Admissions regulator partly upholds complaint against IJDS

The adjudicator Ann Talboys rejected a number of aspects of the complaint submitted by a member of the public against IJDS’s arrangements for entry next autumn. But she ruled that she did “not consider it objective or clear to parents that the rabbi is asked to confirm some of the religious observance elements… when he is unable to see and experience them.”

She also found that a question asking applicants whether they identified with the school’s religious ethos to be contrary to a prohibition in the admissons codes’ against asking parents “to agree to support the ethos of the school in a practical way”.

The school told the adjudicator it would remove the question.

Its solicitors told her that the school “intends to amend its admissions arrangements to ensure the criteria allowing priority with reference to faith… are clear and fair.”

The adjudicator said, “By asking the rabbi to confirm only those elements of the religious observance for which he has first-hand evidence, then this will render the arrangements much clearer”.