V Three Charedi girls schools in London are among the top 25 secondary state schools in England for academic progress, according to provisional results published today by the Department for Education.

The highest performing school for Progress 8 — which measures how far pupils have come from entering the school to their GCSE results this summer — was the state-aided Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls’ School in Stamford Hill.

Its spectacular score of 1.65 means that girls achieved more than a grade and a half for their GCSEs than they would have been predicted to obtain given their academic level when they first started secondary school.

It earned Yesodey Hatorah seventh place in the national rankings for progress.

Rachel Klein, the school’s co-headteacher, said, “We take immense pride in the accomplishments of our students, which stand as a testament to their hard work and the professionalism and dedication of our staff.”

Despite its presence in the top 10 schools, the school has had a hard time from Ofsted in recent years and is still officially one that “requires improvement” according to the inspectorate.

GCSE Provisional Results 2023

GCSE Provisional Results 2023

Not far behind was Menorah High School for Girls in North-West London in 13th place with a progress score of 1.36. The school was visited last week by Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, who wanted to offer assurances to the Jewish community in the wake of the Middle East crisis.

And in 15th place was a second state-aided Stamford Hill school, Lubavitch Senior Girls’ School with a score of 1.35. Hadassah Korer, chair of trustees of the Lubavitch Multi-Academy Trust, said: “We are very proud of our pupil’s efforts and achievements. These results confirm our belief that having a well-rounded enriched Jewish education serves to enhance and drive up educational outcomes across the board.”

JFS was joint 26th with a score of 1.19 — which means that pupils achieved more than a grade higher at GCSE than would have been forecast when they entered year-7.

All four schools have been rated “well above average” in the DfE classification as have Hasmonean High School for Girls with a progress score of 1.03; Yavneh College with 0.85; JCoSS with 0.72; Hasmonean High School for Boys with 0.62.

King Solomon High School was banded as “above average” with a score of 0.31, while King David High School, Manchester (0.24), King David High School, Liverpool (0.23) and Leeds Jewish Free School (-0.3) were categorised as making “average’ progress.

In three other measures, Menorah High was the top-performing Jewish school: in average GCSE grade score, percentage of pupils achieving a grade 5 pass in English and maths, and in EBacc (which measures attainment in core academic subjects).

A-level performance figures are due to be published early next year.