Faith schools report attacked

A report calling for faith schools to stop selecting on the basis of pupils’ religion has been heavily criticised.

The Runnymede Trust’s report, Right to Divide? Faith Schools and Community Cohesion, says that “if faith schools are convinced of their relevance for society, then that should apply equally for all children”.

It questioned the commitment of faith schools to the government’s social cohesion programme and said: “Too often, there remains a resistance to learning about other faiths.”

Parents, said the report, can use faith as a means of ensuring social

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Liverpool launches special needs centre

Merseyside Jewish Community Care is to open a £350,000 centre for people with learning difficulties.

MJCC delegates were informed on Tuesday that the charity is to work in partnership with the Manchester-based Langdon community to offer a support service for young Jewish adults with learning disabilities.

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Aid group for schools

A new group has been set up to represent the interests of state-aided strictly Orthodox schools.

Rabbi Jonathan Guttentag of Manchester, who has helped set up the National Association of Orthodox Schools, a coalition of a dozen schools in London and Manchester, said: “We want to ensure the position of strictly Orthodox schools is coherently put, rather than left to chance.”

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New school is delayed

The £23 million rebuilding of the Liverpool King David Schools campus has been delayed.

Merseyside Jewish Representative Council delegates were told on Tuesday that the start of the project — part of the government’s Building Schools for the Future programme — had been put back from January to April 2009.

But speaking after the meeting, King David High School head Brigid Smith stressed that the postponement was not down to funding issues. “It is the nature of building projects to be delayed,” she said.

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Bury school plan stalled

Bury and Whitefield Jewish Primary governors have withdrawn a controversial application to rebuild the school on green belt land.

The intended Whitefield site is considerably closer to the Jewish population than the current building in Unsworth and the governors believe it would attract more pupils. However, the proposal prompted hundreds of written protests from local residents. Bury Council's planning committee had been due to make a final decision this week.

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Private coach for pupils as gangs attack school buses

Parents of pupils at Britain's biggest Jewish school are to pay for private buses following a series of incidents on public transport.

In one attack last week, a gang threatened to stab a JFS pupil travelling home to Golders Green, North West London.

The attack, which included the boy's friends being called "Jewish pigs" and "scum", follows the throwing of stones at bus windows and antisemitic taunts shouted at youngsters.

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School made to change entry rules

A state-aided Jewish secondary school has been ordered to change its admissions criteria to make clear it will admit non-Jewish children if it cannot fill all its places with Jewish pupils.

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Special needs support

Parents struggling to place special needs children in appropriate education will soon be able to access a free national Jewish consultancy service.

The facility is being provided by Cheshire-based Jewish special needs school Delamere Forest, which says it will offer advice regardless of where callers live and which school their child attends.

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JCoSS gets the crowds

Over 600 parents and prospective pupils attended the first promotional days for the cross-commual JCoSS secondary school due to open in 2010.

The majority attended on Sunday, when there were queues outside the site of the future JCoSS buildings in Barnet. They were able to take a virtual tour created from architects' drawings and hear governors' chair Robert Shrager outline the school's aims.

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Teacher angry over High Holy-Day leave

A teacher has criticised a council's policy over absence for religious festivals after she was granted - and then refused - paid leave for the High Holy-Days .

History and religious-studies teacher Lucy Nuttgens, 48, applied in July for time off for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and was told by Aireville School in Skipton, North Yorkshire, that she could have the days off and would be paid for them.

Ms Nuttgens is a member of the small Bradford Reform Synagogue and was helping to run services on the New Year.

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