How I turned JFS around and made it a top 10 school

David Moody arrived as head of JFS last December at the end of its annus horribilis after Ofsted had downgraded it to “inadequate” in the spring and put it in special measures.

Now a year on, he can enjoy his winter break in quiet satisfaction at having restored the fortunes of Britain’s oldest and largest Jewish school.

It usually takes time before a school can reclaim its “good” status from Ofsted, but he achieved that earlier this year. Special measures have been removed and last month it received the accolade of being listed as the country’s fourth top non-selective school based on its summer exam results.

“It’s on the up,” he reflected on the penultimate day of term. “When I joined, there had been too much change and that had unsettled staff. And what I see now is more stability and happier children.”

JFS’s academic prowess had never been in doubt; it was lapses in safeguarding procedures and pupil behaviour that had mainly been responsible for its disastrous inspection.

JFS-David Moody (MM)22 4871

David Moody in a JFS corridor

But in an attempt to correct the problems, there had been overreaction. “At the end of each break and lunch, students would line up outside and in silence on the courtyards in any weather,” he said. “It felt a little too severe.”

In the six weeks before his arrival, there had been 3,000 detentions. In the six weeks after he took charge, he had reduced them to 300. Offending pupils are now taken to a conference centre where their sanction is decided by one of a small group of senior leaders. And teachers no longer have to take detentions at the end of the day so they can focus on their core work.

At the same time, he had found frustration among parents who felt they were not being heard. So he gave out his email address to everyone.

“Reckless was one word to describe it,” he joked. “I used to be on the phone to parents till 11 o’clock at night,” he said. “Now there’s time to do work at night.”

At the start he had found JFS the scruffiest school he had worked in. “Not any more. I am pleased with the response of children to the demands of uniform. It’s a trivial thing in some respects, but it sets the tone.”

Safeguarding is now “excellent”, he believes. A full-time safeguarding lead appointed after the shock Ofsted inspection is supported by four safeguarding officers. Inspectors had found a lack of confidence among students about reporting concerns.

“Students know now that something will be done about it, whenever anybody says anything that is not kind — and that matters to me.” This will apply to incidents outside school — at a Saturday night party, for instance.

Now 43, he came to the school as something of a turnaround specialist. In three years as principal, he took Harris Battersea Academy from the doldrums to being the fourth highest-rated school nationally for progress in 2017.

JFS-David Moody (MM)22 4850

JFS head David Moody (Marc Morris)

He left it two years later and after eight months’ paternity leave after the birth of his daughter, spent the next three years at the Academies Enterprise Trust, overseeing 10 secondary schools.

He had not worked at a faith school before. “If this had been a different faith, I probably wouldn’t have been the headteacher. There is something really welcoming about the Jewish faith. It doesn’t feel fear-based, it’s one of exploration… The tenets of Judaism lend themselves very well to education.”

In the midst of inflation and soaring energy costs, he is, as are other heads, having to grapple with finances.

The trust fund that subsidised the school to the tune of £1 million a year since it moved to its new campus in Kenton 20 years ago is almost exhausted. Savings had to be made with the non-replacement of departing teachers and redundancies among administrative staff.

Worse, the impact of the pandemic and the Ofsted downgrade had led to a drop in the £1,620-a-year requested parental contributions, which, in particular, support Jewish studies — little over a third were paying it. Now “the majority are paying” and contributions have risen to £1.4million this year.

As a result of having been put into special measures, the school was compelled to join a multi-academy trust and negotiations have been under way for more than a year with the United Synagogue-founded Jewish Community Academy Trust.

But now no longer under those measures, it does not have to academise — though he will not yet confirm a rumour that it is not going to merge with JCAT.

Some turnaround supremos are restless souls, never staying in one place for long. But he is not planning to update his CV soon: he hopes to be around to celebrate JFS’s tercentenary in 2032.

“This is the first time I’ve ever felt really home in a school,” he said.

As he reels off some of its latest achievements — 27 interviewees for Oxbridge, medical, veterinary or dentistry schools; six students qualifying for the maths Olympiad; and the girls soccer team making it into next month’s quarter-finals of the Middlesex Cup — there is no mistaking the strong sense of pride he takes in the school.

“The quality of the parents and the professionalism and the thought that people are willing to put into education in this place is like nothing I have ever seen before. It’s just a pleasure to be part of.”