will skew the aggregate data.
Third, statistical data from the DfEE and OFSTED are controversial, with many educationalists having strong reservations about their value. For example, critics argue that examination results may be more closely correlated to the relative prosperity of pupils' families than to the actual quality of education students receive. In other words, well-motivated children from middle-class backgrounds are more likely to achieve high examination results than those from deprived backgrounds. Possible explanations for the performance of Jewish day school pupils are provided in the second half of this chapter.

Performance indicators

At key stage one, when pupils are tested in reading, writing and mathematics, the percentage of pupils at state-sector Jewish schools from 1996-9 achieving the expected National Curriculum results was between 11 and 15 percentage points higher than the national average. Key stage one tests are taken at age seven when pupils have had two years of primary education.

Table 4.1 Percentage of key stage one pupils achieving expected National Curriculum level results in state-sector Jewish and national schools 1996-9(3)

Age	Key stage	Subject	Jewish state schools (mean average %)	National state schools (mean average %)
7	1 (National	Reading	95	80
	Curriculum	Writing	93	81
	level 2)	Maths	95	84

At key stage two, which marks the end of primary school education, pupils in Jewish day schools appear to show rising levels of achievement in mathematics and English as compared to the national average. In these subjects, Jewish day school pupils achieve results that are now over 20 percentage points higher than the national average (see Table 4.2).

Table 4.2 Percentage of key stage two pupils achieving expected National Curriculum level results in state-sector Jewish and national schools 1996-9

Age	Key stage	Subject	Jewish state schools (mean average %)	National state schools (mean average %)
11	2 (National	English	87	65
	Curriculum	Maths	82	61
	level 4)	Science	81	69

At key stage three, Jewish day school pupils once again out-perform the national average, particularly at the more demanding standards required to achieve National Curriculum level 6. Indeed, in English at National Curriculum level 6, pupils at state-sector Jewish schools achieved scores that were more than double the national average.

Table 4.3 Percentage of key stage three pupils achieving expected National Curriculum level results in state-sector Jewish and national schools 1996-9

Age	Key stage	Subject	Jewish state schools (mean average %)	National state schools (mean average %)
14	3 (National	English	88	61
	Curriculum	Maths	75	60
	level 5)	Science	73	57
	3 (National	English	68	28
	Curriculum	Maths	56	36
	level 6)	Science	41	25

At key stage one (towards the start of primary education), Jewish day school pupils have higher than average attainment levels for the core assessed National Curriculum subjects. In mathematics and science, the gap between the attainment levels of Jewish day school pupils and the national average stays fairly constant throughout the educational system as a whole (see Figures 4.1 and 4.2). This reflects the wider picture in the United Kingdom, in which individual pupil performance at key stages three and four is closely correlated to prior performance: pupils doing well in primary school are likely to be similarly successful at secondary school.(4)

In English, however, Jewish day school pupils show increasing attainment levels throughout the educational system compared to the national average (see Figure 4.3). Either these schools are particularly strong in English teaching or there are particular factors that mean that Jewish day school pupils are especially strong in this subject area. These issues will be addressed in the second half of this chapter.

In order to further place the achievements of state-sector Jewish day school pupils in perspective, it is possible to compare certain key stage results with those of pupils in private, fee-paying ISC institutions. Independent schools are not legally required to teach the National Curriculum, follow the key stage approach or publish the results if they do. Nonetheless, 150 independent Incorporated Association of Preparatory Schools (IAPS) did voluntarily undertake the key stage two tests. The 1999 figures for these schools at National Curriculum level four are: English, 95 per cent; mathematics 93 per cent; and science 94 per cent. These figures suggest that, while pupils in state-sector Jewish schools do well compared to the national state average, they do not perform up to the levels of the top private schools.

At key stage four, which marks the end of compulsory education by the taking of GCSE and GNVQ examinations, pupils in Jewish schools achieve results that are 1.5 times higher than the national average, but lower than those from JAMS and ISC schools (although, again, note the very different sample sizes of Jewish, JAMS, ISC and national schools; see Figure 4.4).

Figure 4.5 shows the internal variations within the Jewish school sector. These results show how pupil results in Jewish day schools vary according to whether they are state sector, selective independent or non-selective independent. The chart shows how pupils in the three selective independent Jewish schools achieved the highest results (equivalent to those of the ISC), 15 percentage points higher than pupils in state-sector Jewish schools. Non-selective independents (11 strictly Orthodox schools) have on average 72 per cent of their pupils achieving five or more GCSE grades A* to C (results that are almost 1.5 times higher than the national average, although note that many strictly Orthodox schools do not enter pupils for any public examinations).

After completing compulsory education at the end of year 11, students in years 12 and 13 may--depending on their key stage four/GCSE results--choose to take GCE A or AS examinations, or sometimes AGNVQs. Students taking A levels usually take three or four subjects. Figure 4.6 shows the average score per subject for pupils taking two or more GCEs, with each entry awarded points as follows:

Grade	GCE A level points	GCE AS level points
A	10	5
B	8	4
C	6	3
D	4	2
E	2	1

Students who fail to achieve a pass are included but score no points. The points for each candidate are calculated and divided by the number of entries, with A levels counting as one entry, and AS levels as half an entry. As such, a candidate achieving A level grades of A, B and C would have 24 points in total, and thus 8 points per entry (24 points divided by 3 entries). As Figure 4.6 shows, pupils in Jewish schools show a similar pattern of achievements at GCE level as they do for GCSEs. The results of pupils at Jewish schools are higher than the national average, but lower than those of JAMS and ISC schools. Note, however, that only 7 Jewish schools (with 5,157 pupils) have pupils taking GCEs; this necessarily limits the value of the data.(5)

Explaining the academic performance of Jewish day school pupils

The relationship between educational inputs and outputs in contemporary Britain is obviously not a simple one-to-one ratio. The success in the formal examinations that pupils in Jewish schools achieve, compared to overall national average figures, is doubtless due to a combination of factors, such as socio-economic background, commitment and expectations of pupils and parents, school ethos, better teaching standards, smaller class sizes, single-sex education and financial support. This half of the chapter discusses these potential factors, using evidence from OFSTED and the DfEE as well as from thirty-six in-depth qualitative interviews carried out in the year 2000. Those interviewed were key professionals involved in Jewish education--headteachers, teachers, educational psychologists, directors of services and community leaders--as well as parents of Jewish children. The interviews took place principally in London, Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff. These cities differ enormously in terms of Jewish populations and institutional needs: two-thirds of British Jews live in Greater London, where there are dozens of Jewish schools, while there are only 1,200 Jews in Cardiff and the last Jewish kindergarten there closed down in 1999.

Socio-economic status

When analysing pupil performance, education professionals often assume an inverse correlation between examination results and the number of children coming from deprived socio-economic backgrounds. The usual, but by no means uncontroversial, indicator for measuring this is the number of pupils eligible for free school meals.

Table 4.4 Eligibility for free school meals, state-sector Jewish and national schools

	State-sector Jewish schools average %	State-sector national schools average %
Primary level	7.1	18.9
Secondary level	6.7	16.9

As Table 4.4 shows, state-sector Jewish day schools have a headstart in terms of the number of pupils from higher than average socio-economic backgrounds. These figures support the contention that these Jewish schools do better than the national average, at least in part, because of the socio-economic backgrounds of children who enter these schools in the first place: 'middle-class children achieving middle-class results'. Nevertheless, Figure 4.5 shows that some non-selective strictly Orthodox schools achieved GCSE pass rates that were significantly higher than the national average, even though many of these schools are located in some of the poorest parts of Britain, such as the London borough of Hackney and inner-city Salford (Greater Manchester).

The commitment, expectations and cultural/religious values of parents and pupils

A second factor that may explain Jewish day school pupils' achievements involves the expectations and commitment of both parents and pupils. This is not easily quantified although, from interviews with headteachers of Jewish day schools, Jewish parental involvement appears to be very high and is clearly linked to pupil success:

[Parents] are demanding, they do expect a huge amount, and some of them can be very difficult of course, but I'd swap any day Jewish parents who push and nag and demand, than parents who have no interest at all in their children's education, which is what you find a lot in the wider community. Jewish parents are largely what makes Jewish schools so successful, because they're pushing schools all the time, they're never satisfied, and, if we're honest, schools benefit from that. (Headteacher of a secondary school)

Of importance here is the partnership between parents and school. The OFSTED inspection reports show that parents are generally more positive than negative about their interactions with schools. Nevertheless, analysis of these reports, together with interviews with Jewish parents, shows that there are communication problems in certain Jewish day schools (see Chapter 6).

The source of Jewish families' positive expectations is to be found in particular traditional Jewish values and historical experiences, such as the respect for learning, community pride, minority status and a history of discrimination that has led individuals to struggle for financial success and independence.

Traditional respect for learning [has been] re-directed toward secular education in a climate of tolerance which has allowed Jews to contribute more fully to the society in which they live. Jews have been especially quick to recognise that education and formal qualifications are the secret of occupational success and social mobility . . . With a background of respect for learning and desire for self-improvement, Jews have entered this new competition of 'worth not birth' on a better than equal footing with the English middle and working classes.(6)

Particular traditional Jewish practices, such as the 'rites of passage' that Jewish males aged 13 and females aged 12 go through during bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah or bat chayil ceremonies, may also contribute to the success of Jewish day school pupils, particularly in English. For these ceremonies, students typically spend a year learning a particular portion of a sacred text and performing it in front of the whole congregation in the synagogue. The skills necessarily developed for these events--translation, rote memory, presentation, comprehension--together with the confidence to stand up and express oneself in front of the congregation may be particularly transferable to the context of English examinations. However, there are other factors that may also explain the particular success in English examinations, such as strong teaching standards or parental encouragement of children to read and write at an early age, providing key building blocks for them to develop later on in the educational system.

School ethos

A third potential factor is the ethos of schools, and the type of learning environment created. Schools that promote positive learning environments in which pupils are well behaved and keen to learn have higher pupil performance results. The OFSTED inspection reports show that most Jewish day schools have very low levels (often 0 per cent) of pupil exclusions and unauthorized absences. Moreover, inspectors almost universally praised the ethos of Jewish day schools, with comments such as 'very cohesive community', 'mutual respect and understanding' and 'sound moral guidance'. The ethos of schools is also one of the prime factors used by Jewish parents to choose between different institutions (see Chapter 9). The source of this largely positive ethos is clearly linked to the values and expectations of parents, many of whom also play key roles in schools as parent-governors. In this respect, key individuals can have a major impact on schools. For example, at the King David High School in Manchester, OFSTED inspectors praised the 'outstanding and inspirational leadership', noting how governors 'spearhead improvements' so that GCSE results have notably improved and student numbers almost doubled since the previous inspection (see also Chapter 6). Finally, school ethos is also often associated with particular geographical Jewish communities that take pride in local institutions, seeing them as 'their schools'.

Standards of teaching

A fourth factor that could explain the achievements of Jewish day school pupils is the quality of teaching. Table 4.5 shows how the vast majority of lessons in Jewish schools were deemed satisfactory or very good.

Table 4.5 Standards of teaching for individual lessons in Jewish state-sector schools (OFSTED inspection reports 1996-2000)

	Unsatisfactory (%)	Satisfactory (%)	Very good (%)
Jewish primary schools: London	14	57	29
Jewish primary schools: regions	6	81	13
Jewish primary schools (overall)	12	64	24
Jewish secondary schools	6	69	25

These figures are similar to the current national picture, in which 6 per cent of teaching was deemed unsatisfactory in 1999-2000 (compared to 1994-5, the year inspections were first carried out, when 20 per cent of national lessons were deemed unsatisfactory).(7)

The strength of teaching in state-sector Jewish day schools is not demonstrated right across the board, with OFSTED inspectors commending the teaching of some subjects as strong, but criticizing others as weak. Figures 4.7 and 4.8 are based on the number of times OFSTED reports praised as strong, or criticized as weak, individual subject teaching in Jewish state-sector schools. These graphs suggest that, while Jewish schools are often strong in core curriculum subjects, such as mathematics, English and science, there are sometimes weaknesses. OFSTED inspectors highlighted weaknesses in some primary schools in art, history, geography, and design and technology, and in some secondary schools in design and technology, religious education and Ivrit(8)

Class sizes

A fifth factor that has been associated with academic achievement is class size. This is a politically and educationally contested issue, with many challenging the assumption of a direct correlation between class size and pupil success. Table 4.6--based on DfEE data for 21 Jewish state-sector primary schools (6,149 pupils) and 5 Jewish state-sector secondary schools (4,426 pupils)--shows that state-sector Jewish schools have slightly smaller class sizes than the national average.

Table 4.6 Average class sizes for state-sector Jewish and national schools, 1999(9)

	State-sector Jewish schools (average %)	State-sector national schools (average %)
Primary level	26.5	27.1
Secondary level	19.0	22.0

Similarly, as Table 4.7 shows, when analysing pupil to full-time equivalent (FTE) teacher ratios, Jewish state-sector schools are slightly better placed than the national average.

Table 4.7 Pupil to teacher ratios for state-sector Jewish and national schools, 1999

	State-sector Jewish schools (average %)	State-sector national schools (average %)
Primary level	21.4	23.3
Secondary level	16.4	17.1

Single-sex education

A sixth possible factor relates to the single-sex nature of the majority of Jewish day schools. Sixteen of the 20 Jewish day schools for which the DfEE has GCSE, GNVQ and GCE examination data are single-sex or separate boys and girls during formal lessons. Even a co-educational school such as the King David High School in Manchester now has a segregated Yavneh stream for girls. Nevertheless, GCSE and GCE results from co-educational schools compare extremely favourably with single-sex schools (the majority of which are strictly Orthodox), and so this factor remains unproven.

Finances

A final possible factor relates to the finances and therefore the resources available to schools. According to the OFSTED reports, the mean average amount state-sector Jewish schools spend every year per pupil at primary level is £1,777 (the range being £1,524-£4,058), and at secondary level £2,935 (range of £1,877-£3,544). These figures for each school are only a snapshot for the year the OFSTED inspection was carried out, and may thus not be representative of typical expenditure for that institution. In other words, if a school had a particularly high or low expenditure pattern in the year the OFSTED report was carried out, this would skew the data. Nevertheless, as reported in Chapter 2, there are a series of educational organizations and wealthy philanthropists that have supported Jewish day schools, providing buildings and facilities for pupils. Such financial support is likely to be positively correlated with academic pupil performance.

Conclusions

Overall, pupils at Jewish day schools achieve examination scores that are considerably higher than the national average, although markedly less than the elite, fee-paying ISC schools or those that have JAMS programmes (which largely select pupils on the basis of academic ability). While many of the strictly Orthodox Jewish day schools do not enter pupils for public examination, the success of those Jewish day school pupils that do is doubtless due to a combination of factors, including socio-economic background, the commitment, expectations and values of parents and pupils, and school ethos. Other factors such as the financial backing of Jewish schools and relatively small class sizes may also be significant. Nevertheless, the attitudes of families to learning is probably the single most significant factor, more so than the usually given reason of socio-economic status. This is demonstrated by the fact that, while Jewish day schools have a higher socio-economic intake than the national average, many individual Jewish schools located in very deprived areas still have pupils achieving GCSE examination results that are much higher than the national average. Moreover, pupils in these mainly strictly Orthodox schools are often taught general subjects for relatively few hours per week (because of the emphasis on Judaic learning) and are also likely to have many students whose first language is not English. Parental attitudes to studying are especially strong in this section of the community, with education considered a lifelong commitment. Positive attitudes towards learning--as influenced by cultural or religious values and traditions--are thus probably the key to the overall comparative academic success of Jewish day school pupils.

Notes

1 Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate procedures and hence are not included in comparative figures in this report. [back]

2 There were also reports for 25 Jewish kindergartens and nurseries, although these are not included in this analysis. [back]

3 All examination results are weighted per pupil, rather than per school. [back]

4 DfEE, Statistics of Education: Pupil Progress in Schools in England: 2000 (London: The Stationery Office 2001). [back]

5 This excludes one non-selective independent, in which, in 1999/2000, only a single candidate took a GCE. [back]

6 Barry Kosmin, 'Exclusion and opportunity at work', in Sandra Wallman (ed.), Ethnicity at Work (London: Macmillan 1979), 56-7. [back]

7 OFSTED, 1999-2000. Standards and Quality in Education. The Annual Report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools (London: The Stationery Office 2001). [back]

8 An educational assessment of Judaic subjects is provided in the next chapter. [back]

9 Figures for secondary schools include lessons taught in the sixth form, but exclude sixth-form colleges. [back]

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The future of Jewish schooling in the United Kingdom: Educational assessment of Judaic subjects in Jewish day schools

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