Referring to King David, he said, “As the purpose any school inspection is to assess the effectiveness of the teaching and learning, there would appear to be a blatant abuse and perversion of the role carried out by the inspectorate in this instance. In simple terms the inspection was flawed.”
Commenting more generally on critical Ofsted inspections of Charedi schools, he said the Jewish education system was “under serious attack, an attack that is designed not to weaken but to destroy our sacred mosdos [institutions]”.
He accused Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman of supporting an “anti-religious programme” and said “steps should be taken” to bring about her dismissal.
He said that if schools experienced similar “pre-judgments” to King David’s from inspectors about the practice of their faith, they should not allow the inspection to proceed or else organise alternative activities for pupils such as outings to take place at the same time.
“As any kind of trust and confidence in Ofsted has been destroyed, our schools and mosdos should become more strident and assertive when dealing with future Ofsted inspections,” he said.
Neither the Board of Deputies or the Jewish Leadership Council’s education division, Pajes, has commented openly on the King David inspection.
But the JC understands that Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has written to Nick Gibb, the School Standards Minister, to voice concerns.
