It’s been a very exciting first few days as pupils arrived back from summer holidays to find the new climbing frame equipment on the playing field and, today, our first school mini-bus! Even the Kilburn Times covered the news.

The climbing frame equipment was supplied to us over the summer holidays by play equipment specialists Sovereign, after a successful National Lottery Funding application led by parent, Harriet Williams. The Lottery Fund agreed to match fund £10,000 when parents raised the same amount. 

Thank you to Harriet and also to Chloe Pooley who led the scoping work with children from our marvellous School Council and chose Sovereign from a tender process. A huge thank you to everyone who donated and therefore made this possible, whether at our successful Summer Fair or at BTMyDonate for the equally wonderful Moonwalk. We raised enough money to also pay for priority projects such as IT, as well as pay for school trips, books and music provision.

"The Labyrinth" climbing equipment was carefully chosen to suit the area as there was such a large space to fill. According to Sovereign, "it’s a high level, adventurous piece which supports physical development and risk assessment skills in a safe environment”.

Children from both schools are using the frame during outdoor learning class time and it has already become a very popular after-school activity (although, for safety reasons and fairness to teachers, we sadly need to ask parents not to leave children on there after 4pm)! The frame will also be used by children outside of the school through groups such as Play Shelter.

The 17 seater school mini-bus was the result of the tenacity and boundless energy of our incredible teacher and parent, Mike Cleary, and we will use the mini-bus for a wide range of extra-curricular activities across both schools.

To keep costs down we have bought it on a lease and will consider loaning it to local community groups. We are also interested in local business sponsors to help us with the running costs in return for branding opportunities on the bus.

Thank you to the 16 amazing parent triathletes and everyone who supported their efforts back in May. The triathletes raised over £17,000 after Gift Aid, which will partly be used for the mini-bus and partly for other sport-related initiatives and equipment around the two schools.

The school would like to acknowledge everyone’s superb efforts over the past school year and would encourage parent newcomers to get involved with events and ideas for the year ahead.

If you are interested in becoming more involved with our parent bodies please contact Giles (Juniors) at maloreesjuniorpsfa@gmail.com or Alice/Antonia (Infants) at maloreesinfantpsa@gmail.com. 

Above: the lucky first class to ride on the bus, on their way to Willesden Sports Centre for swimming lessons this morning (picture by Sol Aizcorbe)

Here is the Kilburn Times piece: www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/education/months-of-fundraising-bring-new-minibus-and-playground-equipment-to-a-brondesbury-primary-school-1-5205390