Educational philanthropist Benjamin Perl has warned that the pressure on places at Jewish secondary schools in north-west London is set to grow dramatically.
Mr Perl, a tireless advocate of Jewish schools who has helped several to launch and others to acquire state aid, said this year's shortage of places was not a one-off. “It’s not a bulge year. It’s the beginning of an enormous increase,” he said.
While a parents group said this week that it was aware of around 25 pupils still seeking a place at a state-aided Jewish secondary in London , this could be just the “tip of the iceberg”, Mr Perl believed.
There were other parents who would have applied for places at a Jewish school but resigned themselves to their children going to a general school, he argued.
“There are a lot of people who are not going to fight. It’s a degrading experience to go to an appeal board and the chances of winning are slim.”
The Jewish Leadership Council-backed Partnerships for Jewish Schools held a meeting on Monday for parents of pupils without places, urging them to consider the option of King Solomon High School in Essex, which has offered to take the overflow from the north-west. In recent years, the school’s Jewish intake has dropped and the majority of its entrants are non-Jewish.
But Mr Perl believes that King Solomon is not a viable answer to competition for places in the north-west.
“Do we need another high school - that’s the main question,” he said. “The way things are going, the numbers indicate for sure we do need another high school. We could have opened this year with a class of 90.”
The strong academic performance of Jewish schools continued to strengthen the trend towards Jewish schooling, he argued. “Schools are maturing, the community is sending more and more of its kids to Jewish schools. For every child that goes to a Jewish primary school and ends up in a non-Jewish high school, there are two from a non-Jewish primary that come to a Jewish high school.”
When Yavneh College in Hertfordshire – of which he is president – opened in 2006, it began with 90 pupils, he pointed out. Now its 150 first-year places are heavily contested with a long waiting list.
According to a Times table, it was the top-performing school in England at A-level in 2014. “It’s only normal more and more people will come,” Mr Perl said.
Although eight new Jewish primaries had opened in north-west London since 2006, he believed more would come. The Department for Education is considering two applications to open a free Jewish school in Elstree and Borehamwood next year.
But the JLC ought to be doing more to help build new schools, he contended. “What they are doing is tinkering at the edges.”
