Wordsworth School / Defoe School/Clissold School/Grasmere School
The minutes show that:
A new 10 form entry school to be opened in Stoke Newington amalgamating Daniel Defoe and Wordsworth schools for boys and girls. Daniel Defoe had difficulty recruiting a 3 form entry, while Wordsworth was increasingly popular. The two schools to be combined in 1965. The two schools which were within half a mile of each other, would then work in close co-operation, Wordsworth, with a 7 (or 8) form entry in the existing Palatine Road premises and the Ayresome Road premises of Daniel Defoe. The Albion Road premises of Wordsworth School would then be available for other use.
It was necessary at the time to reduce the pressure on accommodation at Newington Green primary school where the number on roll, including nursery class children was nearly 1000. They therefore proposed that a new county primary junior school for boys, girls and infants should be established in the old Wordsworth School building in Albion Road.
Primary and Secondary Schools Sub-Committee Report (No 1)
7 July 1964 and 26 January 1965
The Committee on 7 July 1964 were informed of the proposal that Daniel Defoe and Wordsworth county Secondary schools for boys and girls, [Stoke Newington and Hackney North] should be amalgamated in September 1965 as a seven (or eight) form-entry school, on the basis that Daniel Defoe would close at the end of the summer term 1965. The site of the new building which is to be erected for the amalgamated schools as part of the major building programme for 1966-67 is in Clissold Road, Stoke Newington, near Clissold Park, and the joint governing body which has been constituted pending the amalgamation has recommended that the amalgamated school should be named Clissold School.