Morpeth School

Morpeth School is a comprehensive secondary school and sixth form located in Bethnal Green, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, England. The school serves nearly 1200 pupils.

History

The school was founded by London County Council in 1910 as a central school with the name Morpeth Street School. The school was enlarged in 1927 by taking over premises of a primary school in Portman Place. During WWII the school located to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. In the 1960's admission by selection was discontinued and the school became comprehensive. An ex-headteacher of the school, Alasdair Uist Macdonald, was knighted in the 2007 New Year Honours for services to education, with his extensive work on improving the school, by improving teaching skills and achievements by pupils in their SATs and GCSEs results.

Special guests who have visited Morpeth School have included Tony Blair the British Prime Minister who visited the school during his first month in office.

By 2007, Morpeth's pupils come from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds; over half are from Bangladeshi backgrounds, while one-third are white British.

The Bengali department developed in 2008 new materials for use at all levels in Bengali, which are made available to pupils from Year 8 to Year 9, or for GCSE. The subject is mainly chosen by Bangladeshi pupils, who mainly speak the Sylheti dialect.

In 2009, Ofsted highlighted Morpeth as one of twelve outstanding schools serving disadvantaged communities.

After attending the school end-of-year event in 2013, Church of England clergyman Hugh Rayment-Pickard praised the policy of giving certificates of achievement to all students, instead of holding prize-giving ceremonies to recognise only a small elite, and said that all Church of England schools should do the same. The school does have monthly awards for individuals.

Notable former teachers

The baritone and opera singer, Benjamin Luxon CBE, taught PE and English at Morpeth prior to the start of his singing career in 1962, Salman Noor in 2009 taught at Morpeth after teaching citizenship at Morpeth Sixth Form.

Ethnic groups

Morpeth School is located in a part of the East End where there are high numbers of people from many different backgrounds and cultures. Approximately half of all pupils have Bangladeshi heritage, about one third are white British and the remaining pupils are from a wide range of other minority ethnic backgrounds. The number of pupils who speak English as an additional language is quite high. The Ofsted report of 2004, based on the annual school census, showed 50% enrolled were Bangladeshi, 32% White, and 9% Afro Caribbean & mixed race and 9% somali.

Statistics

GCSE

Percentage of Pupils achieving the Level 2 threshold – equivalent to five GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and maths. In comparison with the Local Authority Average and the National Average:

Percentage of pupils achieving A*-C grades in GCSE since 1997. The year 1998 recorded the lowest achievement with only 29% pass-rate, and the year 2006 with the highest at 76% – a gain of 47%.