A state-aided Charedi school in Hackney has been told it cannot insist that applicants do not use social media at home if they want to be accepted because this is a private matter.
The Office of Schools Adjudicator found that aspects of Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls’ School’s admissions policy failed to satisfy national requirements.
It also told the school that it must be prepared to accept more pupils this year as its current entry maximum was too low.
State-aided faith schools are permitted to require certain levels of observance but rules have to be “fair, clear and objective”.
In a decision published this week, the adjudicator Bryan Slater said only practices that took place in public could be verified by a rabbi for the purposes of meeting entry conditions.
Rabbis who countersigned applications to the school had been asked to do in regard to “sheitels, clothing, Torah learning and online social presence”, which the school characterised as “public practice”.
Dr Slater noted that guidance from Yesodey Hatorah’s religious authority, the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations, stated that “home entertainment is strictly not allowed”.That meant, the guidance said, “any entertainment accessed online via any computerised device. This includes online gaming or any online presence which involves personal social use.”
But the adjudicator felt the use of such words such as “home” was incompatible “with a requirement that another person can provide confirmation as to what has taken place (or not taken place), as if it were occurring in the public domain.
“It seems to me that both Torah learning and ‘online social presence’ are matters which occur (or do not) in private.”
The school accepted 70 girls in year-7 last September in line with its official Published Admissions Number (PAN), having raised it when a previous OSA decision found a PAN of 65 to be too low.
But Dr Slater said there was “no doubt in my mind, either, that there is an ongoing level of demand from parents for places at the school, which is unsatisfied by a PAN of 70.”
He took the view that any maximum lower than 80 would be “not reasonable”
The school had argued that some classrooms and teaching areas were too small to accommodate larger numbers — and that two rooms in a separate building were used for an independent seminary.
However, the adjudicator did not accept that the building used for seminary classes was “separate”.
The school had 88 applicants for places in 2020, 80 in 2021 and 76 this year.
It argued that falling numbers of applicants could lead to it being undersubscribed and warned of the “potential erosion of its strong religious culture and ethos” as a Charedi school.
But Dr Slater observed that while faith schools could give priority for entry on the basis of faith, “they nevertheless serve the whole community, not just part of it and they cannot turn away children who would like to attend if they have space for them even if those children are of a different denomination of the faith, another faith or no faith.”
Yesodey Hatorah said it had proposed a PAN of 72. “Whilst the adjudicator’s conclusion that the school can have a PAN of 80 is higher than our well-considered view of 72, we will now work with our staff to see how we can overcome the practical challenges that this increased PAN will create,” a spokesman for the school said. “We welcome the support of the local authority as we do this.”
