Critical Hope or Principal Infidelity? How an Urban Secondary School in an area of sustained poverty in England continues to improve

This is the examination of how a secondary school in England, the Robert
Clack High School, not only made the transition from failure to success ‘‘against the
odds’’, but sustained and enhanced that status despite changes in local demographics
resulting in the school serving a significantly different ethnic community than was
evident at the start of their improvement journey. The school is situated in an area of
London that has consistently featured as one of poverty. Unlike some other schools
which changed their student population in search of success, the school continues to
serve its immediate local community which compromises almost mainly working
class families. Although empirical research undertaken in the school demonstrates
some evidence of ‘principled infidelity’ (seeming to follow external policy diktats
whilst pursuing their own agenda) we conclude that the ethos underpinning the
school’s sustained improvement is the concept of ‘critical hope’. This is an
approach where the needs of young people in disadvantaged communities are
recognised and addressed in order to provide them with the opportunity to control
their destiny. The consequence is that the school has exceeded its prescripted
expectations, continues to improve and has lifted both the students and the community’s aspirations exponentially.