When Yavneh College and JCoSS opened, there were fears of a glut of secondary Jewish school places in London with too few Jewish children to fill them. No one foresaw the anguish of parents , as revealed by the JC last year, who had sent their Jewish child to a Jewish primary school in north-west London only to find there was no room for them in a local state-aided Jewish secondary school.

The sponsors of the proposed new Kedem High School in Barnet have shown commendable speed in trying to make sure that no Jewish child is ever again left out in the cold. But questions remain as to whether a new school is the best solution. It might prove more cost-effective to open a few more places at a relocated Hasmonean and other Jewish schools. Alternatively, if Kedem goes ahead, the knock-on effect could be to draw pupils away from other Jewish schools, leaving places to be filled, as at King Solomon in Redbridge, by children from other faiths.

But if the only way to guarantee a place at a local, state-aided Jewish secondary school for every Jewish child who wants one is to have a few multi-faith Jewish schools, then that may be no bad thing.