Hugh Grant’s public school takes in 100 state pupils
A LEADING public school has opened its doors to children from a state comprehensive that had to be abandoned after the Grenfell Tower fire.
The £19,000-a-year Latymer Upper School, whose alumni include actors Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman and TV chef Heston Blumenthal, is sharing its facilities with pupils from the nearby Kensington Aldridge Academy (KAA), which is so close to the tower that it has been closed for safety reasons.
The initiative came from Latymer Upper head David Goodhew, who grew up in modest circumstances in a tower block near Grenfell Tower in North Kensington and attended a local comprehensive before studying Classics at Oxford.
About 100 children and 20 teachers from the academy’s sixth form have been allocated their own classrooms where they are taught by their own teachers but share libraries, sports facilities and the canteen.
They have even teamed up with Latymer Upper pupils to play rounders, taking on other local schools.
The rest of the children from KAA have gone to another nearby state school, Burlington Danes Academy in White City. A spokesman for Latymer Upper said that the fire had ‘personally affected’ Mr Goodhew, and offering support to the academy ‘is something close to his heart’.
KAA, which is providing counselling and support for its pupils in the wake of disaster, said it was delighted that the children’s education had not been interrupted.
A spokesman said: ‘It is difficult to speak about positives at such a horrible time, but our sixth-formers are benefiting from the experience’. The sixth-formers will be based at Latymer Upper, which was founded in 1624 and boasts a well-equipped science block and swimming pool, until the end of the summer term, but may have to return in September if their building is still closed.
Latymer Upper prides itself on its social mix and takes a significant number of state pupils. This is in the spirit of its founder, 17th Century lawyer Edward Latymer, who set it up to educate ‘eight poor boies’ from Hammersmith.