Deprived Hackney's education revolution can help Scotland break link between poverty and poor exam results – Sarah Atkin

More than 60 per cent of sixth-formers at Mossbourne Community Academy won a place at a Russell Group university last year

This year represents a significant anniversary for England’s education system. On September 1, 2004, New Labour’s first ‘city academy’ opened its doors. Mossbourne Community Academy, in the London borough of Hackney, was built on the site of the former Hackney Downs Grammar, which boasted Harold Pinter among its alumni but, by the 1990s, made national headlines as “Britain’s worst comprehensive”. It closed in 1995.

I declare a personal interest. I lived in Hackney in the 1990s. Hackney Downs school was near my flat. When it closed, I regularly walked past the sad-looking building and thought how fantastic it would be if somebody were to build an amazing school here. A few years later, this became a reality.

First, some context. The city academy ‘model’ was the Blair government’s radical attempt at structural reform of non-selective, comprehensive education. The political debate was, in a nutshell, whether a high deprivation/low attainment correlation was inevitable. Should this orthodoxy be challenged by putting educators in the driving seat?

Education in Hackney had already been removed from local authority control. By 2002, the not-for-profit Learning Trust was awarded a ten-year contract to manage the borough’s education, a UK first. Hackney was the place to try something new.

Mossbourne’s lasting success

Mossbourne Community Academy had a lot riding on it as “the first”. The school was sponsored by the late Sir Clive Bourne, a local businessman turned philanthropist who believed passionately in the potential of Hackney’s children. The award-winning building was designed by Sir Richard Rogers; the educational philosophy and vision was very much that of the first Principal, Sir Michael Wilshaw.

Unlike the 1990s, the first cohort at Mossbourne made headlines for achieving some of the best GCSE results in England at that, or any, time. Two years later, this was repeated with A-level results. Pupils from Hackney had offers from Oxbridge and other Russell Group universities. It’s hard to comprehend the impact this had.

Some cynics put the success story down to Sir Michael’s brilliance and the money invested. Here’s the thing, though. Almost 20 years after it opened its doors, and long after he stepped down, Mossbourne continues its story of outstanding success, with the subsequent principals custodians of an incredible legacy.

I visited the school recently to see for myself, having followed the Mossbourne, and Hackney, stories with interest over the years. Over 40 per cent of Mossbourne pupils are in receipt of free school meals, yet the Progress 8 ‘value added’ score for the school is 1.23, meaning pupils will achieve at least one grade higher in each qualification at GCSE than others with similar academic starting points. Its Attainment 8 score is 63.5 per cent, the English average, 46.2 per cent. Essentially, by every performance measure, disadvantaged pupils at Mossbourne significantly outperform non-disadvantaged pupils in the rest of England (astonishingly, disadvantaged children across Hackney outperform non-disadvantaged children in the rest of England too).

Strict expectations of behaviour

Of last year's sixth-form leavers, 16 secured an Oxbridge place and 62 per cent a Russell Group university place, including eight medics. The school offers a broad curriculum alongside many extra-curricular opportunities. I saw some incredible artwork and terrific musical facilities. There is also first-class provision for special educational needs and disabilities, with autism a specialism.

The current principal’s career had been nurtured through Mossbourne. I was shown round by her assistant and a former pupil, who now worked in the school. His insights, from the perspective of adulthood, were fascinating. The school is strict. Incredibly so, by most liberal sensibilities. As a teenager, he found the expectations of behaviour, and the rigour, difficult. It took time to learn why this did have a purpose. Despite the struggle, he knew the teachers had his back. That’s what made the difference in him embracing education.

Mossbourne’s philosophy does have its critics. This piece is not to advocate for a right or wrong way to run a school. My key point is that there is a diversity of provision in England. Could there ever be a Mossbourne, or similar in Scotland? The academy ‘model’ was all about educators being given operational and professional independence, including the freedom to recruit (surely a no-brainer?). If we invest in our teachers and school leaders then what sense is there in ‘boxing’ them in? They need maximum creative freedom to do their job.

Being an academy school is, of course, not a panacea. Given 80 per cent of schools in England are now academy schools, there will be successful and less successful schools. This, however, is surely a better problem to have than a system that is formally equitable – everything the same – but with inequitable outcomes.

The wider Hackney education story over the past 25 years is also truly remarkable. Its educational performance now ranks amongst the very best in the UK. The borough has a high child poverty ranking and yet it is significantly less deprived in the education domain (at 229th place). So, this education revolution has broken the correlation between poverty and low educational attainment.

As Scotland comes to terms with its international Pisa scores, I feel we can learn from England’s experience of the past 20 years. The good and not-so-good. Our reform agenda over a similar timeframe has not delivered on its promise. The evidence is screaming this reality at us. Is it standards or structures holding us back? Was it the imposition of a philosophy and a pedagogy from 'on high’ that is strangling the creative potential of our educators to do their job? Should the bureaucracy just get out of the way more?

I do not pretend to know the answers, but perhaps a good starting point would be to allow our teachers and head teachers to speak openly and publicly about how education looks from their vantage point. Transformation is possible. Hackney has proved it.

Sarah Atkin is a member of the Commission on School Reform and an independent Highland councillor. This article is her personal opinion