There are three schools in the Olympic Park.
And they're all in different boroughs.
Mossbourne Riverside Academy is in Hackney. (in East Wick, close to Here East, facing the Lea Navigation towpath)
This is one of the Mossbourne chain of academies spawned from the original bright blue fortress wedged inbetween the railway lines just north of Hackney Downs station. That was founded in 2004 when City Academies were a Labour government innovation, and rare, rather than the free market shibboleths the Coalition turned academies into. Mossbourne Riverside is of 2016 vintage, serves primary-age pupils and the new term starts today.
Bobby Moore Academy Primary is in Tower Hamlets. (in Sweetwater, next to the Big Breakfast Cottages, facing away from the towpath)
This one opened in 2017 in a long thin modern building clad in brick tiles, and is a lot morelikely to win an architectural award than Mossbourne Riverside. It's one of 34 academies operated by the David Ross Education Trust, a Loughborough-based organisation overseen by millionaire David Ross, founder of Carphone Warehouse and a Tory donor. Local councils don't get a look-in on new schools these days. Today is the first day of term at BMA (or 'frist day', as it says on the website).
Bobby Moore Academy Secondary is in Newham. (on the other side of the Olympic Stadium, below the Greenway, near the View Tube)
This school's in a tall chunky building, cramming as much as possible into a small footprint, including a large protruding hall at first floor level. Students get to use the former Olympic warm-up track for their sports lessons, or as a necessary adjunct to the tiny playground. Geoff Hurst came along to open it in 2018, as did David Ross (because that's where being chief sponsor gets you). Today was planned to have been the first day back, but instead it's a training day to prepare staff for the rollout of mass testing.
When I took these photos the plan was for schools is Hackney to open this week but schools in Tower Hamlets and Newham to stay closed. That'll be an interesting post, I thought, highlighting the absurdity of government policy when matched to the vagaries of geographic reality. But then the minister changed the advice, having been screamed at from all sides that opening schools in eleven seemingly-random London boroughs was madness, so now all primaries in the capital are to stay closed to pupils this week (and the school in Newham is a secondary so was never going to open anyway).
Still, there are three schools in the Olympic Park.
And they're all in different boroughs.
