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And yet we couldn\u2019t be further from the leafy grounds of Eton College. We are on a noisy main road in Newham, one of London\u2019s<\/a> 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<\/a> and seven per cent have experienced homelessness.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are one of the few schools that regularly provide Oxford<\/a> and Cambridge<\/a> with children who are being looked after by the local authority,\u201d explains Alex Crossman, the head teacher at LAE, as we sit in his office on a quiet Wednesday.<\/p>\n Most of the teenagers who attend LAE didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n Patricia Branco\u2019s 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. \u201cIn primary school, he won a prize for the highest SAT grades of anyone in his year, and yet he did not feel confident,\u201d she says. \u201cHe didn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Branco, from Leyton, is a single parent. \u201cWe are from a poor background,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t know anyone with a child studying at Oxford. I didn\u2019t know anything about the interviews or the process.\u201d 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. \u201cI could not be more proud of my child.\u201d<\/p>\n This sixth-form college doesn\u2019t look much like a school \u2013 until recently, it wasn\u2019t one. It was founded in 2012, the year the Olympics were hosted in Stratford, just a stone\u2019s throw away from its front entrance. The red tangled tower \u2013 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a joke here at the school \u2013 you can never leave a whiteboard out because you will come back after break and it will have lots of equations on it,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Crossman speaks more frankly than other head teachers I\u2019ve come across; less afraid of risk. \u201cI get slightly irritated by the phrase \u2018A-level curriculum,’\u201d he says. \u201cWe have a curriculum that results in students being awarded A-levels, but it\u2019s not really the same thing.\u201d He is referring to the extensive \u201celectives\u201d pupils have to take if they attend LAE. \u201cOur students don\u2019t really need extra qualifications to get into university. It\u2019s much more about broadening their academic horizons and making them more rounded, more interesting and interested people,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The \u201celectives\u201d on offer range from Ancient Greek, jurisprudence, stolen histories, Model UN, Italian, computer science, and philosophy. LAE doesn\u2019t let teenagers who already love maths choose further maths as an elective. \u201cWe would tell them, you\u2019re going to do linguistics because, actually, it\u2019s completely outside of your comfort zone,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt will be interesting. It\u2019ll be different.\u201d \u201cHow do you provide students who have received, if I\u2019m blunt, no careers information, or actively poor careers information, an overview of the opportunities available to them?\u201d The majority of year 12 is spent addressing this challenge.<\/p>\n 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. \u201cThey 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?\u201d says Crossman.<\/p>\n 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. \u201cSixth form environments tend not to be good at this, because they don\u2019t have the resourcing necessary to support them, but we do,\u201d he says. \u201cSo we have dedicated pastoral staff organised by year groups.\u201d<\/p>\n As I\u2019m walking along the corridors, the students politely direct me through the science department, then into the quiet maths corridors. \u201cThe pastoral care here is amazing,\u201d 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\u2019re learning about imposter syndrome. This seems to have struck a chord. It\u2019s a concept she hadn\u2019t heard of before.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Zakiyyah Ali, 17, from Tower Hamlets, is bright and smiley as we discuss her future plans \u2013 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. \u201cI didn\u2019t really know if I wanted to go to uni or not, and coming here made me realise that I actually have potential,\u201d she says. \u201cComing to LAE was sort of me investing in my potential.\u201d She found her passion in physics. \u201cI just enjoy the way physics explains the world around us,\u201d she says. \u201cPhysics gets really complicated and weird on like, deeper levels.\u201d<\/p>\n Maaz Siddiq, 17, applied to LAE on a whim. He didn\u2019t 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. \u201cIt was my sister who told me to apply,\u201d he says. He will now be the first person in his family to go to university. \u201cMy old school was a grammar school, so most would perceive it to be a better school, but it was definitely less academic,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Cole Nagle, 18, recalls having a small celebration with his friends when he got into LAE. \u201cI thought, now I can actually apply to good unis,\u201d he says. At first, he thought Cambridge was \u201ctoo posh\u201d 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.<\/p>\n 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. \u201cWhen you are in this environment, with other smart kids, all applying for universities that are top-end and competitive, you\u2019re kind of motivated,\u201d he says. \u201cIt 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\u2019t really exposed to in my old secondary school in Hackney.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeb\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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. \u201cI feel like with this school, because everyone\u2019s on the same level, it can be challenging. When you come in, you\u2019re used to being the top of the school \u2013 the top of everything \u2013 and then everyone\u2019s on the same level. You have this imposter syndrome, and you think \u2013 maybe I\u2019m not worthy enough.\u201d<\/p>\n But she isn\u2019t going to let that niggling doubt stop her. \u201cWhen that happens, you have to kind of zoom out and realise: even if you\u2019re the worst in this school, you\u2019re still better off than a lot of other students elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m eavesdropping on three teenagers engaging in a light-hearted history debate. \u201cHenry VIII didn\u2019t go mad,\u201d one student…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[28,1416,27,2175,72,2176,2177,2178],"class_list":{"0":"post-3324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-education","9":"tag-features","10":"tag-london","11":"tag-oxbridge","12":"tag-schools","13":"tag-teenagers","14":"tag-university-of-cambridge","15":"tag-university-of-oxford"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Eleanor](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SEI_290156713_3f046a.jpg\")
Eleanor Peake visited LAE on a quiet Wednesday during mock exam week (Photo: Teri Pengilley) <\/p>\n
I\u2019m most impressed by what Crossman dubs the \u201cFutures Programme\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"Eleanor](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SEI_290156709.jpg\")
Headteacher Alex Crossman has been at LAE for five years (Photo: Teri Pengilley)<\/p>\n