Academy in Plaistow, Greater London, England
Lister Community School is a co-educational secondary school located at St Mary's Road, Plaistow, Newham, London.[1]
The school uses vertical tutoring to integrate the community of students across the range of ages and year groups.[2] It is one of a few schools in Newham that provides specialist British sign language interpreters for students who have hearing impairments.[2]
History
The school was founded by West Ham Council in 1921 as Livingstone Day Continuation Institute, in Balaam Street Congregational schoolroom. It relocated a few times, was briefly absorbed into North West Ham Technical School after World War II, and was successively renamed as Lister Day-Continuation Institute (1933), Lister Technical School (1956), Lister Comprehensive (1972) and finally Lister Community School. Purpose-built facilities for the school were completed in the 1990s.[3]
In 2003, pupils staged a walk-out in protest against the invasion of Iraq.[4]
In 2005 Lister pupils won a poetry slam, and the school magazine Carbolic (named in honour of the school's namesake, local surgeon Joseph Lister) gained high praise from Benjamin Zephaniah and Michael Rosen.[4]
In November 2008, an Ofsted inspection rated the school "Good with outstanding features".[5] This was downgraded to "Satisfactory" following an inspection in 2012.[6] but upgraded again to "Good" in the recent inspection in November 2013, with 64% of lessons inspected rated as "good" or "outstanding" and none "inadequate".
The school moved into brand new premises completed in 2010 at a cost of £25 million under the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.[3][7]
In 2017 the school started teaching GCSEs from Year 9 instead of Year 10 with the first class graduating in 2020.[8]
Between 2018 and 2019 Lister Community School gained 7 more classrooms and a new "learning hub".
- A new classroom was created on the second floor by moving the EAL office to the library
- 4 new classrooms were created by an extension to W block which provided 4 new English classrooms
- 3 new classrooms and a new careers office were created in a new "E"
- A new classroom was built replacing a small office as "S001"
- The classroom S008 was removed and expanded to hold a computer room managed by the library.
In 2019 a plan to increase the schools capacity from 9 forms of entry to 11 forms of entry in 2021 was consulted on.[9]
In academic year 2020 Health and Social care started being taught at the school by the RS department.
Previously a foundation school administered by Newham London Borough Council, in December 2021 Lister Community School converted to academy status. It is now sponsored by the Newham Community Schools Trust.[10]
