Alan Wood promises a radical change for Hackney schools

When people talk about struggling inner-city authorities, it won't be long before the east London borough of Hackney is mentioned.

And that stereotype was dusted down and given an another airing when Hackney's MP, Diane Abbott, decided to send her son to a private school, rather than a local comprehensive.

Local schools might have felt that it was more a case of being dusted down and given another kicking - as the politician's decision once again prompted a re-running of the authority's educational underachievements and social problems.

This was the authority where last year less than one in three pupils achieved the benchmark of five good GCSE-level qualifications. It is stuck in the exam league table relegation zone.

Fast rising

This was the area where the outlook for schools was so bleak the government shut down the education authority and gave the responsibility to someone else.

Hackney education is now being run by a not-for-profit company

But the current position of Hackney's schools - and its substantial programme of reform - shows how much can change and how much the achievements of authorities are shaped by the decisions of its own parents.

Because alongside the doom-laden picture, it is also the case that the next set of exam results will show that GCSE scores are rising more quickly here than almost anywhere else in the country.

The provisional figures show that the proportion of pupils getting five good GCSEs or GNVQs has risen from 31% to 39% in a single year (compared to a national average above 50%).

The not-for-profit company with a 10-year contract to run Hackney schools, the Learning Trust, has ambitious ideas for reform.

Its chief executive, Alan Wood, says there are plans for four new schools, including three city academies, by 2006 - the type of change "that hasn't been seen in the area's schools since the 1900s".

Parents' confidence

Every one of its secondary schools will have specialist status.

The authority wants to open the first music and maths specialist schools

The authority has to win the confidence of parents, he says, and the re-invention of the local school system aims to be radical.

Among the new specialisms for schools will be "music and maths" and "health and medicine", both of which will break new ground nationally as well as in the capital.

The reason that the authority needs to regain the trust of parents isn't just about any feelgood factor. It's because at present about 40% of the borough's parents send their children to private schools or to other boroughs - and inevitably local schools suffer.

Hackney's social profile Second poorest area in country 30% of adults have no qualifications 80% pupils ethnic minority 43% pupils eligible for free school meals 53% pupils speak English as second language

And Mr Wood says with some pleasure that the first city academy planned for the authority has had 600 applications for 180 places - with the vast majority of applicants coming from within the borough.

"Parents are very intelligent, very good at smelling out what's working and not working," he says, and the prospect of more parents queuing to send their children to local schools will reverse a recent history of under-performing schools with places to spare.

'Too much sociology'

Hackney has more social problems than most parts of the country. But Mr Wood says that they must not be used as a reason for not raising standards.

In the past, he says, Hackney suffered from too much focusing on the problems of deprivation, "too much indulgence in sociology", rather than getting on with the task of giving children a good education.

"The failure of that analysis, [where deprivation is the reason for educational failure] is that it still leaves children without the skills they need. It keeps them in an educational poverty trap."

But it is still worth looking at the social context of pupils at school in the borough.

Poor attendance

It's the second poorest area in England, more than two out of five pupils qualify for free school meals, more than half have English as a second language, four out of five pupils are black or ethnic minority.

Schools, which have among the worst attendance records in the country, also have problems with high pupil turnover, with some primary schools having classes where three-quarters of pupils did not start in the same school.

Among the reasons given by Diane Abbott for opting out of Hackney state schools was the poor academic of black boys.

Mike Tomlinson, the trust's chairman and former chief inspector of schools, has said that this underachievement is not acceptable, but that it is at least now the case that only 2% of black boys leave Hackney schools without any qualifications.

There are also wider efforts to offer more support for pupils, such as the "extended school" concept, where schools offer a broader range of social services - and practical benefits such as a quiet place for pupils to work in the evening after lessons have finished.

But whatever schools are labelled, or no matter what initiatives are launched and regardless of the politics, Alan Wood says that for parents there are more pressing questions: is it a good school and is there a place for my child?