The first question the researchers wanted to ask was What did the children learn from the police visits? The answer, so far as knowledge of the law is concerned, is absolutely nothing. HACKNEY TEACHERS ASSOCIATION NUT 23rd July 1982. The Scarman report on Brixton called for the Police to outlaw racist practice and behaviour in the police force. The list People educated at Hackney Downs Schoolincludes The list consists of 39 members. Michael Barber claims there was no alternative to closure (The school that had to die, TES, November 17). As the researchers noted, the police exhibited a level of emotional reaction that would make it very difficult for any teenagers who might subsequently become child-abusing parents to face up to the problem effectively. The police are a blatantly racist force and this is true, quite literally, from top to bottom. This is astonishing for a body with a team of inspectors at its disposal and which normally bases its reports on minute examination of what goes on in schools. As many children have experienced the more worrying aspects of Police activity either directly or via elder brothers and sisters*. 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 use every possible opportunity to make their presence felt in the schools and, it has to be admitted, wherever the NUT are not actively enforcing their policy, the police take the opportunity to come into the schools. The early 1990s were a more troubled period. and articles by former pupils, members of the Clove Club, Old Boys Association This record is held by Hackney Archives See contact details; Details of 2013/23; Reference: 2013/23 . At that time the ILEA supported the policy and instructed their Heads to co-operate with the police. But Professor Barber goes further and swallows wholesale Government assertions about surplus places, claiming that even after the closure of Hackney Downs there will be 1,700 spare places in the boroughs secondary schools. For example, the essays written by trainees were typified by such passages as,Quite frankly I dont particularly have any liking whatsoever for Wogs, nig nogs and Pakies. "Grocers" was an imposing Gothic building wedged between two railway lines feeding into the commercial heart of the City. the annual spring school census. The commitment of the Metropolitan Police to visit every classroom once a year can only be viewed as a cynical PR exercise, while at the same time in the community and on the streets Instant Response squads operate with a heavy hand towards all black people. 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. The education associations own verdict was that there were some excellent lessons, a majority were satisfactory and a few were poor. The intimidating atmosphere that police can produce in a school, both for children and staff. For live arrivals, status information, route maps and timetables. This field does not show pupils who actually received free school meals So, as far as education is concerned, the reports findings were that the police were ineffective teachers, and suggested a number of reasons as to why this might be the case. In fact in common law teachers are in loco parentis. Our outstanding curriculum is built around 'The City Experience' which . No other had such disproportionately high numbers of children with special needs, educational and behavioural problems and second language needs. NATIONAL UNION OF TEACHERS The lack of information available to parents about those occasions when the police are routinely in schools. Our community is . Hackney Downs School was an 1116 boys, community comprehensive secondary school in Lower Clapton, Greater London, England. But it needs to be stressed that the panels will bring more young people than ever into contact with the criminal justice system, on the basis of police evidence, and that they provide the opportunity for the cross-classifying of information on young people by all the various institutions involved. 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 London School | Hackney Downs School | British Education | TN-SL-142-016 | 1987 - YouTube 0:00 / 1:31 London School | Hackney Downs School | British Education | TN-SL-142-016 | 1987 Thames. One example is police getting in touch with the parents of children who expressed hostile attitudes during a police presentation in school. All structured data from the main, Property, Lexeme, and EntitySchema namespaces is available under the Creative Commons CC0 License; text in the other namespaces is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.By using this site, you agree to the Terms of . But what is the reality? The school was not complacent. They must start by tackling racism in the force. Excellent classroom teacher, or potential to be one, with the ability to reflect on lessons and continually improve their own practice Effective and systematic behaviour management, with clear. Other transport options . 1 History. In one school the police got from the school the names and addresses of all the black boys in the first year. Untouched by the amalgamations of local schools in the 1980s (from 16 to 10 secondary schools) its roll declined. One vivid part of the Hillingdon report describes police officers giving their views on baby-battering, which they strongly connected with single parent families and dirty neighbourhoods. Shop-keepers were warned by police to be on their guard against pickpockets; local residents were told burglaries and muggings were up. Save up to 30% when you upgrade to an image pack. Hackney Downs was a victim of its own success. (LogOut/ The jurors said they were deeply distressed by police behaviour. During the 1980s Hackney Downs School had been above average or average in the Inner London Education Authority exam rankings. some staff members may have sympathised with the views, if not the methods used by the attackers (British TV series) participants, Members of the Fabian Society Executive Committee, People educated at Belle Vue Boys' Grammar School, Bradford, International opponents of apartheid in South Africa. Downs Park Road, Clapton, London, E5 8NP Local authority Hackney (204) Headteacher / Principal Age range 11 to 16 Phase of education Secondary School type Community school Gender of entry. The causes of baby-battering are complex and an important part of teaching on the subject should presumably be directed at offering help to students who might find themselves in stressful situations with young children in future lives and who would need help. on many occasions housing officers would refuse to take action because they believed Bengalis were dishonestly trying to get a transfer. Many work against the odds but they are unlikely ever to achieve the results of those with more favoured catchment areas until children come to them with the same advantage of emotional stability, facility with language and encouragement from home. In our opinion, it is quite out of order that the police should have such direct access to information about children without their parents being aware of it, and it is outrageous that a boy can be picked up by the police in this way without his parents being made aware of it prior to the event. It is obvious that teachers cannot allow such events to occur. It is time for some joined-up thinking on inner city education.Maureen O'ConnorOxford, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Hackney Downs, formerly the Grocers' Company School, was established as a new middle-class day school for boys in 1876. In 1979 the Hackney branch of the National Union of teachers (HTA) started a policy of non-co-operation with the police. Michael Barber talks fatalistically about why the school had to die, without acknowledging the sure signs of life and progress the school exhibited to any unbiased observer. So far we have shown that the police abuse their powers of access to schools and threaten the civil liberties of children in doing so. *Similarly police taking social or community studies in secondary schools is not acceptable. We say that if the Police will not take on their own racism Hackney teachers should have nothing to do with them. Secondly, police officers have no special expertise on the cases of the crimes and offences they deal with. Despite long-standing inequalities, trends since the war have shown improvement - in numbers staying on, in exam passes, in literacy and other areas. As teachers and trade unionists we find ourselves unable to accept the level of racism found throughout the Metropolitan Police. It has been replaced by the Mossbourne Community Academy. Hackney Downs Schoolwas an 11-16 boys, communitycomprehensivesecondary schoolin Lower Clapton, Greater London, England. Learn how and when to remove this template message, Stanley Clinton Davis, Baron Clinton-Davis, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hackney_Downs_School&oldid=1138809857, Former buildings and structures in the London Borough of Hackney, Defunct schools in the London Borough of Hackney, Educational institutions established in 1876, Educational institutions disestablished in 1995, Articles with dead external links from February 2023, Articles with permanently dead external links, Short description is different from Wikidata, Infobox mapframe without OSM relation ID on Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from August 2020, All articles needing additional references, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from February 2018, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Eric Hollingsworth, Head Coach, Australian Athletics, Paul Dean CB, Director National Physical Laboratory 1977-90, Michael Goldstein CBE, Vice-Chancellor of. Hackney Downs had neither this time nor the much needed capital investment. The Hackney Teachers Association arranged a picket outside the police station to try to persuade the Headteachers not to attend the meeting. The school was confident of moving forward. Later he was exonerated of any blame for the affair. Help with number of pupils eligible for free school meals field, Help with percentage of children eligible for free school meals field, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-protection-and-privacy-privacy-notices (opens in new tab). The majority of pupils do not go on to higher education. National Rail services are also a 10-minute walk and stop at Tottenham Hale and Hackney Downs before finishing at Liverpool Street. It is a pity that the lecturer who exposed this, John Fernandez, did not get the support of his national union, NATFHE, and as a result lost his job. Its contents suggest the six-person hit squad swallowed Government propaganda on surplus places and were given a heavy briefing along the lines of dont support the school if its not financially viable. feedback The school was labelled a failure and since failure is unacceptable, it must close. For example, in Edith Cavell School a boy was accused of the theft of a wallet and the police were involved in the investigation without the childs mother, his only parent, being informed. Even Lord Scarmans recommendations for an independent complaints procedure were rejected by the Home Office and the Police Federation. However, the report makes no attempt to distinguish between the educative and policing tasks of the police we saw how this same problem came up in the Hillingdon Report and the Inspectors are not in the slightest concerned about the potential difficulties; for example, they say at one point: Police forces generally attach considerable importance to the advantages to be gained through unofficial contact with schools. 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. (Published by Cassell, 1999), Newspaper articles about the school and the book (including letters exchanged in the TES between Michael Barber and Sally Tomlinson), Letters from B G Bass (member of Education Association), John Kemp (former Head), Tony Burgess (Chair of Governors) and other staff related to Hackney Downs. The familys two children, Senep and Fatih, were born and had only lived in this country. Change). This history is not an excuse but an explanation. And in fact, the police are the last people to be able to take an all-round view on such a question. The closure was not sympathetic euthanasia but premeditated murder by the Government with an instrument of its own creation . He was a tall man who suffered from malaria and had a great passion for poetry and dramatic literature. In almost messianic tone he argued that 1995 represented a seismic culture shift where failure accepted for 150 years in publicly provided education, would no longer be tolerated. Hackney Downs was a victim of its own success. Location: Enfield - easily accessible from central, north and east London, as well as surrounding areas. The report found the search, without another adult present, was unjustified and. This is an insult to the vast majority of parents, the governors, teachers, the two local MPs, the wider community (2,500 signatures collected) and the council who wanted to keep the school open. Salary: Ark MPS or UPS (Outer London) 33,209- 44,274 or 46,477- 49,981, depending on experience. Requires checking for potential data protection and legal issues.