The Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) has instructed the Hasmonean High School in Barnet to no longer award pupil places on the grounds of parents adhering to ‘laws of family purity’. The Orthodox Jewish school asked parents to provide confirmation that they adhered to the religious laws from their Rabbi. The laws relate to sexual and other interactions between husbands and wives, and include the requirement for women of monthly ritual bathing.
The OSA provides a free tribunal service ruling on whether the admissions policy of state funded schools in England adhere to the statutory School Admissions Code and other law related to admissions. In justifying their ruling, the Adjudicator explained they did not object to the inclusion of the laws in the school’s policy on the grounds of irrelevance or personal intrusion, but that adherence to them could not be objectivity obsessed.
Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said in response, ‘I am astonished that Hasmonean School has been asking parents whether they observe the Jewish laws of sexual intercourse and menstrual purity. Imagine the outcry if Catholic Schools asked parents seeking a place for their children if they had ever had an abortion or what sort of contraception they use?
‘It shows how the right of faith schools to use religious criteria to select pupils has become highly intrusive and has turned into a form of religious spying that was never intended when the rules were drawn up. This is a sex question too far – schools should be about educating children not policing parents.’
In 2013 Accord helped to co-found the Fair Admissions Campaign. Earlier this month the campaign released a report into a widespread investigation into the extent to which the admissions policy of religiously selective faith schools adhered to admissions rules. The report untitled ‘An Unholy Mess: how virtually all religiously selective state schools in England are breaking the law’ found widespread problems and non-compliance.
