As culture shocks go, moving from a school with close to 1,000 pupils to one with just 23 must rank pretty highly.
That's what Aisling McKeever, headteacher at Floreat Brentford, which opened this September, chose to do.
She was previously deputy head of Fielding Primary School, in Ealing, which, according to Ofsted, has a capacity of 940.
"It's very different but one of the reasons I wanted to work here was because I knew I would get to know the pupils and their families really well," she said.
"It's nice to be involved from the start. There's a real sense of community. All the parents have chosen this school because they really believe in it.
"Usually it's hard to get parent governors but we had four volunteers for two positions, so we had to hold an election, and other parents had expressed their interest too.
"The parents have been through a lot of ups and downs, with the uncertainty over the school's opening, but they really want it to succeed, which is great."
Ms McKeever's new school, currently located in Ealing Road, Brentford , will of course grow - eventually accommodating 420 children once it reaches full capacity, at a permanent site which has yet to be chosen.
But, despite its bijou proportions at present, with just five full-time staff on site, her new job has not been without its stresses.
The school initially applied to open at Brent Lea Recreation Ground but that fell through in the face of fierce public opposition to the loss of open space.
Forced to look for an emergency replacement, its founders settled on the ground floor of an apartment block in Brentford's Great West Quarter.
Despite objections from some residents on the estate, it opened there on September 14 and now has permission to remain for up to three years while it seeks a suitable permanent location.
Staff had just 22 days in which to turn what was an empty office block into a new school, so it was all hands on deck, with even Floreat Education founder James O'Shaughnessy mucking in on the Sunday evening before it opened.
Now the school is on the estate, Ms McKeever says she is keen to make it a hub of the community, with talk of it hosting a homework club for older children in the evenings.
"We want to be a community hub. We believe that's part of a school's job"
"It's a really large new estate, with around 3,000 people living here, but most of the retail units are empty and there's no real centre to the community. We want to be a community hub. We believe that's part of a school's job," she said.
The school is also in talks with the council about creating a safe outdoor play space in nearby Carville Hall Park by fencing off the games area.
As well as being available to the public outside most of the day, they say it will be a positive legacy for the area once the school moves to larger premises.
To make up for the lack of outdoor space on-site, it is also teaming up with the forest schools provider Nature Links so pupils can get closer to nature, probably at Boston Manor Park.
Floreat Education currently has one other primary school in Wandsworth and is due to open another three next year, in Southall , Alperton and Wokingham.
It eventually wants the Brentford school to be part of a west and north-west London hub, with more new schools and academies planned for the area.
All the schools will share the same vision of a "knowledge-rich" curriculum, with a focus on "character development".
In practice, this means pupils learn about different character traits each week, like teamwork or bravery, which are illustrated through real life examples or stories and reinforced through the language teachers use.
"It's important they understand the concepts so it's easier for them to demonstrate the different character traits. The language is a framework for their moral development and behaviour," said Ms McKeever.
The school is still searching for a permanent home, where it hopes to move by September 2017 and is nearing the end of a "sequential site assessment" to identify the most suitable location.
It hopes to announce its preferred venue before Christmas but Mr O'Shaughnessy said Brent Lea Recreation Ground had already been ruled out.
"The one thing we're very conscious of with the Brent Lea experience is how important protecting and improving green spaces is for the community, particularly with so much development going on in the area," he said.
"Building on Brent Lea Recreation Ground is not part of our plans"
"Wherever we end up we're hoping it will be an enhancement of that site rather than people thinking they've had to make a compromise to get a new school.
"Building on Brent Lea Recreation Ground is not part of our plans. Nobody wants it and the planning committee is never going to approve it."
The immediate priority, however, is filling the seven remaining places in reception this year and the 60 places for next year.
Parents are able to apply now and given the number of new homes already built or in the pipeline around Brentford, Ms McKeever said it was little surprise there has already been a lot of interest.
* For more information about Floreat Brentford and how to apply to send your child there, visit http://www.floreatbrentford.org.uk .
