The Jamaican High Commissioner visited a Hackney Central school on Friday morning.

Her Excellency Aloun Ndombet-Assamba visited The Urswick School in Paragon Road as she was keen to visit Hackney and meet members of the Jamaican and Caribbean community.

She was joined by The Queen’s representative to Hackney Lt Col Roderick Morriss, Hackney Cllr Patrick Vernon OBE and Vivienne Siva and Leonie Livingston from the Jamaican High Commission.

The group attended the morning assembly, which was attended by 450 students aged 11 to 14. During the assembly, the High Commissioner presented Student of the Week awards to students in Years 7 and 8.

Head boy Bruno D’Almeida, 16, head girl Shalise Defreitas, 15, and students Shereka Marsh, 15, and Khol Vernon, 15, led the visitors on a tour of the school where they met students in classes ranging from Mathematics to Art.

The High Commissioner spoke of her own background in science, law and politics and advised the students to work hard towards their exams, saying: “I would advise all of you to achieve the best results that you can so that you qualify to enter any university or training institution. If you can achieve that, you can be anything that you want to be.”

In January, The Urswick School was recognised by the Department for Education as one of the top 100 schools in England, showing the greatest sustained improvement in the percentage of pupils achieving five or more A* to C grade GCSEs in English and Maths.