Brilliant beginnings, fantastic futures

On Friday 7th March, some of our Year 3, 4 and 5 girls took part in the Biggest Ever Girls’ Football Festival at Kingsbury High School, organised by QPR staff.

Our students enjoyed learning and practising a variety of key football skills at the event whilst also celebrating International Women’s Day through the power of sport.

Thank you to all our parents, who have funded our new play equipment.

Commando Joe’s is a pupil-led play enrichment programme delivered by the children for the children. Promoting positive behaviours and a proactive mindset. Putting the structure into unstructured times.

The children were superstars at the ISA drama competition where they performed part of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. They received excellent feedback and we look forward to finding out how they will be placed once the other schools have performed.

Undaunted, they went straight into a recreation of a Victorian classroom for Back in Time Day so their friends could experience what writing, maths, PE and play were like for children 150 years ago.

Finally, we were delighted to reward Year 6 with a surprise activity day of bouldering and bowling in recognition of the senior school offers they have received. It is clear that London has been bowled over by the personalities and talents of our Year 6 children! We are so proud, well done to everyone.

Some of our Year 3, 4, and 5 students had a fantastic time at Kingsbury High School, where they took part in the Brent Seated Volleyball Competition. For most children, this was their first experience with the sport, and they quickly adapted to the new challenge!

Seated volleyball is a fun and inclusive sport where players sit on the floor and work as a team to hit a soft ball over the net, without using their legs. It helps improve hand-eye coordination, teamwork, and upper body strength.
Special shoutout to our Year 5 team, who finished 3rd. All students showed great enthusiasm and teamwork throughout the event. It was a brilliant experience, and we are so proud of them for giving it their best effort!

We had a brilliant maths week, with workshops and activities each day to inspire all the children in their love of mathematics! Workshops about the properties of shape, problem solving and money were all a great success and children even enjoyed being taught by Year 6. with lessons that they had planned themselves. We hope that children enjoyed times table rockstars day and have come home this week thinking about numbers and knowing the importance of maths in our everyday lives.

As part of our commitment to supporting children’s mental health, we are inviting parents to a practical and supportive workshop, led by Anita, Therapeutic Lead from the Schools Counselling Partnership. This session will explore simple, effective ways to help children understand and manage their emotions. We will discuss:

✅ How to support your child’s emotional development

✅ Why connection, not perfection, is key to parenting

✅ Practical strategies to help children navigate big feelings

This year’s theme, “Know Yourself to Grow Yourself”, encourages children to explore their emotions, recognise their strengths, and develop self-awareness—key skills that help them grow both personally & socially.

Throughout the week, we have a range of engaging activities planned, including:

📢 Assembly: A special session led by our Schools Counselling Partnership Therapeutic Lead, Anita, featuring stories, discussions, and interactive moments to help
children understand the power of self-awareness.

🎭 Creative & Well-being Activities: Children will take part in fun and reflective exercises designed to support emotional expression, boost confidence, and build positive connections with others.

The whole school was pleased to have a visit from our very own Maple Walk Junior Duke Ambassador, Radha Davies. She is a past Maple Walk Mum and is Marketing Director for Sainsbury’s. She spoke about perseverance, motivation, and preparing to succeed to help with learning new life skills and develop independence.

Thank you to Radha!

Some Year 5 & 6 pupils participated in the Brent Sportshall Athletics competition. They had the opportunity to demonstrate their skills in running, throwing & jumping against 15 other schools. The PE team were proud of the effort and sportsmanship on display by Maple Walk pupils at the event.

To encourage independence, confidence, resilience and self-motivation, Maple Walk is offering an Award called the Junior Duke Award. This programme is aimed at helping children to learn a large variety of life skills as well as broadening their horizons and understanding others’ cultures. Each level has a selection of challenges and, in order to complete a level, the children need to finish a pre- determined number of these successfully. These include skills such as First Aid, ICT, Eco Awareness. Drama, Music, Sport and other life skills such as cookery and puncture repair. Most of the challenges will require time and effort with friends and family outside of school.

Our focus on wellbeing continued this week, with our Year 6 wellbeing ambassadors leading assembly on Monday morning and reminding the children of all the tools and resources we have in school to support them. The wellbeing zone is open every lunchtime and always busy, with a range of activities from puzzles to card games on offer. We also have emotion charts and worry monsters in every classroom so that the children are able to recognise and respond to their emotions and any niggling concerns.

We are delighted that Ramita Anand has been back in school  already this term and working with some of our upper school children, delivering bespoke wellbeing workshops.

It was also great to see lots of upper school parents at her webinar recently as Ramita shared advice about navigating the ‘middle’ or ‘tweenage’ years and all the emotions that come with it. We are planning a series of parent talks this term, with the next one led by Anita, our in- house therapeutic lead.

This term, our initiative, The Secret Parent, is expanding the scope for our parent visits to school from reading a story to sharing an area of expertise or interest. Children are looking forward to hearing about parent stories, interests, religions, jobs or skills! At Maple Walk we place great value in working collaboratively with the parents and we know that when we work together the children make exceptional progress in all areas so thank you in advance to all our “Secret Parents”.

We have set up a Parent Pledge, so that like-minded parents can unite in their belief that childhood should be smartphone free.  This connection empowers our parents to support one another in sticking to the commitment to wait until at least senior school to give their child a smartphone.

Encouraging independence and resilience at school is so important and we often find that working together can help children (and parents) get into a really good morning routine. At Maple Walk, we aim to help all the children start their days positively by planning morning activities from 8:30am. To support with morning drop off, we also have morning clubs available and the walking bus. We find that these options really help to boost self confidence.