- guardian.co.uk, Friday September 17 1999 17.51 BST
I have just spent three years working on a book with the last head and deputy of Hackney Downs School which closed at the end of 1995, pilloried by the then government, its education association and sections of the media as the worst school in Britain. Hackney Downs in fact took the most impoverished children in the most impoverished borough in England. It was ill-served by those who blamed it for the problems of its desperately difficult intake and who allowed its buildings to fall into squalor.
A fanatical pursuit of half-understood theories of school improvement by a Tory government with a political axe to grind was understandable. For the present government to continue in the same vein is unforgivable. Schools cannot compensate for the problems of society. 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. Unrealistic expectations result in excluded children, burnt-out teachers, unjustified school closures and disillusion amongst poor families who do want their children to succeed.
We all want higher standards for our children, no one more than the ex-Hackney Downs teachers I have met, most of whom have moved on to successful careers elsewhere. It is time for some joined-up thinking on inner city education.
Maureen O'Connor
Oxford
