What makes Alwyn and Courthouse special #2

Alwyn and Courthouse are federated.  This means that we remain two separate schools but we have one leadership team and one governing board.

This is much better than being two separate schools because we work together to map out what children will learn over 7 years of school, we align our approaches to teaching and we share resources (including our expert staff).  These are the benefits that we are working towards:

You might be thinking: Well isn’t that what all through primary schools do anyway?  What’s the big deal?  The crucial difference that we have many of the benefits of an all through primary and a unique opportunity…

Alwyn and Courthouse necessarily have their different identities because we teach children of different ages and stages of development.  What is best for a 4 year old in one of our Reception classes is not what is best for an 11 year old in one of Year 6 classes and vice versa.  In many primary schools, resources can often be unequally distributed towards the oldest children (partly because of SATs) but not in our schools.  We recognise the different approaches needed for children in our infant school and for children in our junior school, tailoring what we do so that every child feels safe, is happy at school and by the time they leave us at the end of Year 6, has flourished in many ways.

We have the resources and opportunities of a big school but the feel of a small school.  Every child is well known by adults that care about them and their development deeply.