INTERVIEW - ALASTAIR FALK

Alastair Falk learned some important lessons during his teaching career — not least that having a sense of humour is essential.

It is no surprise, then, that between stepping down as executive director of Partnerships for Jewish Schools (PaJeS) and taking on a new educational role in Birmingham, he had a brief stint last week at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where he performed his one-man show, Much Ado About Noshing.

“Performing is the hobby,” he says. “It’s like taking a long assembly.”

A teacher by profession, Falk, 60, has implemented some of the biggest changes to the community.

If I get an A in my Jewish Studies GCSE and you get a B, am I a better Jew?

He served as the founding head of one of the largest Jewish schools in the UK, King Solomon High in Redbridge; he led a JLC-backed commission into the future of Jewish education, and then headed the education agency PaJeS in response to its findings. He has since spent the past six years steering the way headteachers interact, react to government policy and train staff.

Along the way, Falk helped set up a little event called Limmud. Not bad for a person who “escaped a future in law” — twice.

He says: “We started Limmud in 1980, after I visited the Centre for the Advancement of Jewish Education (CAJE) in the US. They said everyone has a part to play in the educational process — parents, teachers, youth workers, shuls.

“You have one young person travelling through these stopping posts, yet they rarely communicate. The dynamic may have shifted, and parents do have more power, but it is still an issue.”

Another concern was narrowing the gap between a child’s regular education and their Jewish one.

“In the 1980s, we had few schools. The situation is different now — in London, most Jewish children attend a faith school. But it is still a question: how far have we narrowed that gap? And is it really a good idea to close it?”

Raised in Sheffield, Falk went to the City of London School for Boys in Westminster before reading History at Cambridge. He has been committed ever since to disentangling schooling from education, especially when it comes to faith.

“There is a paradox about Jewish education: the more successful you are, the less successful you are. Schools today are all about results, data, and achievements,” he says.

“If you’re based in a school’s Jewish Studies department, you have to do what other departments do: get good exam grades, line kids up, divide them into sets based on ability. But that is the opposite of what you want to do with Jewish education.

“If I get an A in my Jewish Studies GCSE and you get a B, am I a better Jew than you? It would make me a better historian or a better linguist, but not a better Jew.”

For this reason, Falk says Jewish education is cast across “two cultures, and two different understandings of purpose”.

“Clearly, Judaism is an academic subject. You could see an 11-year-old analysing a piece from the Torah, and then follow him into McDonalds and see him order a cheeseburger.

“But for me, it is important a Jewish pupil leaves school having considered what their religion means to them. I don’t care about their answer, nor do I believe it is a school’s right to inspire an opinion. But I think the institution has failed if the pupil is disengaged.”

But what about faith schools’ critics — those that condemn their supposed insularity? How does he respond, for example, to leading Reform Rabbi Jonathan Romain, chair of the Accord Coalition for inclusive education, who decries religious schools as divisive.

“I think he is doing a great deal of damage,” Falk says. “No one is forcing these children. It is a matter of parental choice. Besides, when it comes to Jewish schools, ‘faith’ is a misnomer. They are community schools.”

His insight is widespread: after leaving King Solomon, Falk spent two years as head of one of the first city academies, West London Academy in Ealing, gaining first-hand experience of secular schooling. For him, it is hard to make sweeping conclusions about Jewish versus non-Jewish education — but there are differences.

“Just over a year ago, I interviewed the late Dena Coleman [former head of Yavneh College]. For her, what was distinctive about a Jewish school was its commitment to community. Where a secular school may collect charity for overseas projects, a Jewish school will do so for communal organisations.

“So differences lie somewhere around our sense of solidarity and identity.”

He admits this can sometimes be at a “cost to professionalism.

“At a Jewish school, teachers will know they can take time off if their child is sick, which isn’t always the case in non-Jewish schools. But this isn’t unprecedented: in the 19th century, factory bosses were reluctant to employ Jewish workers as they knew they would ask for time off for their cousin’s wedding.”

As for the claim that children in faith schools are cut off from wider society, Falk argues: “Insularity is not solved by everyone going to the same school. The school must teach you that you are part of a bigger world.

“You don’t teach people to believe we are ‘us’ and ‘them’. In fact, any sentence that starts with the word ‘all’ is likely to end badly. The argument that a pupil at JFS doesn’t know about One Direction is nonsense.”

He says the future of Jewish schools depends on interaction and staying ahead of the game in Parliament. This is where PaJeS comes in.

“In the past ten years, local authorities have basically disappeared and schools have more autonomy. But you can only survive if you collaborate.

“At PaJeS, we read situations and devise strategies for collaborative learning and training,” he says.

“The next election will be crucial. Faith schools are often associated with suggestions of fundamentalism, and there is a risk that Westminster will wake up one morning and ask why they are investing in Jewish schools. We need to be prepared for that.”

On a personal level, Falk will soon concede his role as PaJeS’ executive director to Hasmonean head David Meyer, before becoming chief executive of the Birmingham Educational Partnership. The organisation works with headteachers in the city to set the agenda for the way schools are run.

He remains committed to commandeering that stop-gap between schooling and education. “We have the responsibility to give every young person the qualifications they need, but also to help them become the best human beings they can be,” he says.

But what exactly is PaJeS?

- In 2008, the JLC commissioned a report on Jewish schools in the UK
- The Future of Jewish Schools and subsequent The Future of Jewish Schools: Three Years On found there was a need for long-term strategy
- PaJeS was set up in response and now works with more than 50 schools, providing support, services and strategic advice
- Working across four main areas — teachers, leadership, curriculum and infrastructure — they aim to foster collaboration between institutions
- In the past year alone, they have helped develop BA and MA degrees in Jewish Studies, held workshops for school governors, and advertised school vacancies through their website pajes.org.uk.