Assalamu Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh,

Alhamdulillaah since 1996, under the instruction and guidance of Shaykh al-Hadith Hazrat Maulana Yusuf Motala (Rahmatullah Alayh) the Azhar Academy has been striving to provide a high quality of Islamic and educational services as well as a range of other charitable activities. Our purpose is to continue his legacy and vision for the provision of our core services, which Alhamdulillaah on a daily basis, currently approximately 1,100 students, which we expect will continue to  increase by at least 50+ each coming year for the next few years, InshaAllaah, are benefitting and learning, either through our full-time activities (in our Girls Secondary School, Primary School or Nursery), or through our part-time activities including our evening/weekend boys and girls Aalim/Aalimiyyah studies, Hifz Classes and Islamic studies. This is in addition to our 450/500 worshipper capacity Masjid. In fact, this past year, we have been particularly proud of the fact that Alhamdulillah, along with 21 girls completing their Aalimah course, 2 boys completing their Hifz, we had MashaAllaah 10 girls completing their Hifz at the Azhar Academy, which is the first time in the history of the United Kingdom, that 10 girls have completed their Hifz at a single institution in a single year, Alhamdulillah.

In 2026 however, we continue to operate in increasingly difficult and challenging times. The Labour Government’s blanket application of VAT on private schools and withdrawal of business rate exemptions on schools have placed an unprecedented burden on the charity, its finances and activities. In addition to the economic situation, as a result of recent acquisitions of the former Newham College F-Block in 2021 and the building immediately next door to our Primary School in August 2024, our financial situation has indeed become extremely burdensome, and therefore the charity is currently significantly constrained in expanding its charitable growth and activities, due to the outstanding Qardah Hasanah. Despite an investment in excess of £9 million, we now only have an outstanding debt of nearly over £1 million. Please help us in repaying this remaining amount with your kind support.

Notwithstanding that, Alhamdulillah, as you will see in this Overview Report, the past few years have seen the efforts of the staff and pupils at the Azhar Academy nationally recognised. Achieving Ofsted Outstanding in March 2022, and March 2024 were significant milestones for the Azhar Academy – to achieve back to back Ofsted Outstanding inspections is a testament to the status of the schools as a truly Outstanding school Alhamdulillah.

In fact, in a report by the independent think tank, Equi, in January 2026, titled “Faith-Led, Results-Driven: Unlocking the Potential of Islamic Schools” the success of the Azhar Academy, amongst a handful of other independent Islamic schools, was identified as providing “a striking and often overlooked model of success. With lower annual fees, these schools provide high quality, values-driven education and consistently achieve results that surpass national averages. They also operate against a wider backdrop of rising school expenditure. In 2025-26, the cost of state-funded education for 5- to 16 year-olds was approximately £8,000 per pupil, representing a 59% increase in per pupil funding since 2010-11.9 In comparison, the independent Islamic faith schools (like the Azhar Academy) charged an average of £4,113 per student per year, while achieving excellent results.”

In 2025, our school Senior Leadership Team travelled to Malaysia and Thailand, with the Turing Scheme, where they visited a number of schools and engaged in training and development to identify effective practices, compare approaches to teaching and learning, and reflect on how international models of education can enrich teaching and learning at the Azhar Academy.

We are very much aware of the needs our community faces, including the desperate need for the provision of a Boys Secondary School, the expansion of our Primary School and Nursery, developing a community space at the Tennyson Road site, improving the playing facilities at our current primary school site and expanding much needed prayer space in the Masjid, however, we simply cannot proceed with these activities until the financial burden on the charity is eased.

The Overview Report is intended to provide you, our supporters and community, a picture of what we at the Azhar Academy do, the range of services provided by the Trust and a vision for what projects we are seeking to embark on as soon as we possibly can.

I humbly request you to support us with this noble project in any way possible – financially, introducing us to friends/family/colleagues locally, nationally and internationally, who may be able to support us financially to pay-off our outstanding Qardah Hasanah, or professionally so that we may continue to expand in the provision of our purpose.

With a humble request for your Duas
Ismail Gangat MBE
Chair of Trustees