Three new free schools approved for Hackney
Education secretary Michael Gove
Education Secretary Michael Gove has today approved thirty-eight new free schools across the UK, three of which will be based in Hackney.
Hackney Wick Academy (HWA), Hackney New Primary School (HNPS) and Dalston Free Primary School are set to open in September 2015.
Hackney Wick Academy is a secondary school that will aim to accept 150 pupils from September 2015. Hackney New Primary School, an expansion of the existing Hackney New School, a secondary free school, will take 50 students at reception.
Free schools are independently-run and accountable directly to central government, rather than the local council.
Applications for free schools are submitted directly to the Department for Education. At the time of writing, Hackney Council was unable to comment on how many applications had been received for the borough, and how many places they will accomodate.
The next stages of the process will involve finding sites for each school.
Philippa De’Ath, Vice Chair of Governors at Hackney New School, said she was “delighted” with the announcement, adding that that team faces a “big task to get the right site.” The Hackney New Primary School team has its sights set on the former fire station on Kingsland Road, next door to Hackney New School.
Yemi Apampa, programme director of Debate Mate, the educational charity behind Hackney Wick Academy, said: “We’re pleased to have a vote of confidence from the Department of Education in support of our vision for the Hackney Wick Academy and we’re looking forward to moving on to the next stage in this exciting process.”
Hackney Council’s newly-appointed Cabinet Member for Children’s Service, Councillor Antoinette Bramble said: “We’ve always been very open to innovation within education, and the phenomenal improvements seen in our schools over the last decade are testament to that.”
“We work closely with all of the schools in Hackney and we look forward to supporting any free schools which open in our borough. They join a family of schools with high aspirations for all of Hackney’s young people.”
Great news and good luck to them. Anything that breaks the monopoly of Hackney Council and the “Learning” Trust can only be a good thing.
Brilliant news!!!!
Like Matt I agree we need diversity not HLT mediocrity.
We need more schools to be independent of the learning trust. Good luck to these new schools.
Phenomenal improvements? Look at how theyve treated the betty layward school. Disgrace.
They’ve destroyed the team @ betty layward.
A man with no experience of teaching appoints those with no experience of teaching to manage untrained teachers.
It’s certainly going to phenomenal.
No wonder they need this bogus rhetoric of freedom and independence.
But if it all goes wrong they can still send in the army…
A new kind of Trust is this school.. more trust fund than trust with education. Did they consult anyone, nope! This crowd are set up as a charitable trust on the surface and run by private investors.
Profit over children, watch what they do next and see how diverse the intake will be to this “free” state school….
On my comment I was referring to Dalston Free Primary above. Part of Bellevue Education/Place Group, got given two other free schools in this round without any engagement with the local communities.
please read views of Black, Asian Minority Ethnic and Refugee parents on Hackney Schools, many parents feel unwelcome, excluded from many of the schools. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B02-Bp9RiFoJOFctVkdwVnpPbmRyUXBzbVZNODl1SUc3bHFF/edit?pli=1 …
Parents were valued at betty layward by the current black headmistress. But no doubt we will see her replaced despite protests.
Why is she being replaced and by whom? If parents are not happy have they complained to Ofsted or Learning Trust?