Only half Jewish school parents in London and a third in Manchester pay religious studies contributions

The Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, has thrown his weight behind a “brutally honest” report which sets out the challenges facing Jewish schools over the next few years.

A report into 33 schools which are under his religious authority found that they were operating in a “brutal” financial situation with most wrestling with deficits amid a slump in voluntary contributions from parents towards Jewish studies.

While Jewish schools excelled in their academic education and offered “a rich tradition of fostering Jewish identity”, educators had concerns about levels of Jewish literacy and knowledge.

Jewish schools were doing well, the Chief Rabbi said on Friday at a meeting to share the findings of the report, but what he heard from school leaders was “they wish that things could be better, that there are areas in which they acknowledge they could be making some improvements”.

There would have been “no value” to the report if it had just been “a pat on our own backs,” he declared. “We are only going to succeed and we are only going to do justice to the responsibility we have to educate our children if we recognise not only where we are going right, but also where our weaknesses might be. We have been brutally honest about the situation in order to genuinely make the right changes.”

The report, conducted by Rosov Consulting, which researches and evaluates Jewish organisations internationally, and is based on interviews with school leaders, was the first step in a review of schools commissioned by the Chief Rabbi a year ago. Working parties are now being set up to address issues such as establishing a common educational vision, addressing teacher shortages, and enhancing family and community engagement.

While many schools are confronting similar issues, they are often doing so independently on their own. Instead the review is intended to encourage a more collaborative approach amid a changing educational landscape over the next 10 to 20 years.

The report, said Ari Jesner, chief executive of the Office of the Chief Rabb (OCR), “has given schools confidence to know that these are shared issues and shared problems and that they don’t need to face them alone”.

The Chief Rabbi said: “Seeing as our future depends on education, we have a responsbility to guarantee that it is the finest possible education.”

He added: “If we raise the bar, which we are certainly trying to do, we’ll be proud of that”.

British Jewry was in “a blessed situation”, he said, in that more than 40 per cent of the eligible Jewish population outside the Charedi community were attending Jewish schools -– compared to 19 per cent in the USA.

However, enrolment levels had “slightly declined” in the last couple of years with just eight of 28 schools reporting they were full.

Thirteen schools under the aegis of the United Synagogue/OCR now have more than five per cent non-Jewish pupils, the report said.

“Once those numbers increase, it can set a cycle in motion where Jewish families start departing at an accelerated rate, as indeed has happened at a couple of schools,” it stated.

Pupil vacancies in United Synagogue/Office of Chief Rabbi schools (from the Chief Rabbi's Schools Review)[Missing Credit]

On average, state schools had eight per cent unfilled places, while private schools 18 per cent.

Meanwhile, contributions from parents for Jewish studies – with the state generally covering only 85 per cent of the budget or religious schools – had “plummeted in recent years”, the report said.

“Today, no school collects from more than 70 percent of parents; in London, on average, 52 percent of parents contribute, in Manchester, just 33 percent, and in other communities, 20 percent,” it found.

In London, the average requested contribution was £2,000; in North Manchester, £1,900 and elsewhere £600.

“It’s almost like having a downward escalator and the very best we can do is to stay where we are.

“To make ends meet, schools have cut staff, replaced teachers with teaching assistants, scaled back their Modern Hebrew programmes, and reduced extracurricular activities,” the report said.

Schools were “wrestling with rising operating costs and widespread cuts in government support,” leaving most in deficit, it said.

The average shortfall for a primary in deficit was £150,000 and for a secondary school, £790,000. (Seven primaries and two secondaries did not report a deficit).

Jewish schools, the report found, “play a crucial role in fostering a strong sense of Jewish pride among students, at both the primary and secondary levels.”

“The positive Jewish identity outcomes seen in UK Jewish schools are often the result of a well-established and expansive set of extracurricular and experiential Jewish life offerings at the schools, sometimes arranged as substitutes for scaled-back classroom experiences,” it said.

“These experiences are not only the ones most vividly remembered by graduates but are also among the most formative in shaping a sense of Jewish community, joy, collective purpose, and, not least, a positive connection to Israel.”

But the situation was less rosy when it came to Jewish knowledge and skills.

“With only one to two hours a week devoted to Jewish subjects in some schools, it is challenging to make classroom-based Jewish education a meaningful and transformative experience,” the report said.

At secondary school, the Jewish curriculum for key stage 3 (11 to 14-year-olds) tended to be “broad but thin”.

And as students developed intellectually as they moved through school, “they spend less time on serious Jewish content”, the report said.

One observer quoted in the report said: “There’s a shift away from knowledge and skills in some schools. Some focus on spirituality but neglect Jewish knowledge, which results in kids coming out as ‘mensches’ but lacking real Jewish knowledge.”

Schools lacked a “common vision” which could guide their Jewish educational programming, the report noted.

Students were “not motivated to take their Jewish learning seriously since they have not been set any obvious measurable targets”.

Instead interviewees saw the need for a common outline of “what an educated young Jews should look like” at different stages of their school career which could “inspire schools to set measurable, benchmarked goals for Jewish learning”.

Rabbi David Meyer, chief executive of Jewish schools network, commented that in the current situation, “It’s almost like having a downward escalator and the very best we can do is to stay where we are. What we are trying to do is to change the direction of the escalator.”

PaJeS is a partner in the review along with the United Synagogue and UnitEd, an Israeli agency backed by Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism.

The Chief Rabbi said the review had “all the makings of a monumental shift in the education we provide. It’s a generational opportunity.”