Alderbrook Primary School

Alderbrook Primary School is an expanding school in the heart of Balham. We have the highest expectations and aspirations for all our pupils. Our core purpose is ensuring every pupil achieves their absolute personal best, within a safe, nurturing and engaging learning environment.

This website aims to tell you about life at Alderbrook, what we stand for and what we want for the children in our community. Walk around our school at any time, on any day, and you will see classrooms buzzing with enthusiasim, as pupils and staff learn together.

We are extremely proud of our school and would be delighted to show you around. If you would like to visit us or if we can be of any further help, please feel free to contact us.

We are a vibrant, friendly, multicultural community primary school which is currently expanding from a single form of intake to becoming a full two-form intake school. We have benefitted from major building and playground renovations over the past few years and opened a new-build, dedicated Early Years Unit in September 2013.

Our excellent facilities include a heated swimming pool, a well-resourced library, an attractively landscaped playground and a roof terrace. We have a strong teaching staff, including dedicated support for pupils with special educational needs (SEN), a trained team of nursery nurses and teaching assistants supporting children in every class.

We place a strong emphasis on enabling all our children to develop as happy, confident, independent learners who will contribute fully as adult citizens of the 21st century. Our children are encouraged to have high aspirations for everything they do and we recognise and celebrate all aspects of their achievement.

At Alderbrook we want all our pupils to develop a real love for learning so we ensure that we tailor the curriculum, which is based on the National Curriculum, carefully in order to inspire our pupils. The curriculum is designed to provide breadth and depth. Subject Leaders, Phase Leaders and the AHT for Teaching and Learning oversee, review and monitor the teaching of their subjects across the school.

Pupils are taught mainly by their class teachers. We have specialist French, Music, Gymnastics, Dance, Games, Swimming and Art teachers. Pupils are taught in a variety of ability grouping to secure the best outcomes for every pupil.

We offer curriculum evenings at the start of each year to provide parents with information about what the pupils will be learning each term and how we intend to teach it. There are also termly parents' evenings and a written report, informing parents of their child’s next steps.

The structure of literacy teaching is based upon the Literacy National Curriculum guidelines and covers all of the recommended objectives. To ensure that there is adequate time for developing Literacy skills, each class has a dedicated Literacy lesson each day, with a duration of approximately 60 minutes. Opportunities for extra reading and extended writing are planned when appropriate. Phonics is taught throughout KS1 and where necessary in KS2. The Literacy skills that the pupils develop are utilised and supported in every area of the curriculum and can be directly linked with other subjects. For example, formal letter writing within Literacy may be developed within a history topic.

Across the school, we follow the Pie Corbett scheme of Talk for Writing, in which children follow the process of imitating, innovating and inventing a text. Story mapping is a key feature in all genres and supports those with language difficulties to access the text. Pupils are provided with a range of opportunities to develop their speaking and listening skills through role play, drama, debate and discussion. Before writing, pupils plan their text carefully and spend time orally rehearsing, ensuring that they are confident with the structure and language, allowing them to focus on the transcription.

Each year group has a range of additional teaching materials available e.g. ICT resources, from which the teacher plans lessons. However, we often plan our teaching of Literacy around our curriculum topic headings. Work is differentiated to meet the needs of the pupils and to ensure progression within each year group.