Sir David Bell, former chief inspector of Ofsted, will publish on Wednesday an independent review commissioned by the UK government that concludes schools and colleges in England must recognise antisemitism as a distinct category of harm — not merely a subset of general anti-racism policy. The central finding is blunt: a generic commitment to tackling prejudice has failed to identify or address antisemitism specifically, leaving incidents unreported and unchallenged by both students and teachers. The numbers frame the scale. A survey conducted for the review found one in five students had witnessed antisemitism, while three in five Jewish students said they had experienced it directly. Fewer than half of those surveyed believed the behaviour would be addressed if reported. The Community Security Trust recorded 178 antisemitic incidents in schools in the first half of 2026 — up from 112 in the same period of 2025, the highest level ever recorded. The review makes 27 recommendations the government is expected to accept in full. These include dedicated teacher training in antisemitism awareness, a national hotline for school leaders to get rapid advice, resources specifically earmarked for tackling antisemitism, and encouragement for schools to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. Holocaust teaching is to be strengthened with antisemitism positioned as a central theme of the genocide, not a peripheral one. Bell stressed this is not confined to Jewish schools or Jewish children. Staff behaviour policies must explicitly name antisemitism as unacceptable, and all schools should have robust reporting and response procedures. The review also calls for stronger guidance on political impartiality so students can debate difficult issues — a reference to tensions around the Israel-Palestine conflict — without teachers imposing personal views. The review was launched in March following antisemitic episodes including the attack at Manchester's Heaton Park synagogue in October 2025. The Board of Deputies of British Jews welcomed the safeguarding framing, arguing it creates an explicit duty on all schools and strengthens accountability by treating antisemitism like any other threat to children's safety. The structural question is whether naming produces action. The review correctly diagnoses that lumping antisemitism into a generic anti-prejudice bucket renders it invisible to reporting systems, teacher training, and institutional memory. Creating a distinct category with its own infrastructure — hotline, training, reporting procedures — builds the scaffolding for accountability. Whether that scaffolding carries weight depends entirely on resourcing, inspection, and whether schools treat compliance as box-ticking or genuine cultural change. Bell will present the review to MPs in parliament on Wednesday. The test is not whether the recommendations are accepted — they will be — but whether school-level implementation produces measurable change in the incident data the CST is already tracking.
