Clapton Pond Blog

Hackney's Newest Academy

From the Regeneration and Renewal blog: 

Schools secretary Ed Balls was in east London with the Prime Minister [on Monday] to open the City Academy - one of the latest schools to be opened under the Government's controversial academy initiative.

Read the whole piece for a discussion of academies in general and video of the dignitaries' visit. 

Another Blue Academy

It looked worryingly like a bunch of giant, unvarnished crates until recently. But now, 15 months after receiving planning permission, the City of London KPMG Academy has turned blue - just like all Hackney's other academies. There still looks to be a bit of work to do before it opens in September, mind. 

Secondary Transfer: The Annual Agony

From the Hackney Post:

Dozens of children are being left without a secondary school place, despite the council spending hundreds of millions on improving secondary school opportunities in the borough. Figures obtained by the Hackney Post show that 150 children living in Hackney did not get a place at any state secondary school last year. Parents say secondary school entry remains a postcode lottery, with many still going to extremes to get their children into the best schools.

Some things don't change. Now read on.

Millfields School Summer Fair: Recycled Fashion Show

Saturday's event was one of the best I can remember, complete with even more food, stalls and games than usual and even a seaside donkey. A particular highlight for me was this fashion show by members of the eco-drama after school club. All outfits, as you'll see, were made from recycled materials.

Love those Jedi warriors...

Further Great Moments In Sport

Year 1 bean bag throwing on the Downs:

That very small girl in the mauve top looks familiar...

Millfields School Sports Day

The winning leap in the Years 5 and 6 boys' long jump final.

I'll bet his dad's really proud...

Ms Engineer

From Londra:

"A young Turkish woman was among a group of six local construction industry trainees in Hackney who graduated with an industry recognised qualification."

Well done. Now read on.

Mossbourne Pupils On London Bridge

Last Friday en route to City Hall I found I was sharing a no. 48 with a group of Mossbourne boys. You see them here having just piled out on the north side of London Bridge. Very well-behaved they were, too. I wonder where they went next.

Mossbourne & Secondary Transfer

From The Gazette:

"Hackney's first academy - established on the site of what was labelled 'the worst school in Britain' in the 1990s - has emerged as the star performer in new national league tables. Mossbourne, which replaced the failing Hackney Downs School in Downs Park Road, came top in a ranking of 3,063 secondary schools based on pupils' key stage three (KS3) progress.

This means that Mossbourne pupils are on average a full four terms ahead of other 14-year-olds who achieved similar results in English, maths and science when tested at the age of 11. Sir Michael Wilshaw, Mossbourne's principal, said: 'We are the top-performing secondary school in the country - and by a stretch as well. This demonstrates that Hackney children can do as well as anyone else and that the first academy in Hackney is a good thing.'"

We know that, being an academy, Mossbourne enjoys certain advantages over other secondary schools in the borough (though, as the Gazette story shows, there's been a general improvement in our secondaries). Nonetheless, if it's test results you're after, these are astonishingly good for a school that contains a plenty of pupils from low income homes as well as a more than average proportion of the neighbourhood's middle-class children. Can it be explained by, say, a high number of exclusions? Well, compared with other London academies Mossoburne's exclusion rate looks pretty average. Is there a down side to this huge success story? Well, for Fletching Road resident Leonie Allister, there is. And we all know she's not alone:

"I am devastated that my son Max has not been offered a place at any Hackney Secondary School. We gave 4 choices on our list (which includes all the mixed, non religious, schools in the borough). As you know we live on Fletching Road and so we put our nearest school, Mossbourne, as our first choice.

The admissions criteria for Mossbourne is very complicated and not transparent at all for parents. It is also the only Hackney community school that doesn't take children according to their proximity. Mossbourne has pupils who live in Walthamstow - how can that be fair?"

Lauriston School

From the Sunday Telegraph:

"Lauriston Primary School's reputation for being one of the few good schools in its area has sent its application numbers soaring. The school, in the east London borough of Hackney, is thought to have one of the smallest catchment areas in the country. Children living 120 yards away have been turned down. A recent analysis of how good schools can affect house prices found that the £490,000 cost of a three bedroom house in the leafy crescent of Victorian terraces near Lauriston Primary was £90,000 higher than prices outside the school's catchment area."

Read on to discover that the school will begin admitting double the current number of five-year-olds next year and that the Learning Trust says, "Expanding popular and successful schools is a key part of Hackney's education plan."

I don't understand why this is a priority. Wouldn't it make more sense to concentrate on helping other schools in the area become equally successful, rather than consolidating a demand for places at the most popular one that will surely outstrip supply again before too long, with those new places that become available being gobbled up by parents affluent enough to pay the higher house prices in the neighbourhood to the exclusion of everyone else? I'm sure there's an official answer to this question. Does anyone know what it is?