Former Mossbourne students call for government inquiry into nationwide school practices

Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy. Image: Google

Parents and former students are campaigning for a national inquiry after practices such as public humiliation and excessive shouting were uncovered at a top Hackney school.

Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy (MVPA) was the subject of a Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review (LCSPR) published last month, which found the school’s “uncompromising culture” was, in some cases, “exacerbating mental health issues in pupils”.

The review heard from one teacher who claimed the mental health of students was considered “secondary to their academic outcomes”.

This was underpinned by a “no excuses” behaviour policy which reportedly saw staff members dole out harsh sanctions for what the review described as “minor infractions”.

Two former pupils claimed the impact of these harsh policies led them to self-harm, and one alleged they were made to feel they “didn’t deserve to live” because of their grades. A parent also told the review’s author, Sir Alan Wood CBE, their child was “absolutely petrified” to speak to staff during their time at school.

The review made a number of recommendations, including that the “no excuses'” attitude to behaviour should be replaced with “high expectations combined with genuine care, flexibility, and individualisation”.

Now former students and parents are calling for the government to take action to prevent future pupils from going through similar experiences at other schools, claiming former students are “still feeling the long-term impact” of their experiences.

A change.org petition calling for the inquiry has been set up by Andy Leary-May, a former Mossbourne parent, who in 2024 founded Educating Hackney to draw “attention to links between the way behaviour policies are implemented in some schools and potential consequences for children’s wellbeing”.

He told the Citizen: “The safeguarding review laid bare harmful practices at Mossbourne. Testimonies from adult former students now suggest these practices have been affecting children for nearly two decades.

“Mossbourne’s methods have been widely copied, raising serious questions about whether the same failures of governance and accountability are allowing similar harm to continue unchecked in other schools.

“As the body directly responsible for academies, the Department for Education must urgently examine how this harm was able to happen in plain sight for so long — and whether it is still happening in other schools.

“Vested interests and academy politics cannot be allowed to stand in the way of protecting children”.

Educating Hackney has also compiled anonymised testimonies from former pupils who attended Mossbourne outside the main scope of the review (incidents, rewards and sanctions were documented between 2022 and 2025), or who attended different Mossbourne schools

One, who attended Mossbourne Community Academy (MCA) from 2014-2021, said the school “cultivated a culture of fear” from the “very start” of their time there.

“My very first day I was screamed at for dropping a pen, having my elbows on the table and crying because I did not know my times tables. I was a well-behaved and good-mannered student and still their extreme discipline squeezed the life out of me”, the testimony read.

“Only now, three years after leaving Mossbourne, have I started to unlearn the deep anxiety and self-doubt which my school instilled in me. When I reflect on my experience at Mossbourne there is a lingering sense of sadness and worry”.

Another former student, now 30, said they felt ‘targeted’ during their three years at one of the Mossbourne schools.

“I was put in isolation by myself without explanation for whole days at a time and felt forgotten about sometimes”, they said. “I spent most of Year Ten isolated, not told why, and by myself for an unknown amount of time.

“I have countless stories and examples of foul treatment to me and many other students that I witnessed, including what felt like trigger happy expulsions and groups of minority ethnic working class boys of more than 5 being split up as gangs, whilst middle class white groups were not hassled.

“But mostly I remember a draconian school, not just strict (which is fine), but more so a culture where it felt to me like staff were encouraged to be bullies, to impose ridiculous, unnecessary powers over students to create fear”.

Mossbourne alumnus Nathan Creighton is now part of the maths department at Oxford University. He attended MCA and left in 2019, but he said the review ‘exactly’ encapsulated his experience.

Despite performing well academically — having achieved an A* in Maths GCSE at the age of 11 — he claims he was still subjected to harsh sanctions. This, he alleges, was often to do with his inability to perform certain manual tasks due to his mild cerebral palsy, such as being unable to complete a sewing assignment.

“I was a good student and I got detained”, he told the Citizen. “It doesn’t feel like they’ve taken any steps to improve things [since I left]. […] A lot of students aren’t doing well from the disciplinarian approach at Mossbourne”.

One former MCA parent — who has also worked in education and psychotherapy — claims her son started getting headaches and stomach aches because he was “very stressed by the pressure and extra work” he was expected to complete from the beginning of Year Seven.

“The practices revealed in the safeguarding review, shocking as they are, did not surprise me”, she told us. “They [the staff] have a narrative. They are right and parents and children are wrong and should be grateful to be there”.

At the time of writing, the petition — titled ‘Call for a national inquiry into school culture and child mental health’ — had garnered 497 signatures.

“We call on the government to conduct an inquiry into the effect that the rapidly changing environment in many schools has had on children’s mental health and development, and to act on the findings to protect all young people”, the petition reads.

“For over two decades, governments have presided over a largely unmonitored social experiment. A combination of increasingly punitive discipline, rising exam pressure and academy structures with limited accountability may be contributing to an escalating mental health crisis.

“Like a canary in a coal mine, the harm identified by the safeguarding review of one of the first academies [signifies] an urgent need for action. As adult former students still feeling the long-term impact of our experiences we believe voices like ours deserve to be heard”.

More information about the petition can be found here.

The Citizen has contacted Mossbourne for comment.