Orthodox Jewish school at centre of driving ban furore denied state funding

A woman enters Beis Malka school gates in Stamford Hill.

An Orthodox Jewish school that attempted to ban mothers driving their children to school has had its application for state funding rejected, the Hackney Citizen can reveal.

Beis Malka Girls’ Primary, an Independent Orthodox Jewish day school with around 400 pupils based in Stamford Hill, applied to Hackney Council for Voluntary Aided (VA) status from September 2015.

But Hackney Council’s Corporate Director for Children’s Services Alan Wood rejected the proposal.

A decision notice reveals the refusal “focussed particularly” on the school’s compliance with the Equality Act 2010, the quality of the teaching and the school’s capacity to deliver the National Curriculum “including careers guidance”.

Other reasons listed in the council’s decision notice included provision for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), “serious concerns” about health and safety, and the long-term viability of the school’s site.

The school is one of two primaries run by the ultra-Orthodox Belz sect, which earlier this year sent letters to parents asking women to stop driving to the school gates, or risk having their children withdrawn.

The order was met with anger by many leading Jewish figures including Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and UK Ambassador of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance Dina Brawer.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan criticised the order as “completely unacceptable in modern Britain”.

At the time Ahron Klein, the chief executive of the Beis Malka Trust which runs both schools told the Evening Standard: “We fully accept that despite being private schools we have responsibilities to our members and to the wider public.

“However, as private schools we have the freedom to set our own high standards by which we seek to live and bring up our children.”

Both the Talmud Torah Machzikei Hadass school for boys and Beis Malka school for girls, both run by the Belz sect, were rated ‘good’ by Ofsted in 2010 and 2013.

Beis Malka Primary and the school’s chief executive Ahron Klein have not responded to the Hackney Citizen’s requests for comment.