Campaigners criticised for “theological grudge” over Jewish school admissions policy

Campaigners with a “theological grudge” against Jewish schools’ admissions policies should stop swamping the government with complaints, Jewish leaders have said.

The Board of Deputies responded on Monday after England’s Schools Adjudicator Elizabeth Passmore said pressure groups had raised her office costs to more than £1 million annually.

Board Vice President Sheila Gewolb said: “We would echo the Schools Adjudicator’s concerns that certain anti-faith campaigning groups are filling her inbox with vexatious complaints.”

She added: “The Admissions system should be designed to enable pupils to get in to the best and most suitable school for them, not to settle theological grudge-matches.”

However Reform Rabbi Jonathan Romain, who heads the Fairer Admissions Campaign, said: “Being able to make complaints about a sample of schools, as we did, enabled us to make a series of extrapolations about systemic problems, which is clearly in the public interest.”

Hundreds of thousands of parents across the country last week applied to get their children into their preferred primary school, but will now need to wait until April to find out whether their application was successful.