The chief executive of the Jewish Community Academy Trust, Kirsten Jowett, is to leave at the end of December, it has been announced.

She has led the consortium of four primary schools since it was set up by the United Synagogue three years ago.

A brief statement issued on Friday by US president Michael Goldstein and the trustees of JCAT said Ms Jowett had taken "the difficult decision" to leave at the end of the year.

She was previously head of one of the trust's schools, Wolfson Hillel, which is rated outstanding by Ofsted.

The statement said that it "would like to thank her for her leadership to date, and for the way in which she has successfully made JCAT into the trust it is today, and primed it for the next stage of its journey, as a MAT [multi-academy trust] that can accommodate secondary and well as primary education".

JFS is widely expected to join the trust in the near future as a result of being put into special measures by Ofsted earlier this year.