Editorial 9th June 2023

Dear Parent

The school has continued to work very hard to find a way to accommodate all of the Year 7 Boys who wish to join the school in September 2023. We have worked with the Regional Schools’ Commissioner to agree that we could take the additional boys and were hopeful that we would be able to locate the new Year 7 on a separate area in the Girls’ school grounds. We identified a contractor who could provide a complete temporary classroom solution and we found approximately 50% of the funding. In addition, the school has undertaken the very complex task of creating a timetable to manage the logistics for this.

However, despite our best efforts after several meetings with Barnet Council, and despite our proposal being supported by Councillors Peter Zinkin and Dean Cohen and one of the best local planning consultants, we have been informed that it is unlikely to succeed. This is because the Girls’ School is in Green Belt and this has the strictest planning regulations; the planners insist that we must follow these without deviation, even if we only use the land on our school site for 18 months and then put it back exactly as we found it.

We continue to work on a number of options and are still hopeful that a solution can be found, however we are dependent on council support on these and are awaiting their responses.

We will keep you updated on any changes while we continue to try to find a solution for the families on the waiting list.

With kind regards,

Gary Swabel – Chair of Trustees
Andrew McClusky – CEO, Hasmonean MAT