10 - Beyond the Community: Jewish Day School Education in Britain

Summary

A HISTORY TEACHER sits with an adviser from the local education authority to discuss implications for her school of changes to the national curriculum history syllabus. A school principal meets with a government official from the Department for Education and a senior educator in the Community to discuss arrangements for the forthcoming inspection of the school.

These meetings could be taking place on a typical school day in any State school in Britain. What makes the Situation unusual, possibly unique, is that they are taking place in a Jewish State school in Britain. The British context, which has allowed the growth and development of Jewish day school education through legislation providing for denominational schools, has considerably shaped Jewish schools in Britain: their structure, their curriculum, and their accountability. This chapter identifies and discusses the impact of the relationship with the State on Jewish schooling in Britain, in terms of both the opportunities this relationship presents and the challenges it poses.

While some Jewish schools in Britain are private institutions, funded by trusts and individuals within the Jewish Community, most Jewish primary and secondary schools are located within the State sector. The rights of religious groups to establish their own schools have been enshrined in law in Britain since the mid-nineteenth Century. The case for denominational schooling in Britain was accepted as early as 1839, more than thirty years before the 1870 Education Act that paved the way for compulsory education for all. At that time, the government's Committee for Education stated that if Promoters of schools could prove that their intention was to combine secular and religious studies, and that the curriculum would include the reading of the Authorized Version of the Bible, then their schools would be eligible for government grant funding. The government took the view, at that time, that the religious requirements in Jewish schools did not match their own Statement closely enough and State funding was withheld, just as it was also withheld from Catholic schools. After several attempts to redress the Situation, a pressure group headed by the philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore finally prevailed in 1851, when the government agreed that Jewish schools would be permitted to receive grants in the same way that other denominational schools were, provided they agreed to read the scriptures of the Old Testament every day and provided they were also prepared to submit to government inspection.