When Rachel Barbanel visited Sacks Morasha as a candidate for its headship, it was love at first sight.

Shortly to complete her first term in charge of the North Finchley primary, she will be leading the 36-hour fundraising campaign which starts at the weekend when the school hopes to raise the remaining £300,000 it needs to build its long-awaited extension.

“I have been totally overwhelmed by the cohesion and the welcoming nature of the school community,” she said. “It’s wonderful here.”

When the former deputy head of Beit Shvidler Primary in Edgware told staff she was leaving, they were shocked because a career move “wasn’t on my radar initially,” she said.

She had not interviewed for other headships elsewhere, but when Hayley Gross, founding head of Sacks Morasha since 2008, was appointed head of Hasmonean Primary, she was “encouraged by a few different people” to consider the opening. “I was asked to come and look at the school. And so I did and I loved it.”

Now 39, she has been “immersed in the Jewish school system” as a teacher, parent and pupil. She attended Wohl Ilford Primary school in Redbridge and then the nearby Kantor King Solomon High School. All but one year of her 16 years as a teacher has been spent in Jewish schools, starting off with the pluralist Clore Tikva, also in Redbridge. Her elder daughter goes to Immanuel College in Bushey, her younger to Mathilda Marks-Kennedy in Mill Hill.

One of her professional inspirations was her husband’s aunt, the redoubtable Jo Wagerman, head of JFS.

Having had teaching placements at schools at the frummer end of the Jewish spectrum, she brings to the Modern Orthodox Sacks Morasha a breadth of experience, ranging from “a school where I was leading a Kabbalat Shabbat much earlier in my career to another school where a woman wouldn’t even be able to lead prayers and singing. It really is quite diverse.”

She arrived at Beit Shvidler five years ago as “school improvement leader” after a critical Ofsted inspection and was one of the team that turned it around, restoring its Ofsted status as a “good” school. “I realised I enjoyed leadership, I liked strategy. I enjoy leading people, not just children, adults as well,” she said.

At Sacks Morasha, she will work to ensure that the culture established by its founders is embedded in anew generation of families over the next few years. The strength of parental involvement in their children’s education she describes as “the superpower here”.

Her immediate challenge is to help the school over the finishing line for its building appeal. The school moved into its current home eight years ago but some classes have been using Portakabins.

Having more space will enable her in particular to broaden the “SEND and wellbeing offering here. It means we can have a SEND room, a group learning room and  an additional room for one to one or one to two learning”.

Every donation made in the “Match for Morasha” campaign will be doubled by a matching pledge. The school hopes to start building in the summer holidays and complete the work by the summer term next year.

As a first-time head, she welcomes the wider support network that comes with Sacks Morasha being part of the Jewish Community Academy Trust. “The solid financial grounding of being in the MAT [multi-academy trust] is essentially one less thing I need to worry about as a head
teacher.”

Investing in future leadership is a key challenge for the community, she believes; she is enhancing her own skills by studying for a National Professional Qualification in educational leadership. “Teachers are not staying in the profession. The last few years have been difficult for everyone in all fields of work but many teachers have left the profession and that’s across the Jewish system as well.

“We need to make sure we are building the leaders for the future because if there are so many schools, we are going to need lots of people to be leading them.”

She also wonders whether there may be a longer-term fallout from Covid with some families feeling less connected to Judaism than before. Children have been talking less about going to shul, she’s noticed, “because for a long time they didn’t go”.

Experiencing different kinds of Jewish school helped to widen her horizons, she said. “I’m much more open-minded. I have learned there isn’t just one way. There are many ways to do things well.”