When a football club decides to build a new stadium, few would imagine it would amount to anything more than creating a shiny new venue in which its team of international stars takes to the field to entertain thousands of adoring fans every other week.

At Tottenham Hotspur, the development of its 62,850-capacity home that opened in 2019 represented so much more – not just for the Club, but one of London’s most deprived areas.

Indeed, the wider surrounding development – credited as the catalyst for regeneration in North Tottenham - began long before. As well as the stadium itself, this included the capital’s largest Sainsbury’s superstore, new Club offices at Lilywhite House and the restoration of historic properties. As a result, the wider stadium development scheme has created more than 4,000 jobs for local people to date.

Then, there’s the hidden gem that sits across two floors of Lilywhite House - the London Academy of Excellence Tottenham (LAET) - a state-funded Sixth Form, sponsored by the Club and Highgate School - the principal academic sponsors who, together with support from other leading independent schools, deliver expert teaching.

The school prioritises local students most likely to benefit from an academically-rigorous curriculum and those from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, giving Tottenham’s brightest students the best possible chance of accessing top universities.

This is in the context of the school being situated within one of the 2% most deprived wards in the country, with 63% of its student body coming from the lowest two social groups when using the ACORN tool for socio-economic analysis.

LAET was named the Sunday Times Sixth Form College of the Year, 2020 by Parent Power, The Sunday Times School Guide. In 2022, LAET achieved an ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted rating across all areas.

A-Level results have continued to improve year-on-year, with 2022 seeing nearly three quarters of students going on to Russell Group Universities compared to 1% of Tottenham school leavers the year before LAET opened.

More than 30 students have won places at the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge since the school opened in 2017, with others electing to undertake prestigious apprenticeships - this puts LAE Tottenham within the top 2% of state Sixth Forms nationally.

For Tottenham Hotspur’s Chairman, Daniel Levy – himself a Cambridge graduate – seeing his vision of the Club playing an active role in changing people’s lives for the better is a huge source of pride.

He recently returned to his former University to give a talk at its world-famous Union, at which he met with alumni from the school the Club created, who are following in his footsteps.

Daniel Levy said: “Seeing the Club have a positive impact on its local community is something very personal to me. We’ve created this wonderful college, with some fantastic staff, and engaged some of the country’s leading independent schools to offer their teaching and skills to some very bright students that live in the Tottenham area, giving them an opportunity that they wouldn’t otherwise have had. It was quite emotional for me to listen to some of those former LAET students when I visited Cambridge - we’ve changed people’s lives.”

To find out more on the London Academy of Excellence Tottenham, visit: https://www.laetottenham.org.uk/