Mayor's praise for a specialist school

Mayor of Newham Sir Robin Wales unveiled a plaque at Stratfords Rokeby School to celebrate it becoming a specialist school in mathematics and languages. 

The achievement is the latest in a series of successes for the school in Pitchford Street, which has seen the percentage of its pupils gaining five A to C grades including Maths and English, increase by 12 per cent in the past three years.

In August it also received alumni status from the London Challenge Programme, which means it can share its success and experiences with other schools.

The school was granted specialist status by the Department for Children Schools and Families. Helping the Mayor to unveil the plaque was head teacher Charlotte Robinson and pupils Hassan Saeed and Segun Owode.

Sir Robin said: Newham is continuously striving to raise educational standards among its young people and Rokeby has made excellent progress in recent years.

Being awarded specialist status is a testament to the hard work and dedication of all the staff, governors, parents and pupils and I congratulate everyone involved. Maths was my favourite subject at school so I am delighted it is specialising in it.

The unveiling ceremony came at the end of a Specialist Status Launch week that saw students working on their numeracy and language skills during a variety of lessons and workshops. Parents and carers visited classes to get a taste of school life and there was music from the Rokeby band. There was also a competition to count from one to ten in 27 different languages.

Head teacher Charlotte Robinson said: We can all be very proud of what we have achieved. There are some real positive attitudes to learning in the school. Many of our pupils come here with English as a second language and what they achieve is quite remarkable.

Part of the process to obtain specialist status saw Rokeby staff help nearby Park, Carpenters, Portway and West Ham Church primary schools and Cumberland secondary school with maths and language lessons.

The school also held language lessons for the local community at weekends and assisted a local Somali community with language instruction.