Eight students from a free school in one of the most deprived areas of the UK have received offers from Oxford and Cambridge.

The London Academy of Excellence, nicknamed the ‘Eton of the East End’, outperformed a number of fee paying public schools, including Prince Charles’ alma mater.

Some of the offer holders will be the first in their families to go to university and all of them come from immigrant families. By comparison, £30,000-per -year Gordonstoun received only one offer this year.

One of 400 free schools approved for opening in England by the Coalition government between 2010 and 2015, the Academy is located just a few minutes from the Olympic Park in Stratford. It is a highly competitive institutiob, with 2,500 applicants vying for only 200 places.

Free Schools are a type of non-profit academies, funded by the state but not controlled by a Local Authority. Despite some successes, free schools remain controversial.

Backers have argued that local competition would drive up standards and increase choice, whilst critics suggested that middle class parents and private companies are more likely to be the ones to set up such schools.

However, think tank Policy Exchange reported in 2015 that free schools are eight times more likely to be in England’s most deprived areas than the least deprived.

The schools have also been criticised from other quarters for allowing too much religious influence, and even perhaps extremist influences.

The success of the LAE in helping deprived students achieve has been commended, with the Sunday Times naming it the ‘best sixth form in the country’.

But there have been some suggestions that success has been achieved at the price of overly rigorous admissions and expulsions policy.

In 2014, West Ham MP Lyn Brown investigated the LAE after they were criticised for “culling” underperforming AS students. Some students complained after they were “kicked out” for achieving grades too low to apply for Russell Group Universities.

The Academy did not tell students about this policy when they applied, instead notifying them during their time studying at the academy.

When asked, headmaster John Weeks said the academy’s success was simply down to “expert teachers who love their subject and sixth-formers with the mindset to succeed”.