Highgate’s fifth Giving Day is a vital opportunity for our community to come together and support the ambitious young people of the London Academy of Excellence Tottenham (LAET).  Highgate’s partnership with LAET is one of the most effective social mobility projects in the country, but it is also an ambitious one. To provide a sixth-form education that truly levels the playing field in a ward ranking among the top 2% for deprivation, there is a funding gap of £1,800 per student, per year beyond what the government provides. 

Highgate and other sponsors offer significant institutional support and expertise, but a shortfall remains that LAET must bridge through fundraising to maintain the school's exceptional standards and unlock the potential we see in these students. 

This means providing the intensive, one-to-one guidance for Medicine, Oxbridge, and elite degree apprenticeships that helped 22 students win offers for Medicine and Dentistry this year alone. It means keeping Music and Art on the curriculum when they are being cut elsewhere and providing on-site mental health support for students facing significant external pressures. Over half of LAET students live in households with an income of less than £28,000, yet their results are now among the best in the country. 

The impact of this collective effort is transformative. Before LAET opened, only 2% of local students reached Russell Group universities; in 2025, 70% of LAET students did, achieving an A average at A-level. These success stories are a point of shared pride for our two schools, which are genuinely linked through experiences like our joint Careers Fair and the Vocal Collective. By making a gift of any size this year’s Giving Day, you are helping us close the gap and ensuring that a student’s financial or socio-economic circumstances never stand in the way of their opportunity to succeed.