History of Arden School

Arden Primary School grounds and buildings have changed many times and are still changing...

The school was built in 1970 to accommodate the 'overflow' from other local schools. It was built originally as a one form entry school.

The school was surrounded by houses and had a garage alongside the playground. Whenever classes went out for PE or playtime they would need extra balls to replace the ones lost on the roof of the building behind! There was an incident when a bull which was being transported escaped and found its way onto the playground. The children missed playtime, but were able to watch its capture.

Staff v Pupils Rounders Match

Staff v Pupils Rounders Match

In the pictures above you can see the staff v pupils end-of-year rounders match. They were, and still are, events of enormous fun for all.

This part of the school has changed many times. It was our main playground, rounders, skittle ball, football and cricket pitches back in the 70s and 80s.

These children are playing near the schools entrance in St Johns Road. There were no uniforms to wear at this time! The houses in the background were demolished to make way for some new semi-detached houses soon after this photograph was taken. Mr Lamb and then Mrs Garland were the head teachers at this time.

The intake of the school remained the same until 1982, when there was a great shortfall in school places locally. The houses surrounding the school were demolished and the Warwick road was widened. The school then had an intake of 90 children for three years, followed by 70 children for four years. Extra portable classrooms were delivered each year.

A 52 part-time place nursery class was opened in 1984. This has been increased to a 78 part-time place class.

Parent's Room - 1985

Library - 1986

In January 1985 the Parents' Room was opened, funded by the Inner City Partnership Programme. As the school expanded the library opened in 1986 which was based in one of the huts. This was replaced by a purpose built library in April 1997.

2001/2002 - New Classrooms Built

At the start of 2001 we had three huge playgrounds. But that was soon to end as work started on a permanent two-storey building that was going to replace the outside classrooms. Work was finished early in April 2002. Mr Lambert was the Headteacher at this time.

Floor for Year 1/2 Being Laid - Sep 2001		We still had 8 classes in huts but less playground space
Rapid Progress - Nov 2001		New Classrooms - Apr 2002

April 2002 saw the removal of seven of the eight huts. All the classes were in proper classrooms, except the Nursery and Mrs Seeley. Shame...

A new library was 'suspended' above the old one in Easter 2004. The ICT suite moved out of the corridor into the old library. The day the new ICT suite and Library opened Mr Lambert told staff that the school was to undergo building work that would expand the school to a three form entry Primary school. The new library and ICT suite were temporary buildings after all!

A Four-Year Rebuild

Thus began a four year process. Mrs Owen was the Headteacher at the start of developments. Then, Mr Lacey became the Head and took on the task of managing the next stage in rebuilding Arden School.

Phase 1 begins with the demolition of the nursery and soft play huts - Apr 2006		Steel frame in place for the Library, Reception and Year 5 classes - Aug 2006
Mr Lacey, Mrs Shergill and Mr Flood take the first inspection tour - Nov 2006		School stays under wraps, but transforms the skyline along the Warwick Road - Spr 2007
Halfway through the rebuild and Phase 1 complete - May 2007		The oldest part of Arden School is demolished - Jul 2007
An additional floor not on the original plans appears! - Sep 2007		The last of old Arden, the hall, caretakers house and canteen, have gone - Jun 2008

Summer 2008

During the Summer holidays, work to extend the playground and provide parking spaces for teachers and visitors and provide safe, pedestrian access to the school could begin. The fence which had screened and protected the builders from the children was removed.		Kerbstones and hardcore was delivered and levelled for the staff car park and Pedestrian access for parents.
Grading work to smooth the slope and provide a planting area to separate the cars from the playground continued in the Summer sunshine.		Heavy rain during August slowed progress...
... but by working weekends and late some evenings, the builders had almost completed their work by 29th August.		All finished, just in time for the children and staff to return.

There is just The Community Building to complete now. It started out as the Parents Room, then became The Nurture Suite; then The Special Needs and Nurture Rooms and now...!

Arden has changed so much, from a one form entry school surrounded by Victorian houses in the 1970s to the building you can see pictures of on our website.

One thing fortunately hasn’t changed. Arden’s children have always been, (whichever building they have been taught in) wonderful, enthusiastic, helpful, polite and a pleasure to teach.