Staff at a leading Jewish primary are being threatened with a slew of redundancies, it was revealed this week.

According to an anonymous source, North West London Jewish Day School in Willesden has entered a “consultancy period” as it explores ways to cut costs. The insider said the school was considering making four teachers and two teaching assistants redundant.

Blaming the “crisis” on “school mismanagement”, the whistleblower told the JC: “The school had a policy of employing two teachers per class because there used to be 35 pupils in each class.

"Gradually, the numbers decreased, but they continued to employ two teachers per form and have now got themselves into debt.”

According to the Charity Commission, from 2021 to 2022, the school’s income was just over £600,000, but expenditure was over £875,000. From 2019 to 2020, its income was nearly £1m and expenditure was just under £630,000.

The source claimed a number of children had left the school after Brexit but management “had taken an ostrich approach and watched things slide”.

A spokesperson for NWJDS said: “North West … is experiencing a significant shortfall between the cost of providing the excellent standard of education we pride ourselves on and the available funding to make this possible.

“In recent years, we have been forced more than ever to rely on our parent body… for voluntary donations in order to ensure we are able to responsibly and sustainably fund our high staff to pupil ratio.

“With the ongoing cost of living crisis continuing to have a significant impact on our costs and the level of those voluntary donations, we have launched a process to make those costs more sustainable now and in the future.”

The news comes only months after NWLJDS was shortlisted for the prestigious Times Educational Supplement Primary School of the Year award.