Termly Newsletters

Stay Connected with Our Termly Newsletters

Our termly newsletters are designed to keep you informed, engaged, and connected with everything happening at our school. Packed with updates on academic achievements, extracurricular activities and reflections by staff and pupils, these newsletters serve as a hub for celebrating our students’ successes and fostering a sense of community.

Each issue provides a snapshot of life at our school, including:

  • Reflection on the term by our Headmaster
  • Highlights from the term’s activities
  • Insights into classroom projects and initiatives

We believe communication is key to building strong relationships between school and home. By sharing these newsletters, we aim to create a transparent and supportive environment where everyone feels involved in our students’ journey.

Spring 2026 Newsletter

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Exciting travel opportunities, plus fantastic musical and theatrical performances!

In this vibrant, action-packed edition of the MVS Newsletter, you’ll discover a rich tapestry of student experiences across the physical, scientific, artistic, and cultural worlds. From inspiring creativity and dynamic performances to meaningful service and personal growth, this edition captures the heart of life at MVS. We hope you enjoy celebrating all that our students have explored, achieved, and truly taken pride in this term. 

Magnus Bashaarat,

Headmaster

Autumn 2025 Newsletter

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New beginnings, creativity and community involvement.

The autumn term at MVS started with our new Year 7 staying at the PGL camp in Osmington Mills, Dorset, now a rite of passage for all new MVS students (Page 5) and since that week the pace of life at MVS has not faltered. In the pages of this newsletter are pictures and testimony that show the variety, challenge and excitement of an MVS education.
At our Open Mornings we talk to parents about the range and abundance of the trips that we organize for students to enrich their engagement with the curriculum. I’m not just proud of my involvement with the two trips that I hand in organising to Hardy’s Wessex and to the National Theatre to see ‘Hamlet’ (Page 8) but also with the imagination and organizational energy that the MVS staff show in creating such a broad range of opportunities to take learning and the potential for achievement outside the classroom. The art galleries, theatres and concert venues of London are indeed on our doorstep, but we go way beyond London in our scope and ambition.
Art, Drama and Music, the expressive and creative arts triumvirate that sit at the heart of MVS, have allowed our students to express themselves and their ideas in all sorts of different media and venues, and our community involvement (Page 22) show MVS staff and students engaged with and supporting fundraising initiatives to help others.
I hope you enjoy reading these pages and seeing a busy and successful term reflected. 

Magnus Bashaarat,

Headmaster

Summer 2025 Newsletter

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A term of full important achievements and milestones

This summer term has been a term of important achievement at MVS. Our pioneer cohort of Year 13 have negotiated their season of public exams and deadlines successfully, and we look forward to seeing the school’s first set of public exam results in August. We had a very enjoyable and emotional send-off for Year 13 and their families in the penultimate week of term, bidding farewell to some students who had started at MVS when it first opened 2020. We then enjoyed two very impressive performances of the school musical, ‘The School of Rock’, running concurrently with the A level Art and Photography exhibition in The Studio. The exhibition and musical showcased the expressive and visual arts at MVS at their best, and in this newsletter are pictures and reviews of those events plus a comprehensive round-up the school’s academic and co-curricular life this term. We have excited plans for a new look DT department next year, with more opportunities in creative design, and new staff joining the school to enhance our creative life. But meanwhile, I hope you enjoy your holiday and enjoy reading this newsletter. 

Magnus Bashaarat,

Headmaster

Spring 2025 Newsletter

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Adventurous expeditions and thought provoking trips

The Spring Term began in the cold deluge of successive winter storms piling in from the Atlantic and has finished with the cherry blossom on Saltram Crescent out in full bloom; the twelve-week term feeling to me like darkness emerging into light. My personal highlights were the trip to Stratford-upon-Avon with Y12 and 13 English students which gets a mention on Page 9. The picture shows a guide in red explaining the rise and fall of the Hathaway family to a large group of French schoolchildren, plus us, before we had a tour around the house itself. Later we saw a production of ‘Hamlet’ at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre that was original, thought-provoking and direct. This was immersive cultural education at its best. As was our Cultural Capital Day on the 21st of March which saw me accompanying Y10 to Lord’s, The Home of Cricket, for a combined Maths and PE trip. We played some cricket in the indoor cricket school, had a tour of the ground which included the famous Long Room, the home dressing room and the museum, and then played some real tennis. We also spent the middle of the day calculating averages and completing a Maths quiz. The Science Fair on Page 10, was my third highlight of the term, with Y7 and Y8 presenting their science investigations to their peers, parents and staff; an excellent example of successful project-based learning. The variety of learning and development opportunities in this term’s packed newsletter are testament to the creativity and innovation that lies at the heart of an MVS education.

Magnus Bashaarat,

Headmaster

Autumn 2024 Newsletter

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Fresh Starts and New Challenges

The Autumn Term began for me with some days of excitement and endeavour with the new Year 7 pupils at the PGL camp in Osmington Bay, Dorset, for their residential camp. Storms Ashley, Bert, Connal and Darragh have battered that part of the Jurassic Coast, and as a result there’s rather more sea and a little less land either side of PGL. If unpredictable weather, and the violent and destructive storms that accompany it are as a consequence of global warming, and only gets worse, then we may end up having to run residential camps in the Scottish Highlands as we seek higher ground in 2045. As you will read in the pages that follow, the core purpose of MVS as a well-resourced, dynamic and caring environment where learning and discovery take place, has kept us all busy and engaged this term. Our Christmas Concert held last night in the cool, columned serenity of St. John’s, Notting Hill, was the creative culmination of months of planning and rehearsal, and an opportunity for singers and instrumentalists to perform some seasonal favourites given a contemporary Annie Lennox inspired makeover. We celebrate creativity in all subject areas at MVS, not just the creative and expressive arts. Any practical experiment in chemistry will have a creative outcome, simply by creating a reaction to produce a compound, for example, that wasn’t there before. Producing magnesium oxide is a creative act just as applying a paint-dipped brush to canvas is a creative act. The diversity of cultural and intellectual experience and creative expression in this newsletter is truly impressive.

Magnus Bashaarat,

Headmaster

Summer 2024 Newsletter

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A term of creativity and opportunity

This has been an exciting summer term of achievement for the pupils and staff at MVS. In the final weeks, we saw a really successful school production of ‘Tuesday’, by Alison Carr, a contemporary play that addresses issues of tolerance, compassion and understanding in a school community. Having spoken at assemblies earlier in the year, following the announcement that a general election was to be held, about what we in schools have to call ‘fundamental British values’, and in particular the importance of tolerance of opinion within a democratic process, it was affirming to see some of those same tropes of difference and understanding being played out on stage.

It is a term of exams and focus for our Y11 GCSEs students and we wish them every success this summer. Post exams saw a burst of hospitality from both our academic and creative departments. Highlights include the Summer Music Recital and our annual BBQ which was an indoor affair due to this year’s lack of summer. The Sixth Formers studying Hospitality catered a ‘Summer Fruits Tea party’ in the ILC where they served to a most discerning audience of bakers – their teachers. The Sports Department hosted an ‘Awards Night’ for which our Art Department provided an exhibition of work inspired by the Amazon Rainforest.

The sunny and warm weather of our school sports day held at Willesden Sports Centre, from which a sunny action shot graces the front cover of this magazine, seems distant by time and temperature as I write this. But the pages that follow encapsulate a term of creativity and opportunity for the pupils.

The gentle hum of teaching, learning and progress has been happily sustained since the 17th of April, and I hope that this visual reminder will begin a peaceful and exciting summer holiday for everyone.

Magnus Bashaarat,

Headmaster

Spring 2024 Newsletter

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The value of creative learning opportunities

This end of term newsletter reflects a period of extraordinary creativity at Maida Vale School. Our teaching staff returned for the new year to a presentation by Professor Bill Lucas from the University of Winchester’s Institute for Education on the importance of creativity and creative thinking in education. Creativity and problem solving are vital to the future success of UK PLC, and schools and educationalists need to make a concerted effort to correct and roll back the drift of the past twenty years towards school curriculums that are content heavy and rely on memory rather than leaving room for creative representation of skills and knowledge learnt. The life of a learner at MVS that is shown in these pages demonstrates happily how much we value creative learning opportunities. Our expressive arts subjects at MVS fill many of these pages with pictures, photographs and manufactured models, all demonstrating the success at MVS of learning through making. But there are also exciting and varied examples of creative responses in classics, computer science and history. The Science Fair for Years 7 and 8 was an excellent example of pupils creating and curating responses to real world problems and presenting them to a curious audience. The highlight of creativity for me this term was the visit of Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate, to MVS, and his reading in our theatre to an audience of pupils, parents and staff. Coincidentally, this newsletter will arrive a day after the publication of Simon’s poem series Blossomise, which celebrates the power and symbolism of the sight of blossom. The cherry and hawthorn blossom on Saltram Crescent that Simon noticed was flowering when he arrived for his visit will have disappeared by the time the school reopens for the summer term, but the creative desire and opportunities at MVS will continue.

Magnus Bashaarat,

Headmaster

Autumn 2023 Newsletter

Flipbook version – Spring 2024 Newsletter

Downloadable pdf – Spring 2024 Newsletter

New beginnings for Year 7 and Sixth Form

An important part of the new academic year is getting to know all the different personalities and characters which make up our new Year 7. I will enjoy watching them grow academically and as people over their time with us. Another new group this term is our new Sixth Form. Some of whom we have known since we opened; others have joined us this year. All of them have bonded well this term and are beginning to emerge as role models for our younger pupils. Creativity runs through the heart of Maida Vale School, from the Photography and Art Departments on the top floor to the Design Technology laboratory in the basement of the annex. Creativity at Maida Vale School isn’t just for the arts; it is part of all our teaching – maths, science, and humanities. Classics used Lego to recreate Greek myths, in History they made model hill forts to explore defensive structures and built small vehicles in physics to investigate friction. Our parents continue to be a source of support and inspiration, hosting workshops and giving talks as part of our Parent Perspectives program. A huge thank you to the team that arranged the terrific quiz night to raise money for local charity LDN London this term (above). The run up to Christmas is always a pleasure, and this year has been no different. The last week of term has been filled with festive spirit with decorations, our tree and a big Christmas lunch. The highlight was the Maida Vale School Christmas Concert at St. Augustine’s.

Magnus Bashaarat,

Headmaster

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