A state-aided Charedi school in Hackney which insists on a strict dress code for parents of applicants has been told it cannot ask them to avoid “brightly coloured” clothing because the definition is not clear enough.
The Office of the Schools Adjudicator partly upheld a complaint against the entry policy of the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls School because some conditions did not meet the requirements for these to be objective, clear or fair.
In his published decision, the OSA’s Dr Bryan Slater said “I think it probable that most people would agree that some objects one could imagine were brightly coloured, but that it is not possible to know where the dividing line between ‘bright’ and ‘not bright’ would be drawn by all people.”
He dismissed several objections against the school made by an unidentified complainant, including that its admissions policy breached equalities law.
The school expects families of pupils to abide by a Strictly Orthodox lifestyle, specifying that mothers and girls should dress in accordance with the "strictest standards" of modesty and fathers should dress in a style and colour compatible with the Charedi ethos of the school.
But he ruled that Yesodey Hatorah had failed to meet the standards of the School Admissions Code in other instances. He found the use of Hebrew in certain parts of the entry arrangements problematic, including where a Hebrew word had not been translated.
According to the code governing arrangements for schools, “parents should be able to look at a set of arrangements and understand easily how places for that school will be allocated.”
Dr Slater also told the school that setting a limit of 65 places for year-7 for entry this year would be too low.
Three years ago, Yesodey Hatorah changed its entry arrangements to offer places for primary years 5 and 6 and reduce its year-7 intake. But with few primary applicants, the school was recently given official approval to scrap entry for those years.
The school last year admitted 72 children in year 7 - seven above its Published Admission Number (PAN) of 65 for that age group.
In view of demand for places, the local authority wants the school to reinstate its original year-7 PAN of 80, which applied before it started offering primary-level entry, Dr Slater reported.
“A PAN of 65 for year 7 for September 2022… would fail to be reasonable in my view, by virtue of being too low,” he said.
READ MORE Yesodey raising its game, says Ofsted
