Ofsted inspector: Watchdog wants to curb schools that don’t fit with its ideology

An Ofsted inspector says the watchdog has an agenda to attack Jewish schools, and wants to clamp down on any school that does not conform to its ideology.

Rabbi Nessanel Lieberman has been an inspector since 2009 and heads Bnos Beis Yaakov girls’ primary school in London.

In October last year Jewish school pupils were said to have been left “traumatised” after being asked by Ofsted whether they knew that two men could marry and questioned about how babies are made.

Now, speaking to a meeting of Jewish primary school teachers, Rabbi Lieberman has said Ofsted’s aims are a “hodge-podge” of ideals and it is “looking for a pretext” for inspectors to turn up unannounced.

He also said that that Ofsted had “an agenda to knock down our schools”.

Ofsted refuted the comments, saying it “is not systematically targeting Jewish faith schools”.

The new ‘British values’ rules have been mired in controversy since their introduction in September, but now it seems that the situation is bad enough for an Ofsted inspector to speak out himself.