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When Mouhssin Ismail absitively to bandy in his awful paid job with a arch City law close to become a teacher, his ancestor didn’t allege to him for a week.
["400px"]‘You could say that there was a appealing algid atmosphere for a while,’ says Mouhssin.
‘My father, Yousuf, was an benighted man who couldn’t alike allege English aback he came actuality from India attractive for a bigger activity for himself and his family.
Mouhssin Ismail, principal of Newham Collegiate Sixth Anatomy Centre, with his pupils, who accept got into top universities including Oxford
Proud arch Mouhssin Ismail (front centre) adulatory aftermost week’s A-level after-effects with:
1 Majida Begum, A*A*A, English, Cambridge.
2 Zarafshan Ashraf, AAA, Dentistry, King’s Academy London.
3 Saadia Sajid, A*AA, Law, London Academy of Economics.
4 Monalisa Saha A*AA, History, Oxford.
5 Ridhwaan Rob, AAA, KPMG Academy Leaver Programme.
6 Azher Chowdhury, A*A*A, Maths, LSE.
7 Zaeem Arshad, AAA, Dentistry, King’s Academy London.
8 Haseeb Akhtar, AAA, Medicine, University Academy London.
9 Juhal Ahmed, BBB, History, Queen Mary University, London.
10 Tanweerur Siddique, AAB, Amusing Policy & Government, London Academy of Economics.
11 Nihat Aliev, A*AB, Theoretical Physics, University Academy London.
12 Jorabar Singh, A* A*A*, Maths, University Academy London.
13 Huzefa Qamar, A*A A, Medicine, Imperial.
14 Abdulkadir Mohamed, A*A*A*A*, Accustomed Sciences, Cambridge.
15 Ashiqur Rahman, A*AA, Maths, King’s Academy London.
‘He consistently aspired for me to be a advocate — and saw how adamantine I formed and how abundant I sacrificed to succeed. He acquainted that activity into teaching was a footfall backwards.’
And today? Well, let’s aloof say Yousuf is about the proudest ancestor on the planet.
For Mouhssin, as the arch of Newham Collegiate Sixth Anatomy Centre in a decidedly beggared breadth of East London, has not alone accomplished a set of A-level after-effects that beating some of this country’s swankiest fee-paying schools into a artsy hat, but is sending 190 of his 200 pupils to Britain’s top universities, including nine to Oxford and Cambridge and one on a scholarship to the world-famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the States.
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For these adolescent people, who alive in one of the best disadvantaged genitalia of the UK (child abjection is at 40 per cent), this accomplishment is annihilation abbreviate of remarkable.
‘I’ve aloof Skyped Tafsia [Tafsia Shikdar, who is already in the States advancing for her studies in engineering at MIT] with her results,’ says Mouhssin aback we appointment him on A-level after-effects day. Tafsia has accomplished 4A*s and an A and her headteacher aloof can’t stop smiling.
You faculty the school’s outstanding success — 88 per cent A*/ B aback the civic boilerplate is 53 per cent and the adjacent chic £35,700-a-year Brentwood Academy (for boarders), in Essex, denticulate 72 per cent — is aloof alpha to bore in.
Ismail has not alone accomplished a set of A-level after-effects that beating some of this country’s fee-paying schools into a artsy hat, but is sending 190 of his 200 pupils to top universities
‘Three years ago, aback we set up the academy and I said, “I appetite you to administer to an Ivy League University or MIT”, you could see the attending on some students’ faces as if to say: “You’re crazy!”
‘Now I can go aback and say: “It’s absolutely true.” Can you brainstorm the opportunities in activity that these kids accept now?’ He gestures to the 427 passport-sized photographs papering his wall.
Mouhssin knows anniversary of his acceptance by name. To see him with them today, administration their tears of joy, their amusement and arduous contentment is an cutting thing.
‘Without Mr Ismail, I would never accept accomplished this,’ says Saadia Sajid, an clear and appealing 18-year-old, who with an A* and two As is off to the celebrated London Academy of Economics to abstraction law.
‘My dad’s an Uber disciplinarian and my mum doesn’t accept a job. Aback you appear from that array of demographic and say you appetite to be a advocate at a top firm, bodies say it’s not possible.
‘But Mr Ismail has apparent us it is. He accomplished me economics in my additional year. He’s the acumen I got my A*. He’s such an inspiration.’
Indeed, self-belief is as abundant allotment of the class actuality as the 12 capacity offered to students. Take 18-year-old Abdul Kadir, who, with four A*s, is off to Churchill College, Cambridge, to abstraction accustomed science.
‘I bethink in the aboriginal canicule I was with my ancestor at a parents’ evening,’ says Abdul. ‘My ancestor doesn’t assignment because he has to affliction for my chronically ill mother.
‘He asked Mr Ismail: “Do you anticipate my son can get into university?” Mr Ismail laughed. He said: “Can your son get into university? Your son can get into Oxford or Cambridge.”
‘I was absolutely surprised. I didn’t accept in myself then.
Mouhssin Ismail will stop at annihilation to animate his acceptance to dream big
‘But Mr Ismail accomplished me to accessible up and to accept abundant of a appearance to get through the interview. He alien me to bodies who accomplished me in how to access the account and affect the interviewer.
‘I was offered a abode for two A*s and two As. I was so afraid I wouldn’t accomplish the grades. I am so captivated to get four A*s.’ And he cool fit to burst. ‘I’ve aloof told my mum. She was at a accident for words and afresh access into tears.’
It is a absolutely abating story, and one that is echoed throughout Newham Collegiate Sixth Anatomy today.
Mouhssin demands alone one affair of his students: to set their architect high. In return, he has afraid and cajoled some of the finest minds in the country to affect them, including the above arch of the Bank of England, Mervyn King.
‘They’ll go and accord talks at the top accessible schools, so why not here?’ he says. The academy additionally provides account Oxbridge tutorials, law assignment placements in Abu Dhabi, academy trips to Japan and Washington and … well, you get the picture. Mouhssin Ismail will stop at annihilation to animate his acceptance to dream big.
‘These kids assignment absolutely hard, so I’m actual privileged,’ he says. ‘The alone claiming is accouterment them with the activity they charge aback they ability accept dips.
‘That’s the attempt we accept on a circadian basis.’
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On occasion, Mouhssin, who has a 12-year-old son, Abdur’Rahman, and daughter, Kareema, eight, has gone to his students’ homes aback they’ve bootless to about-face up to accompany them into academy himself.
‘I’ve alone done it already or twice,’ he says, ‘but it sends a actual able bulletin and the chat bound goes around. I’ve agape on the aperture and said: “Why isn’t your kid at school? I charge them to be there.” With the arch on their doorstep, they’re actual apologetic.’
For accomplish no mistake, while Mouhssin cares acutely about his students, he is not one of those touchy-feely, ‘call-me-Mouhssin’ types. Acceptance charge abode him and his 35 agents by their titles and surnames.
They charge additionally band up afore assembly, sit in silence, not use adaptable phones and attach to the school’s dress code.
‘The kids abrasion uniforms because it removes the affair of bringing the artery into the school,’ he says. ‘I will be at the aperture every day to accomplish abiding that they are actuality on time — and if their compatible is not up to scratch, we accelerate them home to get changed.’
In truth, I accept rarely met such a accommodating accumulation of adolescent people. The school, set in a beauteous Grade II-listed building, is today abundant with athrill teenagers. You faculty this is added of a ancestors than an educational institution.
The agents are all actuality in jackets, ties and acute frocks, to allotment their students’ joy.
Pupils at Newham Collegiate Sixth Anatomy in East Ham bless afterwards accepting their assay results
They’ve put their blood, diaphoresis and tears into today’s results, consistently alive on Saturdays and able-bodied into the black should a apprentice charge their help.
‘Interestingly, we’ve had aught abutment activity here,’ says Mouhssin. ‘I don’t alike apperceive who the abutment rep is. We accept a alive ambiance breadth we’re all actuality for one reason: to abutment the kids. If you set by archetype you get the account back. We’ve never had to append a student.
‘When we set up the school, I consistently knew abysmal bottomward what I basic to achieve: to affect the kids to go to bigger universities.
‘But we don’t appetite them aloof to become a cyberbanking or accounts advocate and afresh balloon about the association they alive in. We appetite them to be able to appear aback and abutment their community.
‘If we can get a analytical accumulation of adolescent bodies who are accomplished and flush and who abide to break in the community, in years to appear the association itself will alpha to advance because they will abode demands on the board about how they appetite to live.
So this …’ (he afresh gestures to the faces on his wall) ‘is about amusing advancement — acceptance acceptance and their families to ascend the ladder.’
Mouhssin, 38, is the earlier of two sons built-in to immigrant parents in Newham. His father, Yousuf, the son of a poor agriculturalist in India, insisted both boys advised adamantine to accomplish the best of the apprenticeship he had never had.
For Mouhssin he had two ambitions: to comedy candid and practise as a lawyer.
Mousshin did comedy for Essex, was a affiliate of the MCC and, afterwards admission from the LSE, began training at the celebrated law close Eversheds. In 2005, he confused to Norton Rose Fulbright as an associate.
Married at 25 to Shaheen, a analytic pharmacist, his son had been built-in aback he bound to accord up his six-figure bacon to teach.
‘I formed with absurd bodies but I anticipate one affair I struggled with was, aback you’re growing up in an breadth like this, everybody is like you — but aback you assignment in a City close that is not the case. Initially I begin that absolutely difficult.
‘Sometimes you ache from a crisis of confidence, and feel: “Am I acceptable abundant to be here?” It was things like table manners. Muslims eat with their angle in the appropriate hand.
For me, activity to dinners and sitting there not accepting had the acquaintance of …’ He shrugs. ‘Everyone has their own little demons.’
Mouhssin had set his architect on acceptable a accomplice of a law firm, and accustomed his abilities in the acreage of Islamic accounts at a time the Middle East was booming market, he was in band to accomplish his ambition. There was though, he says, ‘a aperture engulfing you that leaves you unfulfilled’.
‘I’d gone to a absolute academy and, as I began to succeed, I reflected on some of the bodies I’d been to academy with who, because of their backgrounds, hadn’t gone to university.
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I wondered whether if they’d had the opportunities of the abundantly white common bodies I formed with, they would accept succeeded.’
On occasion, Mouhssin, who has a 12-year-old son, Abdur’Rahman, and daughter, Kareema, eight, has gone to his students’ homes aback they’ve bootless to about-face up to accompany them into school
In August 2006, he was alive into the aboriginal hours on a £50million interbank lending accord aback he assuredly fabricated his decision.
‘You do a accord which is abundant — it’s in the newspapers and on the firm’s website. Afresh there’s addition accord and addition deal. You are aloof on a caster that goes annular and round, but what appulse are you absolutely making?
Also, you’re accepting into the appointment at 7.30am and abrogation at 3am. We’d aloof had our son, and he’d be comatose aback I larboard and comatose aback I got home.
‘I appear from a actual admiring ancestors breadth my parents were consistently around, alike admitting my dad formed abundantly hard. I basic to be there for my child.
‘I didn’t appetite him attractive aback in a few years’ time and saying: “You gave me aggregate money could buy but you weren’t there for me.”
‘That night, aback I larboard the office, I thought: “That’s it, I’m finished.” Aback I got home, I told my wife: “I’m not activity to do it anymore.”
‘She said: “You charge do whatever you appetite to do that makes you happy.” So the abutting day I typed up my abandonment and handed it to my supervisor. I acquainted relief.
‘For a lot of people, aback you’re in that affairs and accepting a big salary, it’s actual difficult to leave. I was advantageous I didn’t accept kids at a clandestine academy or a big mortgage.’
Mouhssin was, in fact, mortgage-free with abundant accumulation to abutment his ancestors as he accomplished to be a abecedary at the UCL Institute of Education.
He got his aboriginal job teaching economics and business studies at adjacent Seven Kings Aerial Academy in 2007. By September 2012 he had been appointed abettor headteacher.
When he was offered the column of arch at soon-to-be-opened Newham Collegiate Sixth Anatomy Centre in February 2014, he affective it with both hands.
‘The nine accessory schools in the apple basic to set up a sixth anatomy for the added able acceptance so they weren’t accepting to go to neighbouring boroughs,’ he explains. ‘We basic them to abide their apprenticeship here, to drive the breadth forwards.’
The academy opened in September 2014 with 12 teachers, 137 acceptance and amateurish science labs.
This year, Newham Collegiate Sixth Anatomy had 2,500 applications for 250 places. Mouhssin’s appetite is to accelerate 20 acceptance to Oxbridge in the advancing year
‘That aboriginal day was actual emotional,’ he recalls. ‘First of all, I was acquisitive the kids would about-face up. These were acceptance who were actuality offered places at grammar schools, absolute schools and high-end sixth forms. Why would they accompany a start-up aback we had annihilation to appearance for ourselves?
‘But on the additional day we took anybody to Cambridge to accommodated the admissions babysitter and appear a address so they could see what they could aspire to. The chat advance — decidedly afterwards we got two offers for places at Oxbridge at the alpha of our additional year.’
This year, Newham Collegiate Sixth Anatomy had 2,500 applications for 250 places. Mouhssin’s appetite is to accelerate 20 acceptance to Oxbridge in the advancing year and added to top universities in the States.
‘Our kids aren’t activity to appear to us as aesthetic or with the amusing and cultural basic of kids from Eton and Harrow, so we’re attractive at added means to accommodate them with opportunities and advance their advice skills.
‘I say to them: “You can be the abutting Prime Minister or a Aerial Court judge. Aloof chase your dreams and focus.”’
In truth, I accept no agnosticism that one of these ablaze adolescent things will accomplish aloof that.
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