HCC has over 9,000 students: 16- to 18-year-olds in the sixth form, adults who study full- and part-time, and it trains hundreds of apprentices who work with local and national companies. Its campus is in Falkirk Street, Shoreditch, backing onto Hoxton Street. When the campus opened in 1996, it was Britain's largest capital further education building project. In August 2016, Hackney Community College merged with Tower Hamlets to create a more responsive and financially robust larger organisation. Redbridge College joined Hackney and Tower Hamlets in April 2017 to create New City College. Within the structure of the merged organisation, the colleges retain their names, campuses and courses. It is home to the Tech City Apprenticeship, the London Technical Fashion Academy, the London City Hospitality Centre and its training restaurant, Open Kitchen. HCC's SPACe was funded by Sport England as a centre of excellence in cricket and basketball. SPACe was home to London United Basketball and is still the base for the Hackney Community College Basketball Academy, as well as academies in other sports. SPACe was used as a training camp for basketball during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Hackney Community College campus is home to a shared workspace for start-up edtech companies. It is also home to Access to Music's Shoreditch Campus, which is within the Hackney Community College campus; the colleges are not associated with each other, but share facilities such as the canteen.
Its history
The college was originally named Hackney College when it was formed in 1974 by the amalgamation of Hackney and Stoke Newington College of Further Education with those sites of Poplar Technical College that had been established in Hackney. It was initially run by Inner London Education Authority and, following that, by Hackney Council, when it was renamed. It is now an independent institution, mainly publicly funded. For a few years it was known as The Community College Shoreditch, but has now reverted to the name Hackney Community College
Previous institutions known as Hackney College
'Hackney College' has also been widely used to refer specifically to Brooke House, until September 2002 one of the Community College's sites. This has now become BSix Sixth Form College. The modern version of the term should also be distinguished from previous Hackney Colleges:
One name for the dissenting academy set up by Calvinists in Homerton in 1786, also known in various accounts as Homerton Academy, or Homerton College. In these years it attracted some notable students, including William Hazlitt. In 1850 it split into two parts. The teacher training component moved to Cambridge, where it is still known as Homerton College; the theological functions stayed in London as part of the three-college merger that created New College London.
Both of these merged in 1900, becoming the University of London's first Faculty of Theology. In 1924 this became, by Act of Parliament, a constituent college known as Hackney and New College, the two names by which its disparate buildings throughout north London were commonly known. In 1934 new premises were planned. In 1936, the name of the college was simplified to New College London, harking back to the Congregationalist merger of 1850.
