Faith schools have long faced an onslaught of attention from secular society. In recent weeks an investigation by The Times has given London’s “inadequate” Orthodox Jewish schools, in particular, their fifteen minutes of infamy.
Certainly, many faith or unregistered schools have genuine deficiencies, and there are plenty of Haredi schools failing to ensure their pupils gain the basic skills mandated by the National Curriculum. Where this is the case, action is justified. However, it is inappropriate for the state to penalise faith schools -Haredi or otherwise - for not parroting mainstream cultural beliefs. In 2021 Talmud Torah Machzikei Hadass boys’ school was rated "inadequate" by Ofsted for not teaching students about same-sex relationships or gender reassignment surgeries. Scores of other faith schools have routinely fallen foul of the same guidelines.
