ABSTRACT
Milner School is situated in a densely-populated, predominantly working-class, inner-city area of London. The school is boxed inside a small triangle bounded by three busy main roads. The traffic noise is always audible and sometimes makes it difficult to hear children’s contributions to class discussion sessions. The immediate area is a clutter of retail outlets and leisure facilities. The municipal sports centre is just round the corner. There is a swimming pool across the road in one direction, while Sainsbury’s is across the road in the other. Lowcost, Waitrose, Marks and Spencer are within three or four minutes walk. Burger King, Macdonalds and Pizza Hut are all in close proximity. In addition, the school’s catchment area includes an area of multi-occupied Victorian terraces, in what used to be a housing action area, two, large, inter-war council estates, a high-density, modern council development, a homeless families hostel, and a number of short-life properties also used for homeless families. The area has a mobile population with many migrants from other parts of the British Isles and overseas-Asia, Africa, the West Indies and Cyprus. Twenty-three different languages are represented among the 310 pupils in the school.
