Hackney New School

Hackney New School’s curriculum focuses on the core subjects of the English Baccalaureate, Music and additional options such as French and Art, providing all our pupils with the opportunity to take at least ten GCSEs and four A levels. Our emphasis is to provide your children with an outstanding academic education, to teach them to think independently and develop a sense of responsibility for the society in which we live. In this way, we will prepare them as well as possible for a challenging and interesting life.

The School will reach full capacity of 700 students by 2019 and now occupies new, state-of-the-art buildings close to Haggerston Station in Hackney. The School was oversubscribed when it opened and HNS was rated “good” with outstanding features at its first Ofsted inspection in June 2015. We opened an oversubscribed primary school in 2015, which will shortly move to brand new premises adjacent to the senior school.

The School’s dedicated and gifted staff team of subject specialists have been instrumental in its development. They have benefitted from strong leadership, a clear shared vision, robust systems of training and support, and the opportunity for rapid progression.

Our objective at Hackney New School is to equip students with the intellectual and emotional tools they need to lead an interesting, rewarding and diverse life.

Hackney New School is unique for its innovative Core programme and ‘extended day’. Our “Core” programme aims to teach students about some of the worlds biggest philosophical questions. Students taking the “Core” are encouraged to develop their critical enquiry skills through the examination of key questions concerning science, history, religion and social issues. We aim to deliver a holistic and well-rounded education to all our students which is why we have opening hours from 7.55am (optional breakfast club from 7.30am) until 4pm and interventions and enrichments on offer from 4pm until 5:30pm. Our timetable has been designed to offer students the very best mix of class lessons, group work and co-curricular activities to deliver a truly inspiring and enriching education. Our class sizes are small to enable teachers to work with each pupil closely, concentrating on their individual educational needs.

Our brand new buildings are located on the canal basin in Haggerston giving excellent access to residents of Hackney as well as East/South-East Islington. We hope you will be able to join us at one of our open days to see the School in action and hear about our plans which include our primary school which opened in September 2015 We are very excited to be able to offer a unique alternative for the education of your children and cannot wait to show you around our wonderful new buildings.

If everyone at HNS wanted to go to Oxford or Cambridge, and succeeded in doing so because of the education and grades they achieve at Hackney New School, we would be delighted. However, we are more interested in developing certain faculties that we believe are required to lead a good life regardless of whether they are being put to use at university or in some other walk of life – for instance, an ability to think critically, solve problems, and understand how and why others may have very different beliefs than oneself. If we achieve this, we will have delivered a very good education to HNS’s students.

We are proud and delighted to introduce you to Hackney New Sixth Form – a new Sixth Form for Hackney.Our core vision is to provide students with access to the widest range of opportunities in life by fostering academic excellence and instilling self-belief, intellectual curiosity and responsibility towards others in society.We offer a challenging and interesting A-level curriculum which will provide outstanding teaching and learning opportunities from an experienced and highly motivated staff. We have the knowledge and experience to help your son/daughter achieve their full academic and personal potential to enable them to pursue their interests at the highest level and join an outstanding university in the UK or abroad.

Hackney New School focuses on personalised learning for our students and this flexibility is enabled through our extended school day. The extended school day (particularly the Study Afternoon) provides the opportunity for further enrichment and development of student skills and knowledge through their individual Personalised Learning Plans.

Through our students’ personalised learning plans, Hackney New School is able to offer an extensive range of support and enrichment activities to support and challenge our students. The personalised learning sessions for students requiring support include small group lessons in areas such as literacy, numeracy or social skills. The following is an example of the Summer Term support programme currently on offer to our students.
The Library at HNS currently has 3700 fiction and non-fiction books housed in a light airy room on the third floor of the main Canal Building. The library is managed by two librarians with the support of a rota of Year 7 student librarians.

In keeping with the school’s core beliefs of academic excellence, intellectual curiosity, responsibility and self-belief, the library provides students and staff with a wide range of educational and recreational books and magazines designed to support the needs of all users, from ‘quick reads’ – that is, shorter simpler books aimed at teenagers – through to classics in beautiful hardback editions which students are encouraged to tackle to challenge themselves. The primary focus of the library is to foster a love of reading for pleasure within every student.

Years 7-9 have a library lesson in the library every week in which they are encouraged to browse the shelves, choose books of interest and enjoy some unfettered reading time. A librarian is on hand throughout, to guide reading choices, make recommendations and, at the end of the period, lead a short literary appreciation discussion.

There is an online catalogue (the Web OPAC) accessible from any computer within school. Students and staff can search for books and websites by title, author, subject or keyword. The catalogue homepage is regularly updated with news items, such as Author of the Week, book lists under subjects and links to online resources. Users can also log on to their own area of the catalogue and see their borrowing history, review, reserve or renew their books, and create book lists.

The library hosts weekly ‘reading buddies’ sessions during which year 9 volunteers read with year 7 students, supporting them with their literacy and helping them find books at their level. Year 9 reading buddy volunteers undergo training to help prepare them for this important role. We are in the process of setting up a formal arrangement with the international publisher Hachette; a project which they will facilitate to encourage reading for pleasure amongst all of our students, including those who struggle with reading.

There are two types of school policies, statutory ones which exist across all schools and non-statutory ones which may be similar between similar schools. There is a review cycle for policies to make sure their relevance is maintained. If you require a translated version please contact the school office and we will do our best to help.