It’s a question that must have crossed the mind of many parents as next Friday’s deadline for secondary school applications looms: will London’s Jewish schools have enough room?

If this year’s experience is anything to go by, parents can be reasonably hopeful. No one knows for sure how many, if any, children in the capital failed to find a place at a mainstream Jewish school this autumn, but fewer calls to the JC from worried parents suggest few children were left without one — although one or two families did have to wait until well into summer before a spare place came up.

This year JFS took eight children beyond its official limit of 300 in order to ensure no child was left in the cold. The thinking within Partnerships for Jewish Schools (Pajes), the Jewish Leadership Council’s education division, is that it is better to accommodate children within existing schools than open a new Jewish secondary.

But could a new school be needed in future? Updated projections of demand from the Institute of Jewish Policy Research (JPR) do not make a clear-cut case.

JPR proved remarkably accurate with the first set of projections it produced last year. It predicted 1,075 applications to mainstream state-aided Jewish secondaries for September 2017 (the average between high and low estimates of demand), which subsequent research has confirmed was indeed the actual application figure. 

According to revised projections for September 2018, the number of first-preference Jewish applicants to Yavneh College, JFS, Hasmonean, JCoSS and King Solomon will have risen to 1,193 — 118 more than 2017. But, in practice, this does not seem to have led to an increase in children without a Jewish school place. (Predictions for King Solomon are calculated on the basis that around a third of its 180 places go to Jewish children).

JPR now predicts applications will fall slightly to 1,183 for next year, but rise to a high of 1,239 in 2020.

Roughly speaking, there are around 900 places available at the five Jewish secondary state schools (excluding 120 at King Solomon which go to children of other faiths, but are unlikely to be taken up by Jewish children from outside the locality). 

If you compare the 900 places with the expected 1,183 applications for entry in autumn 2019, that looks like a large shortfall of places. However, most children who opt for independent schools will also have applied to a state school as a safety net. The private Immanuel College has significantly increased its intake over the past few years to 80-90 children. So a sizeable minority of applicants to state schools will not require a place there in the end.

The 900 places also exclude any extra offers. Although JFS appears to have parked plans to expand by two forms (that is, by another 60 more children), it is willing to accept some additional children, as it demonstrated this year. If Hasmonean’s redevelopment plans are finally approved, it will have the capacity to increase its annual intake from around 180 to 210.

So anyone already sceptical about a new Jewish school is unlikely to be persuaded to change their mind by the latest JPR figures. 

On the other hand, it is worth noting that JPR has revised predictions for applications in 2020 upward from 1,191 to 1,239 — and that is only the middle figure; if its higher projection of 1,302 applications for 2020 proved true, then a large number of children could be stranded without a Jewish school place.

Another factor is that JPR’s figures are based on first-choice applications. We don’t know how many parents put a Jewish school only second or third choice because they believe their children stand little chance of gaining a place at one and it is more realistic to put a local non-Jewish school first. A second state-aided Jewish school in Hertfordshire, where the Jewish population is expanding, could attract families who currently would not be applicants to Jewish schools.

But there is one dampener in the latest figures for supporters of a new school. While JPR predicts a rise in applications to a peak in 2020, two years later it believes there will be a considerable fall — and that casts doubt on the need for another school.