The Care Standards Tribunal has upheld the Secretary of State for Education’s decision to impose a restriction on admissions to Beis Aharon School, an independent school in the London Borough of Hackney that is designated as a school of religious character of Orthodox Judaism.
In Beis Aharon Trust v Secretary of State for Education [2016] UKFTT 0270 (HESC), the Trust appealed against the order of the Secretary of State that Beis Aharon School cease to admit new pupils from 23 October 2015. That restriction had not taken effect pending the outcome of this appeal.
The First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber) (Care Standards) considered the extent to which the Trust was failing to meet the standards that apply to all independent schools. The Tribunal commented that the school was extremely well thought of in the community that it served, it took seriously the need to improve, it had made significant commitments of its resources in order to do so, pupil behaviour appeared to be of a very high standard and it had co-operated at all times with both the Tribunal and Ofsted. However, the Tribunal found concerns in the following areas:
- the school did not acknowledge to pupils the existence of certain protected characteristics;
- the school was able to tell pupils of the existence of other faiths, but not anything about them;
- the school had adopted, but only in small parts begun to implement, a new and secular curriculum and planned to give it more time in the pupils’ day;
- teaching quality was inconsistent and pupils were not always appropriately challenged;
- the school would not allow pupils to see images of females which it deemed immodest;
- EYFS staff were not yet qualified; and
- governor checks had not been completed.
The Tribunal concluded that the extent of the Trust’s failure to meet the independent school standards was serious and, further, that the Secretary of State’s restriction on admissions was proportionate and necessary.
Paul Greatorex represented Beis Aharon Trust and Rachel Kamm represented the Secretary of State.
