THE minister in charge of schools is considering action in light of the Supreme Court judgement on a Kenton school's admission's policy.

JFS last week lost a court battle over its admissions policy, which was declared to be in breach of racial discrimination legislation by the highest court in the land.

Following the ruling, Schools Minister Ed Balls said he is assessing whether the government needs to take action to address the central issues of the case.

The school, in The Mall, was adjudged to have unfairly discriminated against a 10-year-old prospective pupil by not offering him a place based on his Jewish heritage.

He was judged by the school, acting on guidelines from the United Synagogue, to be not a recognised Orthodox Jew because his mother converted to the religion through a Progressive Synagogue from an Italian Catholic upbringing.

The school was forced to change its admissions policy to one based on a scoring system of religious practice, rather than based on ethnicity, after a ruling by the Court of Appeal in June. That change has now been made permanent following last week's ruling.

Mr Balls said it was important to look closely at the ruling, especially the comments of judges on legislation.

Lord Phillips, president of the Supreme Court, said in his ruling that the whole question of admissions policies extended to other Jewish faith schools and the result of the case risked upsetting a policy of admission that over many years had not been considered to be open to objection.

He commented: “This demonstrates that there may well be a defect in our law of discrimination.”

Orthodox Jewish community leaders were disappointed in the judgement when it was handed down, and Dr Simon Hochhauser, United Synagogue president, criticised the forced change in admission system for JFS.

He said: “Practice tests are anathema to the United Synagogue, which for centuries has opened its institutions to all Jews, observant or not.

“These practice tests have no relevance under Jewish law and serve only to support the notion of a test of religion in the eyes of the English legal system.”