NBA stars' coaching sees fewer exclusions at Brixton school

A Brixton school has seen the number of pupils it excludes drop since it hired professional sports stars to coach its pupils.

The Evelyn Grace Academy’s basketball academy is the only one in England associated with the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the US. Londoner Luol Deng - a player for Miami Heat - sponsors the academy while Ronnie Baker, England’s most capped player, is a coach.

In addition, it has an international-level netball coach, a nationally-ranked sprinter teaching athletics and a professional dancer teaching. It also works with a local boxing club to offer after school sessions.

Exclusions at the school - where three fifths of pupils are eligible for free meals, two fifths do not speak English as their first language and 15 per cent have special educational needs - used to run high.

In the 2012/13 school year, six pupils were permanently excluded and 124 suspended. Those figures have now dropped with no exclusions and 26 suspensions so far this school year.

Staff at the school - which was designed by Dame Zaha Hadid, the architect behind the Olympic aquatics centre - say the drop is down to the sporting prowess of the Academy.

Simon Wingate, head of PE, told The Times: “We have been trying to build as many sports partnerships as possible. For every sport we have professionals and athletes of top quality.

"In the school, the pupils are really polite and open doors for people. It’s not a war zone. Sport helps them to leave all that behind. we’re a community hub.”