Four-year old Artie waddles past me in his green wellies, his little legs motor frantically before he decides to come to a sudden halt.

As he swings round to ponder what his mum is doing talking to a strange man in his school, his bright yellow waterproof spins around with him, much to his delight.

I'm at the fee-paying, independently-run Waldorf School of South London, which, located on Tooting Bec Common, gives children an education that defies conventional thinking.

Artie's mum, Sarah Fanconi-Thorne, is typical of the parents the school attracts.

She says: "I took Artie to kindergarten last year and I noticed a real difference in him. He became much more attentive and seemed to be more comfortable socially. He was really happy. After that I wanted him to stay."

After reassurances from mum, Artie bounds off to join the group - blissfully unaware his school could be forced to closed in June.

Next week Wandsworth Council could effectively shut the school by terminating its lease. A number of its pupils come from outside the borough and the council wants the land to provide football pitches for Wandsworth's youth.

Should the school close, it would pave the way for part of the common to be developed on and mean Artie will have to leave a school which an Ofsted report released today confirmed has satisfactory-to-excellent ratings.

The campaign to save the school has crystallised support for a place that parents say represents a community and village and has opened up the old public-private schooling debate.

Ofsted reports aside, there is nothing conventional about this school.

For a start, it is controlled by Wandsworth Council but actually has a Lambeth postal address due to boundary changes.

Sitting in a discreet part of the common it benefits from a generous plot of land, overlooked by the school's eight-classroom wooden hut - which was rebuilt after a fire in June 2004.

The school - which started in Balham with one pupil and one teacher in 1983 - is special because of its teaching method which was developed by Rudolf Steiner in Germany in 1911.

Loose syllabus

Children from three through to 14 have few exams and conform only to the loosest of syllabuses.

The philosophy lays emphasis on social interaction and around different life stages of the child "from change of teeth to puberty".

Youngsters learn about Norse gods and myths and form a strong bond with the physical world, before exiting to mainstream education.

Up to seven, children learn best by imitation, the method goes, and only after does intellectual learning begin with the three Rs.

There is also a loose teaching hierarchy. Seventeen full and part-time teachers run the day-to-day and meet to make decisions and are encouraged to stay with the same group for eight years from seven to 14. They can also shape and change the syllabus.

"If I feel that one group is strong in one subject and weaker in another, then I can decide, with the other teachers, to change things," says Michael Williams, who has taught at Steiner schools over the country.

"There is an obsession with early learning in this country but by the time our children reach 10 or 11 there isn't much difference," adds Philip Martyn, director of school, explaining it is not only teachers who are expected to help. "A place at the school is as much a commitment for the parents as it is the children."

Real community

Sarah, who gave up her job in media when she had Artie, is a press co-ordinator for the school. When the school received a letter from the council saying it was being evicted from the site it was she, and other parents, who mobilised a quick response and launched the "save our school" campaign.

"We have a real community here, everyone knows each other and there is a real village feel," she says. "We had to do something."

And the school, or more accurately its donors, have the resources to do it. The school is actually a charity and raises its monies from fees. And when a fire ripped the school apart in 2004, donations of £250,000 meant it was rebuilt without a single school day lost.

At £4,000 a year, the education is certainly not cheap and, with a modest 93 pupils, it has classroom sizes comprehensives can only dream of.

Given that, it is easy to assume the school is really just a place for rich liberally-minded parents, who have decided to opt for a different education but could afford established private institutions.

But that is only partly true. Thirty-three per cent of the pupils are also on bursaries - a higher rate than other independent schools.

Other than providing real parent choice - and a real contrast to the state system - dedicated parent and teacher contributions fostered in its ethos add to the children's sense an identity.

But does it work? Phillip says: "A lot of our children end up going to the Brit school in Croydon. The headteacher there says they are bright, well developed socially and don't mind talking to adults and children and are always willing to learn.

"One boy we had went on to one school in the borough and within a year he was selected as the head boy. The chief executive of American Express is a former Steiner student."

A lot of opposition

So there it is; an independent grass-roots school achieving great things with resources and class sizes not matched in the state system.

For the council the common is special land that can be used better to serve Wandsworth's residents but it has said it will extend the lease until 2009.

A spokesman said: "We have met with representatives from the school and, as a result of those discussions, we are proposing to extend their lease by a total of 16 months to run until the end of August 2009.

"We believe this is a very fair and generous offer. The school has always known that its lease with the council was a temporary arrangement. A non-renewable 15-year lease was awarded in 1993, specifically on the understanding that the school would use this time to find an alternative site."

The temporary reprieve will allow the school a window to find another location which, with its money and resources, is better placed than most.

Then a more contentious debate into whether common land should be torn-up to create 10, floodlit, five-a-side football pitches will begin.

Philip says, with classic understatement: "The council will have to deal with a lot of opposition from the residents."

By that time Artie will be learning about myths and legends in a new setting - still blissfully unaware of the fuss.