School where pupils confuse English and Yiddish still ‘failing’

A Stamford Hill school where pupils could not distinguish between Yiddish and English is still failing key school standards, according to a new report.

TTD Gur, an Orthodox Jewish boys’ school, was slapped with an ‘inadequate’ rating in 2019, after Ofsted found that pupils were often confused between Yiddish and English, and the school’s teaching of secular subjects was weak.

A follow-up inspection, published on Friday, found that the oversubscribed school still did not meet a raft of standards, including in quality of education.

“Leaders were unable to provide a curriculum policy or schemes of work for the subjects taught,” found the inspection. 

“They were unable to talk about the actions taken to address the unmet standards since the previous inspection.”

Leaders were also unable to show the inspector evidence that children in the early years’ classes learn to “communicate and read and write in English,” to meet the standards required.

Ofsted inspector Gary Rawlings was told that only the headteacher could provide evidence of meeting the standards for quality of education, but he was absent on the day.

Teachers were also unable to provide evidence the school promotes “mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs” as well as “British values.”

Inspectors were allowed on this occasion to speak with pupils to ask about their safeguarding, which had not been allowed on the previous visit.

Here Ofsted found an improvement, with the school atmosphere “calm, and pupils move between lessons sensibly.”

However, school staff did not allow the inspector to speak with pupils to find out how they “respect people from different backgrounds.”

The independent school is registered for 140 pupils between three and seven. However, it currently has 231 pupils, some aged up to 11, in breach of its registration agreement.

Inspectors will now advise the Secretary of State, Gavin Williamson, on TTD Gur’s “suitability for continued registration as an independent school”.