This was one of many such incidents in Hackney. found that racial prejudice was pervasive and that the Met was preoccupied with ethnic differences. This might sound fine on the face of it. At this point, given a permanent headteacher, stability, capital investment in unsafe buildings and targeted support for the disproportionate number of children with special educational needs, the school could have progressed. It was founded in 1876 as The Grocers' Company's School. It has been replaced by the Mossbourne Community Academy . Learn how your comment data is processed. Hackney Downs was a victim of its own success. It is a matter of considerable concern that police should have any dealings at all with children that age, and incredible that a Headteacher did not feel able to tackle the problem herself. The low roll was engineered by the LEA. Despite long-standing inequalities, trends since the war have shown improvement - in numbers staying on, in exam passes, in literacy and other areas. The school was labelled a failure and since failure is unacceptable, it must close. beta Select from premium Hackney Downs of the highest quality. St Pauls Place, Norfolk Street, Sheffield, S1 2JE. In 1979 the Hackney branch of the National Union of teachers (HTA) started a policy of non-co-operation with the police. The policy is one of protest and non-cooperation and raises in sharp focus the racism of the Police. Mornington Chasers is a friendly running club based in Kentish Town, North London. Battle to save Hackney Downs school 22nd December 1995, 12:00am Tes Editorial (Photograph) - Last supper: a legal battle to save Hackney Downs school was underway last week as teachers served Christmas lunch to pupils on what was probably the ill-fated east London school's final day. school in the United Kingdom. SEN Teaching Assistant Job in Hackney SEN Teaching Assistant - Hackney - 80 to 105 per day . We'd also like to use analytics cookies so we can understand how you use the service and make improvements. This now extends to disco dancing, five a side football, the showing of police films and free lectures on child develop-ment and animal appreciation! The Hackney Teachers Association arranged a picket outside the police station to try to persuade the Headteachers not to attend the meeting. ParentPay Welcome Video Admissions Contact us Next Previous They realised that if the police could not get into the schools then they would have to get the schools to come to them. Hackney Trades Council, Hackney Council, Hackney Black Peoples Association and the Colin Roach Support Committee all have a policy of breaking links with the police. Copyright 2023 Tes Global Ltd is registered in England (Company No 02017289) with its registered office at Building 3, One example is police getting in touch with the parents of children who expressed hostile attitudes during a police presentation in school. Change). But what is the reality? The staff of the condemned east London comprehensive argue that it was killed off despite showing clear signs of recovery. Professor Barbers claims are based on loaded Government statistics of the cubic capacity of classrooms. Every year there are more and more. Joseph Brearly was Harold Pinter's teacher at Hackney Downs Grammar School. National Rail services are also a 10-minute walk and stop at Tottenham Hale and Hackney Downs before finishing at Liverpool Street. In a country that is the top of the league of European countries for the size of its prison population and the severity of its sentencing that is a very partisan view indeed. Architect: Richard Rogers Partnership This inevitably causes distrust and confusion which is damaging to education. This field does not show pupils who actually received free school meals Members of the National Union of Journalists complained at police behaviour towards photographers on the marches. Untouched by the amalgamations of local schools in the 1980s (from 16 to 10 secondary schools) its roll declined. This caused considerable hostility on the part of a pupil who came from that part of town. Such events have typified police behaviour for years. First of all, the police are not disinterested parties. The researchers noticed that the police officers on the one hand wanted to promote a lenient view of the law and talked about giving first-time offenders a reasonable chance and so on, but at the same time complained constantly about the lightness of sentences handed out in the courts. Secondary Science Teacher . from the schools, pupils and their characteristics statistical release published each summer. (LogOut/ This view begs enormous questions about the nature of state education, the meaning of success and failure. Hackney Downs boys too.' by Vivian Usherwood. This claim has only been made recently. NATIONAL UNION OF TEACHERS Nationwide, more than a hundred schools got fewer A-C passes than Hackney Downs. The police visits did increase the students respect for the police as an institution and strengthened their views on law and order. He missed his coach back to London and when he eventually got back by train, had to spend two days in hospital. Pupils or their parents are able to claim free school meals if they The first school I went to there was the Secondary School by Hackney Downs, where most of the pupils had been evacuated to Norfolk to King Edward 7nth Grammer School. The police are a blatantly racist force and this is true, quite literally, from top to bottom. Other transport options . Parents and staff, governors and borough council shared that view. Just the heroic cops and robbers stuff that Hackney Police Station wants us to applaud. At the national level, the schools inspectorate carried out a survey of policing in schools and published their findings in a report called Police Liaison with the Education Service. Hackney Downs School was an 11-16 boys, community comprehensive secondary school in Lower Clapton, Greater London, England. Location: Enfield - easily accessible from central, north and east London, as well as surrounding areas. Hackney Downs School This page summarises records created by this Organisation The summary includes a brief description of the collection (s) (usually including the covering dates of the. Michael Barber conveniently ignores this history when he asserts that other schools had a similarly disadvantaged intake and problems. Things came to a head in the 1990s, when the school made national news by being described by the then Conservative government as the 'worst school in Britain'. Travelling by rail from central London: Our nearest overground station, Turkey Street, is a 10-minute walk from the school and stops at Seven Sisters, Stoke Newington, and Hackney Downs on the way to Liverpool Street. It has been replaced by the Mossbourne Community Academy. Original of a review by Tim Brighouse, Jun 1999, Articles on failing schools by Sally Tomlinson, Material relating to the Judicial Review of the closure judgement on Hackney Downs, including: transcript of the review, 12th Dec 1995; transcript of the appeal, [1996]; affadavits from Michael Stark, Sally Tomlinson; timeline and overview of the court case, Report of the North East London Education Association into Hackney Downs School, including reports on finance, administration and teaching, 1995, 'Schools in Hackney: some issues' - a report by HMI (1990), Correspondence from the Charity Commission relating to the charitable status of the school, 1995, Examples of letters to parents regarding alternative school places for HD pupils, Copy of Head's reports to governors, March 1995, Summary of the Ofsted Inspection Report, May 1995, Letter from Tony Burgess (Chair of Governors) giving details of the school's progress in implementing the Ofsted Action Plan, Apr 1995, Summary of verbal feedback from the HMI Review visit to Hackney Downs, Mar 1995, Correspondence concerning the proposed establishment of an Education Association to control HD, including copies of letters from the Secretary of State. Nursery age children were questioned by the police. Eventually, as a result of direct government pressure, the school was forced to close in 1995. The Police in inner city areas like Hackney are racist. Hackney Downs School was an 11-16 boys, community comprehensive secondary school in Lower Clapton, Greater London, England. He was a very good teacher and well respected by the East London community. Was this massive operation, all at the ratepayers expense, justified in the fight against crime? We can pinpoint some particular matters for concern; Given the present situtation in Hackney, with police behaving in an openly racist fashion, teachers who do not challenge their presence in school are put in the position of being seen by the students as colluding with the police. Printed by Community Press, 2a St Pauls Road, London N1. tenants lacked confidence in the staff, and therefore reported few attacks for example, the housing department had no records of racial incidents at Shadwell Gardens estate, but the Tenants association has records-of 111 incidents between June 81 and February 82. and 110 for the rest of 82 Subsequently, the Metropolitan Police policy of visiting every classroom once a year put increasing strain on the trust between pupils and teachers. In Hackney we have had direct experience of this. Find the travel option that best suits you. They appeared to promote the idea that baby-batterers were immoral slum-dwellers to be treated with contempt. The freedom with which police enter school premises staff rarely know when or why they are there and, unfortunately, few staff feel free to challenge their presence. The closure was not sympathetic euthanasia but premeditated murder by the Government with an instrument of its own creation . Average salary for Havant & South Downs College Business Teacher in Woodham Ferrers, England: [salary]. The opinion of the press is unsurprising given its relationship with the Government but claiming the support of the silent majority is a classic desperate last resort. I should warn readers that the text and images below include some examples of the polices racist language and racist behaviour. All maintained school governing bodies and academy trusts have a legal duty to provide all of the governance information requested on this page in so far as it is available to them. We of course believe that individual policemen often have an important role for small children who are lost or in trouble, and believe that children should continue to see them in this way and be able to talk to them in time of need. This is most instructive. Teachers, like all other predominantly white groups in our society, have had to take active steps to combat and outlaw racist behaviour, practices and ideas throughout the curriculum. Untouched by the amalgamations of local schools in the 1980s (from 16 to 10 secondary schools) its roll declined. It was initially a boys grammar school but became a comprehensive school in September 1974. This was particularly so in Hackney where the local police force has a brutal reputation and where black families have learned to their cost the police will not protect them from racial harassment and attack. Salary: Ark MPS or UPS (Outer London) 33,209- 44,274 or 46,477- 49,981, depending on experience. Tell that to Hackney LEA whose statistics from the last secondary review show it will need all of its 10 secondary schools by the end of the century. In the same way, the police are becoming increasingly active in the harassment and deportation of large numbers of black people. Terms such as monkeys, spooks and coons were widespread both in private conversation and on personal radio. No wonder then that when a researcher investigated attitudes amongst police trainees at the Peel Centre, Hendon, he found racism prevalent. Buy Hackney Downs: The School That Dared to Fight New by O'Connor, M., etc., Tomlinson, Sally, Hales, Elizabeth, Davies, Jeff (ISBN: 9780304707102) from Amazon's Book Store. Find the travel option that best suits you. HACKNEY TEACHERS ASSOCIATION, HACKNEY NUT PRESS STATEMENT ON POLICE IN SCHOOLS, After the death of Blair Peach in 1979 the association was so disturbed by the Metropolitan Police cover-up of his murder that we resolved that we did not want the Police in our schools. recalls when Centerprise started publishing poetry and autobiographical works by local school children: 'The teachers from Hackney Downs and all the other schools just fell . In such cases, the introduction of the police is not only a matter of concern at the time, but also raises the problem of false accusations remaining on both police and school file to blight a students subsequent career. Those pupils exposed to the programme did not seem to know a great deal more about the law than those with no exposure. At an infant school, the headmistress called in the police to deal with four black children between the ages of four and six, because they had money on them which she suspected they should not have.