The City of London Academy Islington
COLAI was opened in 2008 as a non-selective co-educational school in Prebend Street, Islington, and is sponsored by the City of London Corporation and City University, as well as the Worshipful Company of Saddlers. The Worshipful Company of Fletchers provides a Fletchers Sporting Spirit Award each year.
The Fletchers Company is delighted to support the school even in the small way we are able to, and to see its amazing progress.
Link: http://www.colai.org.uk/
The City of London Academy Southwark
COLAS is situated in the Bermondsey area of Southwark and has links with a number of livery companies. The Worshipful Company of Fletchers supports prizes in art and in music technology.
COLAS takes great pride in its city links, as well as its caring, inclusive community, and has achieved exceptional success in all areas. It has an added focus on Business and Enterprise and Sport, and has Basketball Academy status.
Link: http://cityacademy.co.uk
The City of London Freemen’s School
The creation of the City of London Freemen’s School was enabled by an 1850 Parliamentary Bill (finally enacted in 1853) but its roots lie in the earmarking of the sale proceeds of the London Workhouse in Bishopsgate (roughly where Liverpool St now runs) by an 1829 Act allocating the funds for the foundation of a school. Education was in the air but there seemed to be no hurry. The key pioneer was one Warren Stormes Hale, a Common Councillor (later Lord Mayor) who became Chairman of the City Lands Committee in 1833. His first educational success was the creation of the City of London School using the John Carpenter (1442) bequest funds to create the boys’ school which opened in 1837. The workhouse funds were still untouched so Councillor Hale led the drive for the 1853 Enabling Act, became chairman of the committee responsible for implementing the Act and the school, known as The City of London Freemen’s Orphan School, was opened in 1854. To complete the set of the City’s three independent schools The City of London School for Girls was opened in 1894.
The Freemen’s Orphan School was created in Brixton next to the existing City of London Almshouses and was originally surrounded by fields. Records show that there were no houses between the school and Clapham Common at that time. From the outset the school was co-educational with an original capacity (all boarders) for 70 boys and 30 girls between the ages of 7 and 14. Almost from the outset there was a prize recognising the successes of pupils when, in 1860, Alderman Edward Condor donated an annual prize fund. Condor was a Wheelwright but other livery companies followed with their own prizes. Before the turn of the 19th century the Orphan School Prize Day regularly attracted the Lord Mayor and his party and shortly afterwards it was recorded that this was the only day in the year that the pupils were served blancmange and jelly.
At about this time as part of the Army recruitment for the Boer War the Londoners enlisting in the City Imperial Volunteers were all granted the Freedom of the City of London. The subsequent loss of life in South Africa gave a strong supply of new orphans. Unfortunately this period also saw increasing urbanisation of Brixton, indeed industrialisation, resulting in much pollution and illness amongst the pupils and staff. The search was initiated for a new school site.
In 1914 the school’s fourth Headmaster was appointed before the outbreak of the First World War and he continued for 31 years, finally retiring in 1945 after the end of the Second World War. He oversaw vast change leading to the rise of the present school, including the relocation to Ashtead, Surrey in 1926, the renaming to the current title, of The City of London Freemen’s School.
The school flourishes with over 900 pupils aged between 7 and 18 all running around in the 57 acre Ashtead Park site. Each year the Master Fletcher is invited to attend Prize Day in the company of other Livery Masters and, frequently, the Lord Mayor. The Worshipful Company of Fletchers currently gives two prizes in the Junior School.
Further information on the school website http://www.freemens.org/
The City of London Academy Hackney
The City of London academy at Hackney COLAH, which was established in 2009 and lies opposite the National Trust’s Sutton House. Its students are taught in an environment that promotes academic, creative, sporting, linguistic and personal achievement – the City Experience. COLAH has strong sponsorship from KPMG. The Worshipful Company of Fletchers awards annual prizes in history.
Link: http://www.thecityacademyhackney.org/