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Junior News – 25 November 2022 |
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The abundance of research – past and current – is unequivocal. Play is crucial to children’s wellbeing, resilience, and ability to learn. “Those who play, rarely become brittle in the face of stress or lose the healing capacity of humour”. Dr S Brown, National Institute for Play. Often we are asked by parents for guidance on what can be done at home to best support their daughter’s academic achievements and our answer is frequently to make time for and to prioritise play. Indeed, the National Literacy Trust (NLT, 2017) states that play lays the foundations for literacy, communication, and spontaneity. Children through play develop their emotional resilience, self confidence, social skills, imagination and verbal skills. Play doesn’t have to be highly resourced and often its impact can be directly linked to its simplicity. At playtime and lunchtime we observe our girls enjoy play using limited resources. They have an abundance of resources to support their play but more often than not they choose to use their imaginations alone. Frequently the playground is full of the sound of role play-unicorns, families, doctors, vets, pilots and magic to name a few. Teaching them classic games that we will have benefited from as children is welcomed and enjoyed. My request for you this weekend is to dedicate plenty of time for play. Play together with your daughter. Play freely alongside her. Get lost in the play with her. Enjoy it and watch her grow from it. Miss Hair |
November and December in Junior School |
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Christmas Fayre - 2 December |
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We are thrilled to be hosting our Christmas Fayre next week! At lunchtime on Friday 2 December, we are opening our Christmas Fayre market to pupils to visit and make their purchases. There will be a range of items available for our Junior School girls to buy, including pouches of magical reindeer food! If you would like your daughter to visit the market, please send her to school on Friday 2 December with some spending money. After school (4.30pm – 6.30pm), the Fayre will be open for you to visit as a family, with Santa’s grotto, a raffle, a tombola, refreshments, a Silent Auction and the Christmas market all available to keep the entire family entertained! We are looking forward to seeing you there! |
Weston Favell Food Bank |
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Last month, our Junior School supported Weston Favell Food Bank, with many wonderful donations made by our families. As we approach Christmas, we would like to support this food bank again and would be very grateful for any donation you can make. Families can donate either advent calendars or selection boxes. We will have a collection station just inside the front door of Junior School from Monday 28 November to Friday 9 December for you to make your donations. Thank you in advance for your support. |
Online Safety Guidance |
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Keeping our girls safe when they are online is an absolute priority. With the extensive range of technology and content available today, it can often feel overwhelming to keep track of young people’s online usage. The Amazon Fire Tablet is a popular choice, not only for its affordability, but also because some models are designed specifically for youngsters. Fires come with access to a wealth of entertaining content, from child-friendly TV shows and videos to age-appropriate games and ebooks. To read more about risks such as potential addiction, getting locked out of your device and faulty older models, you can access a free online safety guide on Amazon Fire Tablets here: https://nationalonlinesafety.com/guides/amazon-fire-tablets
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Secret Present Workshop, Craft Workshop and Sparkle Party |
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Christmas events in Junior School are on their way! We are all ready for the fun and games, have you booked your daughter’s place on Parent Pay yet? Secret Present Workshop, Thursday 1 December: An opportunity for the children to choose a gift for chosen family members to give on Christmas Day! Christmas craft workshop, Thursday 8 December: An opportunity for each class to spend time together creating some wonderful Christmas crafts! Sparkle Party, Thursday 15 December: A Christmas party that will be full of fun, sparkle and festive cheer! |
Junior School Christmas Celebration - Tuesday 13 December |
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We are really looking forward to our Junior School Christmas Celebration, taking place on Tuesday 13 December! For this event, all children from Reception to Year 6 will need to be dropped off at their classrooms by 6:00pm, dressed in their school uniform with a ‘touch of tinsel’. Year 3 and 4 will be wearing a costume and their class teachers will communicate separately about this. Refreshments will be available for our parents and families ahead of the performance starting at 6.30pm. We hope you can join us! |
Charity Competition |
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This year, Northampton High School are supporting KidsAid, a local charity that provide support to children who have suffered trauma and suffer with mental health issues. Our Junior School pupils have been invited to take part in a creative competition, corresponding with the charity’s current campaign that focuses on celebrating uniqueness. The girls have been invited to creatively respond to the question, ‘What does unique mean to you?’. Pupils can submit photos, models, drawings, creative writing, etc. All competition entries must be submitted by Wednesday 30 November, with a minimum entry donation of £1 to be donated to KidsAid. The charity fundraising lead will be organising for one of the charity’s creative therapists to come and judge the competition and award a prize to the winner. Donations for submitted pieces can be made through this page here. |
GDST Christmas card design competition |
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Thank you to all those who entered a design for the GDST Christmas card design competition! Congratulations to Isabelle in Year 1, whose design has now been submitted to the GDST for the judging!
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Festive Wreath Workshops - Adults Only |
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We have arranged for an excellent florist (Bouquet Chic) to deliver Wreath Making Workshops for any interested parents and members of the community. Why not book a place to enjoy making a festive creation with friendly people and a supportive and talented instructor? Spaces are £65 per person which includes everything you’ll need to make a fantastic, impressive wreath and refreshments during the workshop. There is also now an option to bring your daughters for an additional £3. These events are on Tuesday 6 December 5.30 to 7pm or Wednesday 7 December 12.15 to 1.45pm. The deadline for bookings is 30 November. To book please contact the school office junioradmin@nhs.gdst.net. |
News from our classrooms: Nursery and Pre school |
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In Nursery, Christmas has arrived and the girls have started making decorations and writing their letters to Santa. We are also practising our songs for our Christmas performance on Tuesday 6 December. In our Maths sessions, we have focused on rectangles looking at the long and short sides. We have compared loud and quiet sounds in phonics…we like being loud ourselves! We picked some apples on our walk to the Forest learning area and used them to make delicious apple and mud pies in the mud kitchen. We even made some traffic light biscuits as a treat! We have looked at the moon and talked about the ‘moonlight’ before making some sparkly full moons by rolling playdough balls. This week in Pre School we have started to think about Christmas. We have been learning some Christmas songs in preparation for our performance. We have been concentrating on our fine motor skills with lots of cutting using our scissor skills and pencil control when writing our names. We have enjoyed reading a lot of books this week including: large floor books; sharing stories, which have accompanying toys; library books and our own reading picture books. The older girls in school come to join us for a reading session every week too. Outside we have been wrapping up warm and experiencing all types of weather, but mainly the rain which the girls have enjoyed watching pour down the roof and splashing into the drains. In PE we had fun completing an obstacle course by going over ramps, jumping through hoops and balancing along beams in various ways. |
Reception |
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This week we have been busy learning new songs and routines for our forthcoming Christmas Production ‘Baarmy Bethlehem’. There are lots of words to remember and moves to learn! In Phonics, we have been consolidating some letter sounds, practising how to form them correctly and how to use them to spell words. In Maths, we have been investigating number bonds and different ways of combining numbers to make a total. We have also been finding missing numbers in a sequence and writing them correctly. In our topic we have been learning about different sources of light, the sun being the most important. This week in cooking, the class enjoyed decorating cakes, spreading the icing and deciding what extras to put on top. |
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Year 1 Computing Focus |
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In Computing, the girls have been using tables and Venn diagrams to sort 2D shapes on their devices and drawing their own shapes.
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Year 2 Computing Focus |
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In Computing, Year 2 have been looking at safe searches on the Internet. We have used Purple Mash to practise in a safe enclosed system and then we have been using Google’s child friendly web browser, ‘Kiddle Search Engine’, in our Science lessons to research nocturnal animals. The girls are getting more confident accessing information and they enjoy using the different programs we have subscribed to at school and home. |
Year 3 Computing Focus |
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In Year 3, we have been recapping online safety and the things we should think carefully about when we are working or playing on the internet. We spent some time creating posters to remind ourselves and others of the ways we can stay safe online. |
Year 4 Computing Focus |
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In Year 4, the girls have been creating programs that include IF and IF/ ELSE statements. To begin with they had an image of a rainy day and they needed to program a prompt asking if it was raining. If the response was yes, they programmed for an umbrella to appear and if it was a no they programmed the clouds to disappear. The girls then used this as a template to create an original program using the IF/ ELSE statements. Some had water themes, others had busy roads and there were even some scary forests too. Children can read code that includes an IF and an IF/ ELSE and explain how they work. |
Year 5 Computing Focus |
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In Year 5, pupils learned how to search a database so that we could answer a quiz about aliens. |
Year 6 Computing Focus |
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This week in Computing, Year 6 have been learning to code a computer game with a timer and score. They have had to recall some tricky programming vocabulary such as algorithm, action and command. |
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News from outside of our classrooms: Key Stage 1 Trip to Oxford University Museum of Natural History |
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It is not everyday that you can say you stroked a brown bear, touched a piece of rock that is 4.2 billion years old and looked at hundreds of very rare insect specimens. Key Stage 1 had a fantastic day out at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History! As soon as they arrived they were led into a magical room filled with skeletons, specimen jars and antique wooden drawers full of amazing creatures! The teaching session ‘ Spectacular Skeletons’ was led by Professor Chris who wowed the group with his passion and ability to engage everyone. The girls learned so much from looking, touching and listening and are now experts on different types of skeletons such as hydro-static and exoskeletons.
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They then had time to explore the thousands of exhibits in the museum, ranging from a giant T-Rex skeleton, to the tiniest beetle. Their minds were blown away! ‘I learnt that bones are pink not white’. Grace R ‘My favourite thing was seeing dead insects in the wooden cases’. Zehra Anne liked talking about the skeletons and learning how skulls protect the brain. It was a wonderful day out and only an hour away, we would strongly recommend a visit! |
Awards for this week |
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Star Learners of the Week – Grace B, Eve C, Shanaya S, Constance H, Daisy P, Sakinah S, Zoe S, Harini S. Linguist of the Week – Avani A Each week girls are invited to share their achievements in activities outside of school. They are listed below for this week: Poppy – Achieved 1500m in swimming |
Christmas Fayre - Friday 2 December |
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New look for parent FireFly dashboard! |
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The school’s FireFly dashboard for parents has recently undergone a revamp and an upgrade! We hope that our parents will find the information platform to be user-friendly and accessible. If you have any questions or have any feedback on the upgraded portal, please do get in touch. Mr Rittler |
Community Sessions |
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Term Dates |
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Northampton High School |
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