Hackney Downs: The School that Dared to Fight and Didn’t Deserve to Die

Speakers: Betty Hales and Jeff Davies, the last Head and Deputy Head of Hackney Downs School.
In July 1995, Hackney Downs School won a prolonged battle to stay open, against a corrupt, incompetent Local Education Authority, convincing the full council to vote against the recommendation of its own Chief Education Officer: an amazing victory, yet just ten days later it was taken over by the East London Education Association, a quango set up by the then failing Tory government, desperate to put the blame for all social ills on anyone but itself. The school was closed with unseemly haste & callous cruelty to pupils, parents & staff. This is a story of loyalty and passion against injustice which set the scene for the negative blame culture of bureaucracy, target setting & over-testing that has plagued education for the past 25 years. The book by Betty, Jeff, Sally Tomlinson and Maureen O’Connor describes what happened: Hackney Downs: The School that Dared to Fight.