After a decade of success, top state school ready for a future with change
search

The latest Jewish News

Read this week’s digital edition

Click Here
Analysis

After a decade of success, top state school ready for a future with change

Leading a Jewish school and a church on weekends gives Patrick Moriarty a unique perspective on the Chanukah/Christmas clash

There’s never a dull week as a headteacher…and especially when you lead a Jewish school during the week and a Christian community on Sundays.  In my Church life it’s the middle of Advent – a season of waiting in the midst of darkness, with themes of hope and judgement.

At school, meanwhile, Chanukah approaches with its themes of standing against oppression and assimilation, and we’re in the middle of the month of Kislev – a word connected on the one hand to hope and on the other hand to foolishness. All in all, then, a perfect time for a general election.

There’s plenty to be hopeful about at JCoSS.  As we approach our tenth birthday it’s good to look back over the history of a project that some called purev foolishness.  Fears in some quarters that we would damage the Jewish community and undermine its schools now look exaggerated (to say the least).  We are proud to have joined those schools in friendship and mutual support, to have expanded the offer of Jewish secondary education and to have taken our place with them in the top echelons of league tables.

Our most recent accolade as Sunday Times Greater London State Secondary School of the Year gives us all the more pride given the range of our intake.  We have a higher proportion of students with significant special needs than any Barnet school, and take many times more than our fair share compared to other Jewish schools even before factoring in our autism provision.  Yet our results and Oxbridge successes – as well as the quality and range of all our students’ destinations – are proof that excellence and inclusion go hand in hand, rather than pulling against each other. There’s hope there for all.

Nothing expresses hope more than a commitment to expand, and this week we are submitting exciting plans for a new building so that we can do just that.  Nine extra classrooms will allow to us to offer 30 more places each year – making permanent the ‘bulge’ classes we already have in two year groups.  The numbers wanting Jewish schools continues to rise and we are well placed to be a key part of the long term solution.  Our waiting lists certainly prove there is more than enough demand for JCoSS to justify the expansion.

JCoSS’ latest production of Bugsy Malone

But growing a school, like everything else, is harder when there’s uncertainty.  Will there be additional funding, making good the decline over the last 10 years?  There are grounds for scepticism as well as optimism.  How might the outcome of the election affect demand for Jewish places?  It could go up or down, and not necessarily evenly across the community.  The status of faith schools and of private schools, the future of Ofsted, the personality and policies of ministers, even the Brexit outcome all make a difference.

JCoSS has a pioneering spirit: our commitment to open hearts and minds has hope at its core.  But that does not make us immune to the darkness.  The last few weeks have been difficult for leaders in all walks of public life, and our pluralist Judaism does not make it any easier.  We thrive on honest debate, but the complexities and competing narratives of political life are putting the whole of society on edge and I see the effect visibly in students, colleagues and parents.

So I confess to experiencing some relief when Archbishop Justin lent support to the recent statement on antiSemitism from Chief Rabbi Mirvis.  With a foot in two camps as I have, it helped to have the values we have in common underlined, even while there is sincere dissent within both communities.  Perhaps the key common value is shared humanity – or as we say at JCoSS, being a Mensch.  Looking at what humanity is capable of there’s both hope and foolishness in that; but holding together things that pull apart…well, it’s what JCoSS does!

 

 

Support your Jewish community. Support your Jewish News

Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.

For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.

Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.

You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.

100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...

Engaging

Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.

Celebrating

There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.

Pioneering

In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.

Campaigning

Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.

Easy access

In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.

Voice of our community to wider society

The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.

We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.

read more: