Alperton Community School officially opened Phase 1 of its new school in Ealing Road on Monday 20th February and Parvez Ahmed, Mayor of Brent and Barry Gardiner, MP were guests of honour at the ceremony.
Phase 1 was completed on time and on budget in January this year. Phase 2, which will be completed in May 2018, will add more teaching accommodation and sports facilities. The school was selected for redevelopment through the Government’s £4.4 billion Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) and the project is being led by the Education Funding Agency (EFA).
The new school is arranged on three floors and is designed to accommodate up to 1,750 students, an increase of 300 from its previous capacity. Each of the 83 new classrooms is fitted with Promethean’s interactive whiteboards fitted with award-winning teaching software to create an engaging and interactive learning experience in the classroom. The new facility has a very large and well-stocked library, 14 science laboratories, 10 ICT rooms, 5 art rooms, 2 music rooms, 2 drama studios, 6 design and technology rooms and a dining hall capable of accommodating 450 students at a single sitting. The main hall is equipped with tiered and moveable ‘bleacher’ seating. The new Sports Hall, that will be able to accommodate four badminton courts and three cricket practice nets, will also have activity studios which can be used by the local community as a Leisure Centre and for other uses. In addition, students are now able to use a Multi-Use Games Area (MUGA) and because there will be a much smaller overall building footprint there will be larger external space, which will be landscaped and equipped with new PE equipment.
Safeguarding has been a priority and provision includes Access Control and CCTV monitoring outside and inside the new school building. The Ealing Road frontage has been landscaped. There will be wider pavements and the road itself will be subject to traffic calming measures to ensure the safety of students and other pedestrians.
Students are benefitting from ‘state-of-the-art’ ventilation and heating systems that can be controlled in each classroom. The new school building embodies the principles of ‘BREEAM’ which drives greater sustainability and innovation in the built environment by scientifically assessing a range of issues in categories including energy and water use, health and wellbeing, pollution, transport, materials, waste, ecology and management processes.
Our Headteacher Gerard McKenna commented “It is particularly pleasing that students have moved into a ‘state-of-the-art’ facility at a time when they have exceeded all expectations in delivering a tremendous set of GCSE and A Level results. In addition, Ofsted inspected the school in July 2016 and judged it to be “Good with Outstanding Leadership and Management”.
Ofsted reported that “Leaders have a thorough and accurate understanding of the school, driving improvements rapidly where they identify the need for improvement”. The school leaders “are uncompromising in their ambition for pupils’ outcomes and have shaped a culture within the school of high expectation and aspiration”.
