Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School

Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School is a state-funded Jewish secondary school for girls, located in the Stamford Hill area of the London Borough of Hackney, in England. The school primarily serves the Charedi Jewish community of Stamford Hill.

Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School
Address
Egerton Road

Stamford Hill
,
Greater London
,
N16 6UB

England
Coordinates51°34′26″N 0°04′12″W
Information
TypeVoluntary aided school
Religious affiliation(s)Charedi Judaism
Established1942
Local authorityHackney
Department for Education URN133599 Tables
OfstedReports
Acting HeadteacherMrs C Neuberger
GenderGirls
Age11 to 16

The school has been rated "inadequate" by Ofsted for the highly restrictive education it provided to its pupils. The Charedi community does not have access to television, the Internet, or other media, and members of the community aim to lead modest lives governed by the codes of Torah observance. In 2008, it emerged that nine pupils, supported by their parents, had refused to sit a Key Stage 3 Shakespeare test on The Tempest because they felt the character of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice was anti-semitic.[1][2] There have also been recurring controversies at the school due to failures to teach sex education, the theory of evolution, or various aspects of British history.

History

The school was founded in 1942 as an independent school with separate sections for boys and girls, and with junior and senior departments. The girls' senior department became a voluntary aided school in September 2005. At this time, the school moved into new accommodation. Several figures attended the formal opening of the new school building, including Tony Blair, Lord Levy, Gerald Ronson, and Richard Desmond.[3] In 2007, the school was top of the Department for Education's school's "value-added" scoring system for pupil progress.[4] In October 2014, the school was downgraded from "Outstanding" to "Good" in its ratings by the Ofsted inspectorate, following a no-notice inspection.[5]

In 2014, the Oxford, Cambridge, and RSA (OCR) Exam board, having conducted an investigation into alleged exam malpractice, concluded that the school had redacted (deleted) questions involving the evolution of species on GCSE science exam questions.[6][7] Ofqual subsequently ruled that blocking out exam questions is malpractice, and, accordingly, not permissible.[8] However, it was later revealed that OCR had privately agreed that the school could advise students not to answer particular questions if they "need to do this in view of their religious beliefs".[9] It was downgraded to "inadequate" in 2018, due to not following the national curriculum, limiting pupils' access to knowledge, poor governance, poor quality teaching, lack of safeguarding, lack of respect for diversity or promotion of tolerance, and failures to meet statutory requirements to equip pupils for adulthood in British society.[10]

The school's then-principal, Rabbi Abraham Pinter, said in 2015 that few students go to university because "there isn't the environment for Haredi girls to do that", and that "Our experience is that the better educated girls turn out to be the most successful mothers. For us, that's the most important role a woman plays."[9]

In 2018, the school admitted censoring sections of GCSE textbooks to remove mentions of homosexual people and examples of women socialising with men.[11]

In April 2020, the school's then-principal, Rabbi Avrahom Pinter, died after contracting coronavirus.[12]

In January 2021, the school hosted a wedding with around 150 (initially thought to be 400) guests in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, against lockdown rules. The organiser is facing a £10,000 fine for breaching coronavirus regulations, and five guests were issued £200 fines. A spokesman for the school commented "We had no knowledge that the wedding was taking place", and "We are absolutely horrified about last night's event and condemn it in the strongest possible terms." The Mayor of Hackney, Philip Glanville, said "Unfortunately, similar events have taken place even at this venue before and we need to be really clear how unacceptable it is."[12]

References
  1. "Yesodey Hatorah Girls Protest William Shakespeare's Anti-Semitism". The Yeshiva World. Yeshiva World News. 3 March 2008. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  2. Garner, Richard (1 March 2008). "Jewish pupils boycott exam in Shylock protest". The Independent. The Independent. Retrieved 14 April 2020.
  3. "The JC Power 100". Retrieved 21 August 2013.
  4. Paton, Graeme (1 March 2007). "Comprehensive that's in a different class". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
  5. "Following no-notice inspection, Jewish school remains defiant over exam question redaction". Hackney Citizen. 31 October 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  6. "Jewish faith school caught censoring questions on science exam papers". secularism.org.uk/. 10 October 2013. Retrieved 10 October 2013.
  7. "Jewish school redacts exam to remove evolution questions". bbc.co.uk/. 4 March 2014.
  8. "Evolution exam questions cannot be blocked, says Ofqual". 31 March 2014.
  9. Alice Harrold (2 December 2014). "Ofsted's 'good' Jewish school: no internet, no evolution". East London Lines. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  10. Rocker, Simon (26 June 2018). "Chasidic girls' school Yesodey Hatorah branded inadequate in scathing Ofsted report". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
  11. Marsh, Sarah (9 March 2018). "Jewish school removed 'homosexual' mentions from GCSE textbook". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  12. "Covid: Wedding party in Stamford Hill broken up by police". BBC. 22 January 2021. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
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