Jewish Free School (JFS) considered cancelling all after-school revision sessions for its Year 11 students because pupils were so frequently being targeted on their journey home, the school’s headteacher Dr David Moody has said.
Appearing recently on WIZO UK’s podcast, Impacting Your Future, with journalist Rosa Doherty and Nicola Miller, WIZO UK’s chief operating officer, Moody said antisemitic incidents affecting JFS pupils increased markedly in the months following October 7 and they “regularly” reported incidents on their way home, leading him to question whether it was safe for students to remain at school after hours.
“There was one point where I was thinking of pulling the Year 11 intervention which went on after school, because regularly something would happen on the way home,” Moody said. Pupils, he claimed, were reporting incidents “a couple of times a week”.
The headteacher of the UK’s largest Jewish secondary school praised the police response to incidents involving JFS pupils, recalling one occasion when officers waited at Kingsbury station to arrest a man accused of verbally abusing a pupil the previous week. He also praised neighbouring schools for taking firm action when their pupils were involved in antisemitic incidents.
The interview with Moody comes amid a recent BBC report highlighting that Jewish school heads are spending more time dealing with security than with teaching and education.
Moody also revealed during the interview that the school received a significant increase in applications from Jewish children experiencing antisemitism in mainstream schools in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks.
“They’ve come to us as a place of refuge,” he said.
The increase came as the school community itself grappled with the immediate impact of October 7. Moody described a period of grief and fear that, for some pupils, continues to this day, with students directly affected by relatives who were murdered, taken hostage or otherwise caught up in the attacks.
He recalled that a planned visit by His Majesty the King was postponed because the school and wider community were concerned about the additional attention it would bring.
“You’re never going to be safer than the day when the King visits, but it raises the profile of a school at a time when the community wanted JFS to have a low profile,” he said. “Nobody really knew what was coming.”
Despite the heightened security concerns, Moody said the school had sought to reassure pupils without creating further anxiety.
“You’re trying to put people’s minds at ease without making people fearful,” he said. “It’s about finding the right balance. It’s not about breeding fear.”
He praised the Community Security Trust (CST) for helping JFS maintain robust protection, saying the presence of security staff made pupils feel reassured rather than vulnerable.
“You don’t feel vulnerable in JFS,” he said. “You feel protected by a group of trained people who are there to have your back if there’s an incident. It’s a real reassurance.”
Moody said pupils had also shown considerable resilience since October 7, with a stronger sense of Jewish identity and solidarity emerging within the school.
“The students have responded really well. There’s a maturity about our kids. They look out for each other,” he said. “I think they’ve been deeply impressive.”
“It means more to be Jewish. There’s that togetherness and that looking out for each other,” he added.
Although Moody is not Jewish himself, he said his time at JFS had given him a deeper understanding of Jewish life and had had a profound personal impact on him.
He described the Jewish community as “one of the most exceptional groups of people I’ve ever met” and JFS as “the most welcoming, kind and loving community that I’ve ever worked in”.
“I’ve never been professionally happier,” he said. “I feel like I’ve got a home.”
The full interview is available on WIZO UK’s YouTube channel and on spotify
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