Yesodey Hatorah Admissions Scam: Admission Numbers

If you're applying for a school place for your child you'd naturally want to know what you're applying for. But what do you do in the case of voluntary-aided Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls School if the Hackney website says that "normal point of entry is Year 5" and yet you know it to be a blatant lie?

And what do you do when the same lie is repeated on the school's website that Year 5 is the "normal point of entry to the school" when it clearly is not.

A Freedom of Information reply from Hackney shows that there has NEVER existed a Year 5 and Year 6 at Yesodey Hatorah. And not only has there never been a Year 5 and 6 at the school but since 2019 there has been a total of ONE SINGLE application for those years. Which tells you that not only does Yesodey Hatorah know it to be a blatant lie but that no one in the entire community is fooled either.

Before creating these fictional Years 5 and 6, YHS purported to hold a “consultation” in 2017. In the consultation document the school discussed where the Year 5 and 6 girls will come from (since Years 5 and 6 are not normal points of transfer from primary schools which run from Years 1 to 6).

The school wrote, “We have consulted the trustees at the [Yesodey Hatorah] primary school, and they are willing to seriously consider reducing their age limit, and providing an education only for the lower school, namely students from Y1-Y4. Transferring their Y5 and Y6 classes to the secondary school would free up valuable classroom space in that building.” So on paper at least the school anticipated using their usual feeder school for the new proposed year groups of Years 5 and 6. But NEVER did the primary school pupils ever even apply for those year groups. Why not? Because they knew it was a lie and there was nothing to apply for.

Yet as the above screenshot from Hackney shows, at the same time that the fictional Years 5 and 6 were created, admission numbers were reduced from 80 to 65. Because this was always the purpose of the non-existent year groups. To reduce admission numbers for Year 7 and exclude pupils not coming from the private fee-paying Yesodey Hatorah Primary School which acts as a de facto – and unlawful – feeder school. In particular, the Year 5 and 6 scheme, or scam, was to exclude pupils from Beis Yaakov Primary School who were around that time applying for the first time to YHS. And this exclusion policy continues to this day.

So if there's a query about this blatant lie you'd naturally want to turn to the Yesodey Hatorah Governing Body for an explanation. The Chair of the Admissions Committee is David Hochhauser while Rabbi Benjamin Dunner is the Chair of the Governing Body and also sits on the admissions committee. But when the JC reported on Hackney looking into the fictional year groups, these courageous individuals, who are responsible year after year for bullying parents and rejecting blameless children from their rightful school place, chose to hide behind the apron-strings of the Headteacher, Clare Neuberger.

Why is a Headteacher answering on admissions at all which is not within a Headteacher’s remit? Answer: This is Yesodey Hatorah which runs to different rules and can do practically as it wishes because the authorities will turn a blind eye on them.

And how did Clare Neuberger explain the non-existent classes? "The building is not designed for that number of students. The classrooms are small".

The school building was custom built for an intake of 90 children per year. If that’s not enough, the School itself wrote in the consultation to start Years 5 and 6:

"When the school was built and received Voluntary Aid Status in 2005 the PAN was set at 450. The present PAN is 400 with an expected 80 students per year group. The governors’ admission policy agrees with this PAN namely of 80 students per year. At present there are just over 305 students or roll, and the school is therefore operating at well below the PAN that was originally set. This puts the school in a vulnerable position both vis a vis funding and with regard to mid-year admissions." (My emphasis)

As the Hackney chart above shows, in 2020 the school was able to offer 81 places. There is also Be’er Miriam, a private fee-paying and Pinter-linked 6th Form, which operates rent-free on the school premises and taking up yet more space. But still we are to believe Clare Neuberger that seven extra pupils above 65 “is more than we would have liked”.

Yet despite all of this the authorities, Hackney, the Department for Education, Ofsted, do nothing. When cases go to appeal the school succeeds and parents lose. Why? Because the entire system is predicated on an assumption of good faith and is not geared towards a deliberately deceptive school that cheats and lies in order to exclude pupils.

The reality of the situation is that as "very sorry" as Clare Neuberger is for the rejection of pupils, there is an abundance of space at Yesodey Hatorah and the entire admissions fiasco is to deny legitimate places to Stamford Hill Charedi parents.

These are parents who live in a Charedi neighbourhood, dress as Charedim, daven in Charedi shuls, shop in Charedi shops and are part of the Charedi community for everything except for school places. Because according to fictional criteria concocted by Yesodey Hatorah in cahoots with UOHC for the sole purpose of excluding pupils, they are not Charedi enough for a school place. And even that would not be enough had they not also created these fictional classes to exclude children from a school overflowing with space.

This is all funded by you the taxpayer and carried out under the eyes and noses of Hackney, DfE and Ofsted who choose to sit back and allow it to continue year after year unabated.