Charedi school ranked community’s best performing in progress table
Yesodey HaTorah Girls came 31st in the national league table of state-funded secondary schools despite an overall dip in other Jewish schools' performances
A Charedi school recently downgraded by Ofsted is Britain’s best performing Jewish state school according to the Government’s measurement of achievement versus expectation.
Yesodey HaTorah Senior Girls’ School in Stamford Hill achieved a score of 1.08 in the Progress 8 table and came 31st in the national league table of state-funded secondary schools, a result described as “well above average”.
Overall however there was a dip in performance for Jewish schools, none of which appeared in the top 30 places, despite four Jewish schools having appeared in the top 20 in 2018.
They included Yesodey HaTorah, Menorah High School in Dollis Hill, Beis Yaakov High School in Manchester, plus Yavneh College in Borehamwood, with all scoring 1.21 or higher.
Progress 8 scores measure how far pupils’ GCSE achievements across eight subjects outperform expectations based on their abilities at the beginning. The score is reached by subtracting a pupil’s actual Attainment 8 score with the expected Attainment 8 score.
The eight subjects include maths and English, plus three Baccalaureate subjects such as science, computer science, languages, geography or history, plus three other approved subjects, which can include Hebrew.
This year’s result will be a welcome boost to Yesodey HaTorah, which was downgraded from ‘Good’ to ‘Inadequate’ by Ofsted last year, amidst a bigger row over the teaching of protected characteristics such as sexuality and gender.
The surprise downgrade led to accusations from the school’s chair of governors that it had fallen victim to “a secularist plot”.
Reacting to the news this week, Yesodeh HaTorah Principal Rabbi Avroham Pinter said he was “incredibly proud of our pupils and staff for once again producing such good results”.
However, he added: “Good results have never been our objective. Our focus is on producing rounded Jewish girls entrenched in our values of Torah and family. The results are a consequence of that rounded education. They’re just a bi-product.”
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