Three United Synagogue rabbis have warned that a Jewish secondary school’s plan to change its admissions policy could spell disaster for thriving communities in Hertfordshire.

The rabbis — Meir Salasnik of Bushey, Jonathan Hughes of Radlett and Ephraim Levine of Watford — said Yavneh College’s proposal to end its feeder school system would mean an exodus of young families.

From 2017, Yavneh College, in Borehamwood, which has more than 1,000 pupils, wants to stop its policy of prioritising applications from children at two Jewish primaries — Hertsmere in Radlett and Clore Shalom in Shenley — and instead give preference to families living in selected postcodes.

Opponents of the move fear children at schools outside Borehamwood will lose out.

In an online article for the JC , the rabbis said the proposed change would see parents move away, “taking their children, their ideas and their enthusiasm with them… Within a few years, we risk losing the most valuable things we have — our children and our future”.

The rabbis, who together represent more than 3,350 congregants, said the plan would result in a “depressing vision becoming a reality” where their communities would be “devoid of youth, energy and vitality”.

They added that the school had cancelled at short notice a meeting scheduled with Yavneh’s headteacher Spencer Lewis and its governors to discuss their concerns.

In response to the rabbis’ claims, the school said that “because of the great demand for places… the number of students accepted into the school from each of the communities led by these rabbis is already in single digits, and so we would caution against hyperbolic suggestions that these proposed changes place the ‘future of communities at risk’, when in reality we are talking about no more than a handful of families.”

Listen to the JC Podcast Education Special on the proposed changes to the admissions process

The JC Podcast Education Special: Jewish school admissions changes