Highbury Grove School

Highbury Grove School is a co-educational comprehensive secondary school in the London Borough of Islington. It covers the age range 11 to 18 inclusive and currently has about 1,100 pupils. It is classified as a Community School, specialising in business, enterprise studies and music . The head teacher is Tom Sherrington who took over from previous headteacher Henry Jones.[1] Well over half of the pupils have been assessed with learning difficulties, disabilities, or literacy, dyslexia or language needs. A sizeable proportion of pupils have English as second language. Over half the pupils are from Black Caribbean, Black African and Bangladeshi groups and about one third of pupils from Turkish and other minority ethnic groups. In its latest Ofsted report (May 2010) the school was described as "outstanding" and significantly improved over the previous five years, but standards were still below national average in English, mathematics and science in Year 9.[2] The school moved into a new, modern building on the same site in December 2009.

History

Highbury Grove School began life as an all-boys comprehensive in 1967. The founding headmaster was Dr Rhodes Boyson. It was created out of three former boys' schools in the area, Highbury Grammar School, Barnsbury Boys' School, and Laycock School, as part of a comprehensivisation scheme by the then Inner London Education Authority.[3] Boyson introduced a regime of strict discipline, including caning for misbehaviour. Excellent academic results were achieved, and the school was soon heavily oversubscribed.[3]

Boyson left in 1974 after being elected a Conservative MP; in the 1980s he was to become an education minister under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Media coverage

In April 2005 Highbury Grove was featured on an episode of the Channel 4 television series Dispatches called "Undercover Teacher". The programme exposed some of the 'appalling behaviour' by pupils. The school and many other outside sources have disputed the findings of Alex Dolan, a qualified science teacher who went undercover at schools in Leeds and London.

Notable former pupils

FM James (Jimmy) Adams - chess FIDE master and book author/former 20 year editor of CHESS magazine

References

  1. ↑ "About us". Highbury Grove School. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
  2. ↑ Ofsted page for Highbury Grove.
  3. 1 2 Rhodes Boyson, Oversubscribed: The Story of Highbury Grove School, London, 1974. ISBN 0-7062-3385-9

External links

Official website

Coordinates: 51°32′58″N 0°05′51″W / 51.5495°N 0.0974°W / 51.5495; -0.0974

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