About Hackney

Hackney is a vibrant, multi-cultural inner London borough with people from a wide range of different cultures and speaking many languages.

It is located to the north-east of the City of London and is one of the smallest London boroughs. Hackney has a population of just over 208,000 with children and young people making up just over a quarter of the population. There are over 80 schools and colleges in the borough.

Hackney is also the most deprived local authority area in England¹, with 89% of its areas in the top 20% most deprived in the country. More than half (54%) of its areas are in the top 10% most deprived in England. Over a third of children and young people are dependent on someone claiming income support and almost half of the children in Hackney live in over-crowded households.

Though figures are improving, educational achievement of young people in Hackney schools remains below the national and London averages. In 2004, only 45.1% of students achieved 5 A*-C grades at GCSE level, compared to 53.7% nationally.

Key factors which are recognised as barriers to pupil achievement nationally present a particular challenge in Hackney. These factors include socio-economic disadvantage, high levels of mobility and low levels of fluency in English. 53% of Hackney’s primary school pupils speak English as an additional language and 44% of secondary pupils. However, those that are fluent in English as an additional language achieve more highly on average than those pupils who only speak English. 21% of the school population in the borough have identified special educational needs that make it harder for them to learn than most children of the same age.

The majority of Hackney’s school leavers, nearly 80% continue in education after the age of 16, but only 12.9% of 18 year olds in Hackney go on to higher education, compared to 21.4% nationally. Around a third of school leavers go on to follow vocational qualifications and just under a third do A levels.

¹ based on the average ranks of the seven domains in the 2004 Indices of Deprivation published by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.