Yavneh College in Borehamwood has emerged as the top Jewish school for academic progress, according to provisional GCSE figures released by the Department for Education this week.

They represeent the first set of performance data available since 2019 after formal exams were suspended in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic.

Progress 8 is a measure of how much progress a child has made up in five years given an assessment of their academic ability when they enter secondary school.

The figures show that most Jewish schools are performing above average by the time pupils take their GCSEs, with JFS, Menorah High School for Girls and Hasmonean High School for girls recording an exceptional progress score alongside Yavneh.

It was a good year too for Leeds Jewish Free School, one of the first secondary free schools to be opened in the country.

Data was unavailable for a number of private schools including Immanuel College.

Spencer Lewis, Yavneh's executive head teacher, said, "This year group are the first to sit GCSE examinations since 2019 having had to cope with lockdowns and online learning for many months, they should be incredibly proud of what they have achieved."

The progress data in all the Jewish schools, he said, was "very high and we as a community should be very proud indeed".

GCSE PROVISIONAL RESULTS

                            Progress 8        Attainment 8   English/Maths    EBacc

Yavneh College        0.93                     61.9                  79                    27

JFS                            0.89                     64.3                  80                    42

Menorah High           0.89                     61.7                  86                    47

Hasmonean Girls      0.75                     60.4                   74                    39

JCoSS                     0.58                      60.7                  74                     16

King David
Liverpool                 0.55                     57.6                  73                     23

Leeds Jewish Free    0.41                     58.9                  82                     29

Yesodey Hatorah      0.32                     44.9                   68                     0

King Solomon          0.31                     51.2                   54                    21

Hasmonean Boys     0.24                     58.1                   74                      31

King David   
Manchester             0.04                      57.4                  70                       14

Lubavitch Girls        -0.61                      49.2                  50                        7

Beis Yaakov
Salford                   -0.65                       42                     53                        0                           

National average
England                  -0.03                       48.7                 50                       20

The key:

Progress 8: measures how much progress a child makes from entry to GCSE. A score of 1 means they are achieving a grade higher on average than might have been expected

Attainment 8: overall score based on eight best GCSE results with English and maths counting double. A score of 60 would mean an average grade 6.

English/Maths: percentage of pupils achieving grade 5 in English and maths (equivalent to low B/high C pass in old grading system)

EBacc: percentage of pupils achieving grade 5 in English, maths, a language, science and history or geography