At the 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games, Noah Hanson won a silver medal for Team England in the 110m hurdles. He was only 0.04 seconds behind the Gold Medal winner and he has gone on to represent Team GB at international events. Noah attended the Bobby Moore Academy on the Olympic Park, a school with a strong sporting ethos. Opened in 2017 by the David Ross Education Trust, I personally invested a significant amount of time and financial resources to ensure the sporting legacy of 2012 was more than just a pipe dream. Noah now attends the University of Houston in the United States, running for one of the US college system’s leading track and field teams.
This is a remarkable achievement, and one that is replicated regularly across the Academy chain I established in 2006 – whether it be in classrooms, music schools or on sports pitches across our network. Much comment has been made about academic and curriculum freedoms that academies and free schools have – in reality these freedoms permeate every aspect of the school day.
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