Support Islamia School Expansion

Islamia Primary School is hoping to build a new two-storey school on part of its existing site, to provide 21st century education and learning opportunities for its pupils. The current school was built over one hundred years ago and the buildings no longer meet pupil or teacher needs. Islamia Primary is also an extremely popular and over-subscribed school, on average receiving ten applications for every place available, and it urgently needs to expand to cater for the current pupils on roll and to meet the growing demand for places across the borough.

Islamia Primary School’s site has always been used for educational purposes. The school itself was founded in 1983 by Dr Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens). In 1989, it moved to its present site at 129 Salusbury Road. Nine years later, it became the first Muslim school in England to be awarded grant maintained status, which meant that the vast majority of the school's funding came from central government. The following year it opted to become a voluntary aided school, in 2007 the school took on an additional 138 pupils, following the closure of The Avenue School in Brondesbury Park. The main site at Salusbury Road is also shared with an independent Muslim girl's secondary school, which occupies the entire first and second floor of the buildings, and parts of the ground floor. This school is not part of the re-development proposal. The rebuild is needed as the existing buildings are leaky, not energy efficient, not compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and are spread out on many different levels, with stepped access and no lift. The proposed new building will provide easy access for all pupils and adults, including those with visual and hearing impairments and those with special educational needs (SEN), including speech, language and communication difficulties, and severe learning disabilities. The proposed new school will provide these pupils with a dedicated room and space for educational psychologists, speech and language therapists and school nurses to come in and offer support. In general all the facilities at the site are inadequate for a modern school.

The new school plan is to build a new, modern and inspirational school, which will meet the needs of current and future generations of pupils. The building will reflect the school's faith and its ethos and will allow improved links with the local community, by opening its facilities at set times out of school hours. For example, by providing space for adult education, health and fitness and a canteen, which can be used by parents.

There will also be:
Fourteen new classrooms, a dedicated children's library, a specialist teaching room for SEN, an enlarged roof-top play area, a dedicated prayer area, landscaped areas and additional outdoor learning spaces for all children , a children's gym.

From September 2011 new pupils attending Islamia Primary School will have to live within the catchment area of the school, which will mean significantly less pupils travelling in from outside the borough. Currently 40 per cent of pupils come in from neighbouring boroughs.

The school is urgently fundraising for this development.

Key questions
http://www.brent.gov.uk/cfd.nsf/School%20improvement/LBB-783

Contact for questions and queries
For all questions on the proposed scheme please email info@islamia.brent.sch.uk