A School for Everyone

We visited Nightingale School near Hackney Downs in October 2025, speaking to teachers, pupils, parents and other members of staff. This is a very diverse school in terms of ethnicity, learning needs and social background.

As with Sinclair School, we’ll be writing this up in full, but for now here’s just a few notes from our visit, and quotes about the school culture:

Their beliefs and practices can be summarised as follows:

  • Children benefit from clear routines and expectations, so they know what to do and when.
  • Predictable structures support everyone; providing both safety and confidence.
  • Children need opportunities to be creative, active, physically and cognitively challenged.
  • Learning in and about the natural environment matters
  • Learning needs to be meaningful and achievable for a diverse population
  • Cultural diversity needs to be acknowledged, respected and celebrated.
  • Every child needs to know they are loved and wanted in the school
  • A happy child is ready to learn

“..they need happiness to be bouncing off the walls from everyone around them. So they need, basically to feel just love and warmth from the gates onwards through their day. (head)

This was reflected in our experiences. Walking around the school we were greeted warmly by both pupils and staff.  People smiled at each other. Children would come up to adults for hugs – often verbalising this. There was a tangible in-depth knowledge of individuals.

I think it’s very child centred…every child gets the opportunity to find something that they’re good at. The teachers are really passionate. (teacher)

The overall vision of the school is that the learning is for every child, and that no child is left behind, and every child is engaged. (teacher)

In Nightingale every child succeeds at their own level and knows they are making progress.  There is no individual competition where one child routinely has gold stars and another is always getting marked down.  There is a culture of collaboration and celebration.

I think we are really good at that single child’s interest to make the learning happen in a very beautiful and joyful way. (teacher)

School is really nice. The teachers are really kind, and it’s amazing. They give us so many activities to do, and it’s never… like… no one ever gets mad. (pupil)

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Read more about the Love of Learning Project here.

The other schools we have visited for the project so far are: