A very warm welcome to the Brook Special Primary School. Our school is part of the Broadwaters Inclusive Learning Community which means that we share our values, vision, ethos, and aspirations with the Willow Primary School, Broadwaters Children’s Centre, and the Broadwaters Extended School Service. What’s more, we share a groundbreaking state-of-the-art building. Our inclusive approach means that pupils live together in an aspirational learning environment where every need is met.
Our pupils are aged 4 – 11 and have a range of needs such as Autism severe and complex learning difficulties as well as associated physical, medical, and emotional needs. This means that they need a safe, specialist environment to help them learn and reach their potential.
Laughter, excitement, and enthusiasm are evident in all aspects of our school life. Our emphasis on communication, creativity, physical and personal development means that our pupils develop into self-confident learners who are rightly proud of themselves and their achievements. We aim to enable our pupils to move confidently onto the next stage of their lives.
To achieve this, we have created a school and inclusive learning community where:
- Outstanding teaching and learning are central to everything we do and are challenging, rewarding, and fun.
- The school is full of laughter, light, excitement, and enthusiasm.
- The curriculum is continuously reinvented by a learning community that is committed to meeting the needs of our pupils.
- Communication is central - every pupil will leave the school with an individualized system of communication which can be non-verbal, signed, or verbal.
- Creativity is placed at the center of teaching and learning, breaking down the barriers between subjects.
- A wide-ranging and highly skilled multidisciplinary team works collaboratively with the school to provide access to the curriculum across the range of pupils.
- The environment and curriculum provide every pupil with the opportunity to grow personally, socially, and academically to be the best they can be and to develop an overwhelming sense of self-confidence and high self-esteem within a stimulating and caring environment.
- There are clear boundaries and structures set for the pupils, which are well communicated and consistently reinforced.
- Every child is entitled to enjoy their childhood and is kept safe.
- The approach across the inclusive community is holistic and one of collaboration, harmony, and trust, creating a safe, supportive environment.
- Positive images of and attitudes towards all our pupils are developed in the community to access their right to be included in that community.
- Difference and diversity are valued, understood, embraced, and celebrated and the whole learning community is respected and valued with any discrimination opposed and rigorously challenged.
- A caring community is based on fair, understanding, and compassionate relationships.
- The school and the pupils are placed firmly in the mainstream of educational provision and at the center of community life.
The Brook Primary Special School is within the same learning community and in the same building as The Willow Primary School and our vision is very simply about children on a continuum of need including those with the most profound and complex of needs, who are learning, living and belonging together in an aspirational learning environment where every child’s needs are met. Haringey is an area rich in cultural diversity, and the Brook community faces all the benefits and challenges of inner-city life from the range of different experiences, cultures, religions, customs, and languages which pupils, parents/carers, and staff bring to the school. Although our children will come from across the Local Authority, we are very much a part of the Broadwaters Inclusive Learning Community (BILC).
The Brook offers co-educational day school provision for children with profound, severe, and complex learning difficulties those who have language and communication needs pupils with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), plus associated physical, medical, communication, and emotional needs. This complex range of needs and the inclusive nature of our campus create huge demands on the school’s curriculum to be able to meet the needs of every pupil. The majority of Brook pupils will progress to Riverside as their secondary special school and most of them will then move to the Sixth Form Centre.
Our curriculum promotes and sustains a thirst for knowledge and understanding and a love of learning. It covers a wide range of subjects and provides opportunities for academic, technical, and sporting excellence. It has a very positive impact on all pupils’ behavior and safety and contributes very well to pupils’ academic achievement, their physical well-being, and their spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development.
Respecting and developing ‘pupil's voice’ is at the heart of all that we do at the Brook especially considering that many pupils have communication difficulties or have difficulties with social interaction, which means their voice isn’t always easily heard. The supporting adults at school need to help the pupils find and use their voice and at times act as an advocate on their behalf. Pupils are constantly encouraged and enabled to have a pertinent, enthusiastic, listened to, heard, and influential voice. Their thoughts, opinions, and attitudes are considered throughout every area of the curriculum, and where possible the pupils are given choices and offered opportunities to express themselves. Through art, music, drama, dance, planned PSED sessions and much more the pupils can share as much of their personality as they want to with their peers and support staff.
