Four Jewish secondary schools in top 20 for government’s progress league tables

Four Jewish secondary schools have been placed in the UK’s top 20 for the Government’s latest Progress 8 league tables, which measures how far pupils’ achievements outperform expectations.

The four include three Orthodox girls’ schools – Menorah High School in Dollis Hill, Yesodeh HaTorah in Stamford Hill, and Beis Yaakov High School in Manchester – plus Yavneh College in Borehamwood, which teaches both boys and girls.

Progress 8 scores are a relatively new way of measuring pupils’ progress across eight subjects from age 11 to 16. It is reached by subtracting the pupil’s actual Attainment 8 score with their 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.

Scores are compared to pupils around the country with “similar academic starting positions” and the Government says schools scoring 0.5 or greater are making “well-above average progress with its pupils”.

In the latest 2018 tables, Menorah scored 1.36, Yavneh scored 1.27, Beis Yaakov scored 1.25 and Yesodeh HaTorah scored 1.21, with all four coming in the top 20 schools across the UK.

In December 2015, Ofsted inspectors upgraded Beis Yaakov from ‘Inadequate’ to ‘Good,’ but earlier this year Yesodeh HaTorah suffered reverse fortunes, downgraded from ‘Good’ to ‘Inadequate’. This led to accusations from the school’s chair of governors that it had fallen victim to “a secularist plot”.

Last week, as the tables were published, the school’s principal Rabbi Avroham Pinter had more to celebrate. “This is a spectacular achievement for our hard-working students, dedicated and talented staff and the community as a whole,” he said.

“Despite the disruption and distress caused by Ofsted, whose approach left many of our students visibly shaken, Yesodey HaTorah persevered and once again, our excellence has been recognised.”

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