Channel 4’s Top Boy lands second series
East London gang drama starring Ashley Walters will return next year
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Anger grows over Olympic proposal for Fish Island
Residents complain that second corporate Olympic venue on small industrial area in Stratford, which will include the UK’s largest TV screen, is a disaster waiting to happen
How Hackney reclaimed child protection social work
Is a model of social work that radically transformed child protection in one borough about to go mainstream?
Top Boy is the real deal
I thought this TV series set in Hackney – where I grew up – might be another cliched urban drama. It rose far above that
Top Boy gets a mixed reception from Hackney’s youth
A panel of locals enjoys a preview of the Channel 4 drama’s first episode, but finds plenty of flaws in Ronan Bennett’s supposedly realistic portrayal of life in the borough
Labrinth is SyCo’s latest signing but he doesn’t need a popstar bootcamp
Hard work and big tunes are all the Hackney producer cares about, but what if sleeping in the studio leads to a hobo beard?
Top boy: stories of Hackney’s young drug dealers
Ronan Bennett spent two years interviewing gang members in east London for his powerfully personal TV drama, Top Boy. Here he describes their hidden, hopeless world – and the lengths they’ll go to escape from it
New school to be opened by Mossbourne academy
London state school known for its great success to open new comprehensive nearby
Ken Livingstone on riots, debt and the end of the world
Labour’s London mayoral candidate has offered a group of sixth form students his recipe for reviving the capital
After the riots: the Hackney worker teaching young men to be ambitious
Youth worker Emeka Egbuonu’s book has much to teach policymakers following the riots, writes Rachel Williams
Frustration fallout after EastEnders declines Olympic Park move
The BBC’s decision not to move the production base of its flagship soap to the Games broadcast centre makes the job of filling that space in the long term more difficult
The Saturday interview: Mossbourne academy’s Sir Michael Wilshaw
Sir Michael Wilshaw is the super-strict head at Mossbourne academy in Hackney, and is rumoured to become the new head of Ofsted. Can he repeat Mossbourne’s success nationwide?
Panel examining the riots lacks independence and teeth
To ensure the avoidance of politically expedient explanations, a public inquiry into the unrest should have been established, says Patrick Vernon
Leona Lewis: the Hackney heroine has given Simon Cowell a lesson in taste
Collide singer talks epic spook-pop, riots and dodging Whitney style ballads with Sylvia Patterson