The LEAP  Federation is made up of three London borough of Hackney Primary schools: Kingsmead, Mandeville and Gayhurst.  We also run the Hackney School of Food which is a cookery school with productive gardens on the site of Mandeville school.

LEAP stands for Learning, Education and Arts Partnership, which demonstrates our commitment to high standards in all areas of learning  which where possible are taught through visual, performance, culinary and physical arts projects and curriculum enrichment projects. 

The name LEAP is also based on the fact that  our schools are connected in Hackney by the River Lea and that we wanted very much to be a Partnership, with all schools being equal within it.

The governing board and school leaders of LEAP share a vision to ensure that all children in our care can grow into successful, thriving young people who feel a sense of belonging and pride in our school communities.

What is a Federation of Schools?

In an era of increasing school autonomy and declining local authority capacity, the need for schools to work collaboratively is greater than ever. There are a variety of ways schools can do this, from loose partnerships to more formal arrangements involving shared governance and formal accountability.

In England, local authority-maintained schools have the option of becoming a federation, in which the separate schools’ governing bodies become a single governing board with responsibility for all the schools in the federation. This is different from a multi-academy trust (MAT) as it remains overseen by the local authority, rather than the regional schools commissioner.