After 30 years in teaching, Debbie Lebrett will be stepping into a new role next month as chief executive of Work Avenue, the London-based Jewish charity that helps people across the community with vocational training and finding jobs.

“I decided it was time to have a change of direction before it was too late,” said the outgoing headteacher of Hasmonean High School for Boys. “I thought I could use a lot of my skill set to help the community in a different way.”

Her departure may be a loss to the profession when the pool of qualified educational leaders is not overflowing. But as she points out, she will still  have a “focus on training — on people’s futures — I don’t see it as very different”.

She leaves Hasmonean “at a good time in its history” when the boys school has grown from 580 to close to 730 during her time in charge. “I’m definitely proud that I’ve grown the school,” she said.

Its Hendon premises is bursting at the seams and if all had gone according to plan, the boys would be moving soon to a new home next to Hasmonean girls in Mill Hill but that was blocked by the Mayor of London’s Office because of objections to building on green-belt land. “It’s a shame… there is definitely a need for the boys school to move building and I know the trustees are working extremely hard to make sure that happens,” she said. Now 49, she makes it clear that it is the excitement of a new challenge that has motivated her rather than any desire to quit teaching.

“It’s a tough sector, we all know that, but I’ve had very positive experiences. I must have helped thousands and thousands of students over my time, which is a real privilege.”

The pandemic proved a particularly “tough time for schools”, she said. “For students who came back it was hard and we’ve had to pick up the pieces from that. Perhaps some of the issues we have to deal with are tougher than they used to be.

“But no one goes into education for an easy ride. It’s amazing and inspiring and rewarding — and I will miss the interactions with the students.”

Schools have undergone considerable change since she was a pupil at the Jewish High in Salford, a strictly Orthodox girls school now known as Beis Yaakov, from which she left with three As at A-level. She taught English at Charedi girls’ secondary schools in London, firstly Tiferes and then Menorah High before arriving at Hasmonean 10 years ago and going on to head the boys’ school for seven years.

After having the third of her five children, she completed a master’s degree, writing her dissertation on DH Lawrence. “I am a very religious woman,” she said, “but I’m very broad-minded — which is why I think it’s worked so well in Hasmonean, because of its Torah im derech eretz ethos [Torah combined with wisdom of the world].”

With her understanding of the Charedi education world, she hopes to bring “that bespoke knowledge to the table” at Work Avenue.

“There is definitely work to be done on post-school training. And not just for the Charedi community — that’s important. The government understands that many students don’t want to go down the university route. It’s expensive and some students just want to go straight into the world of work.”

But youngsters may not make the right choices. If they start looking at the wrong level of apprenticeships, “which is easily done, they can go down a rabbit hole of something that’s just not right for them”.

One of the challenges for schools, she said, is to help students, “to think about their destinations, the next stages in their life — and that’s really hard because they are not all mature enough to make those decisions — but they need to start thinking about it.”

But there are those who, having embarked on a particular career path, begin to have second thoughts as young adults. “By the time they are 20 or 30, they start to think, ‘I don’t want to do this job for the next 50 years of my life’, and then they need to think about retraining and upskilling,” she said.

In one direct sense, she will be “definitely be keeping a handle on what’s going on in the education world” — she qualified as an Ofsted inspector a year ago and Work Avenue is allowing her to continue.

The inspection service is not the most popular organisation in Charedi circles, having given many Strictly Orthodox schools a hard time in recent years. But it will help keep her track of government education and policy and that will be particularly useful, for example, in advising on apprenticeships.

Ofsted’s work, she ventures, “can be used as a force for good, it if is used right”.