I’m eavesdropping on three teenagers engaging in a light-hearted history debate. “Henry VIII didn’t go mad,” one student says matter-of-factly. “He just had lots of wives.” “Well, he did kill two of them,” the other retorts.
There is no teacher here to guide the conversation, no revision timetable to follow; they are simply having a chat for fun. The discussion moves on. Was the Roman Emperor Nero mad? They pass this idea between themselves for a few moments until one says with a tone of finality: “I don’t actually like Roman history.”
I shouldn’t be surprised by this casual display of intellectual curiosity from a trio of 17-year-olds – I am, after all, sitting in the London Academy of Excellence (LAE), one of the most academically rigorous schools in the country, with an A*-A attendance of 74 per cent in 2024. It rivals Eton, which has an attainment record of 78 per cent.
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And yet we couldn’t be further from the leafy grounds of Eton College. We are on a noisy main road in Newham, one of London’s most deprived neighbourhoods. This sixth-form school is a faded yellow former office block; the pavement directly outside is busy with pedestrians, making their way to the even busier Stratford tube station just five minutes away. More than half (51 per cent) of the students who attend this sixth form are eligible for free school meals and seven per cent have experienced homelessness.
“We are one of the few schools that regularly provide Oxford and Cambridge with children who are being looked after by the local authority,” explains Alex Crossman, the head teacher at LAE, as we sit in his office on a quiet Wednesday.
Most of the teenagers who attend LAE didn’t think university was for them when they joined, yet they are now on course to attend the most sought after universities in the world; 62 of its 257 students won a place at Oxbridge or Cambridge this year; 43 won a place to study medicine or veterinary science, and 234 won a place at a Russell Group University. The school is selective and focuses on accepting students from less affluent backgrounds. In 2025, it received almost 7,000 applications for just 375 places.
Patricia Branco’s son originally planned to do a degree apprenticeship when he applied for LAE. A year later, he has a place at Oxford to study economics and management. He had always been bright, Branco tells me. “In primary school, he won a prize for the highest SAT grades of anyone in his year, and yet he did not feel confident,” she says. “He didn’t feel like he would fit in at LAE. But then, with all the guidance that the teachers gave him, his confidence grew so much. They really guided him to apply to Oxford and pushed him to think deeply. They told him to aim high.”
Branco, from Leyton, is a single parent. “We are from a poor background,” she says. “I don’t know anyone with a child studying at Oxford. I didn’t know anything about the interviews or the process.” She remembers being extremely nervous the morning he headed to Oxford for the final round of the application: the college interviews. She is emotional as she reflects. “I could not be more proud of my child.”
This sixth-form college doesn’t look much like a school – until recently, it wasn’t one. It was founded in 2012, the year the Olympics were hosted in Stratford, just a stone’s throw away from its front entrance. The red tangled tower – the ArcelorMittal Orbit- is visible from its classroom windows. It was set up with funding from six independent schools, including Eton. It has had the resources and vision to pioneer the sort of academic achievement unattainable to most state schools.
“We have a joke here at the school – you can never leave a whiteboard out because you will come back after break and it will have lots of equations on it,” says Crossman, who has been head teacher for five years. He was brought in to shake up the school, having turned around the outcomes of another school in south London. A former financier, he became a teacher on a fast stream programme, and it shows.
Crossman speaks more frankly than other head teachers I’ve come across; less afraid of risk. “I get slightly irritated by the phrase ‘A-level curriculum,’” he says. “We have a curriculum that results in students being awarded A-levels, but it’s not really the same thing.” He is referring to the extensive “electives” pupils have to take if they attend LAE. “Our students don’t really need extra qualifications to get into university. It’s much more about broadening their academic horizons and making them more rounded, more interesting and interested people,” he says.
Eleanor Peake visited LAE on a quiet Wednesday during mock exam week (Photo: Teri Pengilley)
The “electives” on offer range from Ancient Greek, jurisprudence, stolen histories, Model UN, Italian, computer science, and philosophy. LAE doesn’t let teenagers who already love maths choose further maths as an elective. “We would tell them, you’re going to do linguistics because, actually, it’s completely outside of your comfort zone,” he explains. “It will be interesting. It’ll be different.”
I’m most impressed by what Crossman dubs the “Futures Programme”.
“How do you provide students who have received, if I’m blunt, no careers information, or actively poor careers information, an overview of the opportunities available to them?” The majority of year 12 is spent addressing this challenge.
The school pairs children with professional mentors for a year to teach them the reality of working in a variety of aspirational industries, such as engineering or medicine. “They get to learn what that career is like. What does it actually require? What would my day-to-day existence be? And, bluntly, how do I build a network that is going to be just as helpful as if I had attended an independent school?” says Crossman.
As we sit in his office just before breaktime, he tells me about a pivotal moment. In his first year at LAE, one student managed to get into Cambridge against all odds. They were neglected at home, with a father who was terminally ill and an abusive brother struggling with drug addiction. Crossman feels that he failed that student, who was left to battle through exams without any extra support, only revealing that they had needed help once their exams were over. Now, the school has several counsellors on site every day and several pastoral staff dedicated to pupils with higher safeguarding needs. “Sixth form environments tend not to be good at this, because they don’t have the resourcing necessary to support them, but we do,” he says. “So we have dedicated pastoral staff organised by year groups.”
As I’m walking along the corridors, the students politely direct me through the science department, then into the quiet maths corridors. “The pastoral care here is amazing,” one student tells me. This is one of her favourite things about the school. She tells me how supported she feels through the ongoing exam pressure. Currently, she tells me, they’re learning about imposter syndrome. This seems to have struck a chord. It’s a concept she hadn’t heard of before.
As I weave in and out of different classrooms, one thing is clear: there is a laser focus on exams and university admissions. In the classes I sit in, whiteboards are full of mark schemes and tips for writing clear assessments. Mock exams are currently going on, which explains why the school is so deathly silent. Crossman tells me they have five mock exams in two years.
Support for university applications is precise and focused: students have countless prep lessons to practice before university interviews, and, just like in a private school, students are shown the inner workings of the admissions process, what is expected of them and the little extras to add to their Ucas applications that will get them into the top schools. Those planning to attend Oxbridge also get extra support in preparing for the process.
Headteacher Alex Crossman has been at LAE for five years (Photo: Teri Pengilley)
Zakiyyah Ali, 17, from Tower Hamlets, is bright and smiley as we discuss her future plans – if all goes well, she will study physics at Imperial College in September. She is particularly excited about a possible exchange year in the US. “I didn’t really know if I wanted to go to uni or not, and coming here made me realise that I actually have potential,” she says. “Coming to LAE was sort of me investing in my potential.” She found her passion in physics. “I just enjoy the way physics explains the world around us,” she says. “Physics gets really complicated and weird on like, deeper levels.”
Maaz Siddiq, 17, applied to LAE on a whim. He didn’t believe he was going to get accepted into his sixth form, never mind the London School of Economics (LSE) to study international social and public policy. “It was my sister who told me to apply,” he says. He will now be the first person in his family to go to university. “My old school was a grammar school, so most would perceive it to be a better school, but it was definitely less academic,” he says.
Cole Nagle, 18, recalls having a small celebration with his friends when he got into LAE. “I thought, now I can actually apply to good unis,” he says. At first, he thought Cambridge was “too posh” for him, but after support from the school, he changed his mind. Now, if he gets the grades, he will be studying maths at one of its colleges next year.
Jeb Bautista, who will also be attending LSE in September to study history and international relations, was planning to do an apprenticeship degree before attending LAE. “When you are in this environment, with other smart kids, all applying for universities that are top-end and competitive, you’re kind of motivated,” he says. “It kind of made me realise, I might as well give it a shot. If these guys are doing it, I should as well. And that was something I wasn’t really exposed to in my old secondary school in Hackney.”
Jeb’s revision timetable is strict. At the moment, after classes, he studies for two hours at school. Then he comes home and does another two hours in the evening. On Fridays, he gives himself the day off to play pool.
All of the students I speak to describe an inner drive; it can have its downsides. Beatrice Chirijjiu, 18, has been accepted to study history at Cambridge. “I feel like with this school, because everyone’s on the same level, it can be challenging. When you come in, you’re used to being the top of the school – the top of everything – and then everyone’s on the same level. You have this imposter syndrome, and you think – maybe I’m not worthy enough.”
But she isn’t going to let that niggling doubt stop her. “When that happens, you have to kind of zoom out and realise: even if you’re the worst in this school, you’re still better off than a lot of other students elsewhere.”