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‘Lack’ of secular education in Charedi schools sparks call for stricter regulation
A new report demanding Charedi school regulation has ignited anger among some of the Strictly Orthodox community
September 11, 2024 11:24
A new report demanding Charedi school regulation has ignited anger among some of the Strictly Orthodox community
September 11, 2024 11:24When Esther’s* son turned 16, she was told by HMRC that her benefit would be cut. Her son was in school, but it was unregistered, so authorities had no way of proving he was still in full-time education, as the law mandates, and she could no longer receive child benefit.
Her son’s yeshivah – “chilled out” compared to others, she insists – consists almost entirely of prayers and Jewish studies.
“My son should be in year 12 but he finished school at the end of year 10 without any GCSEs and then went to yeshivah. So much of his personal development has been lost and he does not have any skills,” the mother said.
Esther’s son’s story and many others are reflected in a new 27-page report from Nahamu, a Jewish charity that supports individuals, whom they say have been “harmed” within the Charedi community.
The advocacy group is now urging the government to regulate Charedi schools, highlighting concerns that strictly Orthodox institutions are delivering inadequate secular education that isolates children from a young age, prohibiting them from living outside the community.
Some have hit back at the report, which is mostly anecdotal. Chinuch UK, a representative body for Charedi schools, slammed it as “deeply disappointing, biased and inaccurate".
A member of the Strictly Orthodox community, who did not want to be named, told the JC: “One of the things [the report] does not include is all the positive things the schools are doing. It is not balanced.”
Members of the Orthodox Jewish community protest against the Government's Children Not in School Bill, opposite the Houses of Parliament in central London, April, 2024. (Photo: Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
Published on Monday after 18 months of research, the paper was put forward by Baroness Estelle Morris and Baroness Tessa Blackstone.
It expresses grave concerns that many Chasidic teenage boys are like Esther’s son – attending unregistered yeshivahs with no instruction in English and no access to public examinations.
A spokesperson for Nahamu said the number of boys aged 13 to 16 missing out on secular education in unregistered school settings was at least 2,000.
The Charedi founder of Nahamu, Yehudis Fletcher, hopes the report, released before the Labour Party conference, will impact the Children's Wellbeing Bill. Set out in the King’s Speech, the bill will call for a register of homeschooled children, stronger powers for Ofsted to inspect unregistered schools and enforce the national curriculum across all schools.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education confirmed that the bill will require councils to “have and maintain registers of children not in school, ensuring fewer young people slip under the radar”.
Nahamu hopes the register will address its claims that some parents are falsely saying they are home-schooling their children while sending them to unregistered yeshivahs with no secular education.
Nahamu is calling for the government to go further, demanding that “all institutions providing full-time education for children of compulsory school age should be required to register as schools”.
“Anything that walks like a school and talks like a school needs to be registered as a school,” Fletcher said.
However, a member of the Charedi community critcised “the hypocrisy” of the report, saying: “One of the most ironic aspects of the report is that it portrays the Charedi community as controlling and dictating how people should live their lives, yet it goes on to recommend government intervention to impose changes on the Charedi way of life.”
The report alleges that secular learning in registered Chasidic boys' primary schools is often limited to just 45 to 60 minutes a day, with some receiving no secular instruction at all.
A member of the Charedi community contested these claims, telling the JC: “It is just untrue.” He pointed to a phonics programme rolled out in Hackney's Charedi schools and said the average time spent on secular education is “probably two hours”.
They added: “These initiatives [with Hackney council] include training, curriculum development, and auditing inspections conducted by Hackney with the full cooperation of the schools”.
He went on, “The cross-curricular nature of koidesh [Jewish] subjects means that other subjects... are covered in what is referred to as ‘religious studies’.”
Young children dressed in costume in celebration of Purim pose for a photograph outside a house in Stamford Hill. (Photo: Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
Esther recounted: “When my son was 11, he couldn’t read as well as my five-year-old daughter. He never learnt phonics.” After turning 11, his secular education ceased entirely, and by 12, “everything revolved around getting a shidduch [engagement] in the future,” she added.
The report exposes stark disparities in the education of boys and girls. While Charedi girls receive a broader curriculum, their options at key stage five (ages 16 to18) are limited. “Girls are doing very well, getting nine nines [equivalent of A**], and then what do they do?" Fletcher remarked. "The percentage that go on to Key Stage 5 is too small, and they lack access to many A-level subjects.”
In contrast, boys are described in the report as “functionally illiterate in any language”, having received minimal secular education.
“In a disturbing number of cases, UK resident teenage Chasidic boys are wholly unable to speak, write or read English. Further, the languages used in Chasidic yeshivahs (Yiddish, Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic) are generally not written by the boys (beyond basic sentences).”
The report claims that there is a pattern of “false compliance” during Ofsted inspections, with some schools making temporary adjustments to deceive inspectors. According to testimonies collected by Nahamu, schools have been known to put up posters for inspections, show false schoolwork and present theoretical timetables that do not reflect the curriculum.
“Everybody puts on a face for Ofsted,” Fletcher said but argued that putting up posters just for inspections and presenting fake timetables went beyond typical preparation.
A Charedi community member dismissed these claims as “conspiracy theories”, saying it would be impossible to maintain such a charade over the three-day inspections and curriculum analysis, during which time inspectors speak to pupils and staff, and observe lessons.
But Esther recalled an incident where her son’s class, who struggled with English, were taken off site to deceive Ofsted inspectors, who were led to believe the school was smaller than it was.
Inspectors rely on translators to assess schemes of work in Yiddish and Hebrew, but some schools have translated these documents into English solely for the inspectors, said the report.
The Charedi representative said: “The first language of the kids in our school is Yiddish because the language at home is Yiddish, and then they learn English. One of the two languages might be a struggle for the children, Yiddish or English. My own daughter’s Yiddish is not as good as her English.”
A resident walks in the street in Stamford Hill. (Photo: Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
Nahamu's report also raises serious concerns about safeguarding. It references a “long-standing tradition of corporal punishment”, justified by the biblical proverb “spare the rod, spoil the child.”
In one harrowing account, Yiddish translator Izzy Posen, who is in his late 20s, is quoted on Twitter/X: “I went to a primary school [in London] where child beating was a daily occurrence – a normal part of the school day. Many of my fellow pupils had physical scars lasting for weeks.”
However, the Charedi representative said: “These examples are from 20 years ago in an unregistered school and paint the entire community with that brush. Maybe things were different in the 1980s and some teachers had a certain way of doing things. We don’t do things like that anymore.”
Esther said that her son’s school did not use corporal punishment, but that a cover teacher had once hit a child: “I know that we were lucky that my son’s school was not using it because it was a newer school, but my son did come home once and say a substitute used a stick on a boy".
The report charts a shift in education over the years, with an earlier generation of boys taught Torah and a trade. In modern Britain, a combination of welfare state support and philanthropy has enabled the community to focus exclusively on Jewish study, with little to no secular education, it said. "The highest goal is full-time Torah study" the report states.
Fletcher observed: "30 to 35 years ago, people [in the Charedi community] still spoke reasonable English, but now there are signs that the community is moving towards more ideological extremes."
Yehudis Fletcher, founder of Nahamu, has issued a stark warning about the state of Charedi education (Fletcher)[Missing Credit]
She considers the "deliberate denial of secular education" to be a form of "inward-facing extremism," which she believes is detrimental to the community's future.
Anticipating criticism, Fletcher remarked: "The most common challenge will be that [the report] is vague and anecdotal, but it is grounded in factual analysis. We're not uncovering anything new; we've simply compiled and analysed existing evidence."
For the Charedi community to remain "resilient and thriving", she argued that "we need an educated community that can advocate for itself. Every child deserves access to the best education."
Fletcher emphasised the need for external pressure and legislative reform but stressed that internal change is even more critical. "Parents should feel empowered to make different choices for their children. No one should have to choose between staying in the community and leaving it."
A protest against the Government's Children Not in School in April 2024. (Photo: Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
Criticising the report, a Chinuch UK spokesperson told the JC: “This deeply disappointing report was compiled without any consultation with us or with schools in the Charedi community. It paints a biased and inaccurate picture of education within our community – a portrayal which is driven by the specific internal agendas of Nahamu and its leaders.
“There is much excellent work happening in Charedi schools, of which the community is rightly proud. Where there are weaknesses, as there are across all parts of the education sector, Chinuch UK and our partners work actively with schools to improve standards. The outcomes of our schools show both in excellent school results and throughout people’s lives.
He noted that earlier this year, an extensive and independent survey of the Charedi community had been carried out by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research. “Early findings show that nine in ten Charedi people are satisfied with the education their children have received, and most of them are ‘very satisfied’,” he said. “The survey also looked at wider wellbeing and life satisfaction in the Charedi community, which will provide empirical evidence on these matters later in the year.
“We were particularly surprised and disappointed to see that two former ministers have provided a forward to the [Nahamu] report without having discussed the issues with the Charedi community or organisations such as Chinuch UK. Having seen the report, we have now written to both peers asking them to come and visit our schools and the community, so they can see for themselves the reality of our education and what it is achieving.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We continue to work with Ofsted on how best to work with settings that are currently out of their scope, ensuring they can inspect suspected unregistered schools without notice and giving them additional resources to step up investigations into these schools. We have the power to prosecute if schools are operating in breach of the law or are placing children at risk of harm.
“Local authorities already have a duty to locate and support children back into education where necessary. Our Children’s Wellbeing Bill will go further, requiring councils to have and maintain registers of children not in school, ensuring fewer young people slip under the radar.”
A Hackney Council spokesperson said: "The Council is aware of the report and will consider its findings to inform its work with local partners on improving the quality of the education for all children in Hackney.
"We are committed to continuing our work with the borough's Charedi schools to continue to develop their offer, through existing and new initiatives. This includes our successful partnership with Chinuch UK to run education forums and projects that have already proven their impact within some of our schools, such as delivering phonics training for teachers."
Ofsted has been approached for comment.
*Names have been changed.