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...
Year 1 bean bag throwing on the Downs:
That very small girl in the mauve top looks familiar...
The winning leap in the Years 5 and 6 boys' long jump final.
I'll bet his dad's really proud...
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.
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.
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?"
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?
I have a long association with Millfields, going back to when my second oldest child, now aged 18, started his school life. The next four all followed him, and the two youngest are there now. For those who don't know it, Millfields is unusually big for a primary school yet has always been a very friendly place. It's also notable for being in a seemingly permanent state of evolution, which is one of the things that has always made it so energetic and exciting. Jane Betsworth recently stepped up to the school headship after Anna Hassan moved to a new management role. We talked about her priorities, some of the changes she is making and those she hopes to make in future. To listen to the interview click here. [Photograph by Dolores Hill]
More about our coming fourth academy from the Gazette.
From The Times:
"Ian Barlow, senior partner in KPMG’s London office and champion of the Hackney venture within KPMG...said KPMG staff loved the idea of giving something back. The firm’s social responsibility programme helped with staff recruitment and retention."
The big-time accountancy firm is co-sponsor, with the Corporation of London, of the new school to be built on the site of Homerton College of Technology. More here.
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