High News 10 November 2017

Confidence is a highly desirable attribute, in life and in learning. The magnetic illumination we sense around people with confidence is almost physical, while the feeling of being confident is exhilarating and empowering; an unstoppable force where there are no immovable objects.

Gaining or maintaining confidence is the tricky part of course. Whether it be a nagging inner voice which tells us we are not good enough, or past mistakes that have scarred us, or others’ judgements voiced without thought for the consequent impact, or even well intentioned praise which is twisted around, it can be difficult to gain the magnetism of a virtuous cycle.

Click here to read the rest of Mr Williams’ blog.

Events and activities

Monday 13 November

L5 and U5 Tutorials all week

Tuesday 14 November

U5 Consultation evenings

Thursday 16 November

U5 Consultation evenings

Friday 17 November

Demeter Charity Donut Sale

Hestia Charity Event

Selene Charity event

Sports Fixtures

Monday 13 November

U12 U3, U13 L4, U14 U4, Stamford Girls School Swimming (H)

U16 U5, Zonal Hockey Round (A)

Wednesday 15 November

U13A L4, U13B L4, Beachborough School Hockey (H)

Thursday 16 November

U16 U15, L5/U5,Thornton College Badminton (H)

U15 L5, Stowe School Hockey (H)

Friday 17 November

U13 U3 County IN2 Hockey Spratton (A)

Saturday 18 November

U13 U3 ESSA National Finals Swimming (A)

Netball County Champions

On Monday 6 November the U14 and U16 teams travelled to Oundle for the County Schools Netball tournament. Both teams played very well, with everyone in the squads taking the court. The U16 team won 4 and drew 1 to finish as County Champions! The U14s went one better to finish unbeaten and therefore also finished as Champions. Both teams now go through to the Regional Finals on the 27 Jan next year at West Bridgeford, Nottingham. We wish them the best of luck and look forward to seeing them continue to develop their netball over the coming weeks.

Mrs Ford

On the first Saturday of half-term Northampton High School became a location film set for Screen Northants production of Reverberations, a Sci-Fi thriller for the British Sign Language Broadcasting Trust. S3 in the Science corridor was transformed into a university lab, Reception was the setting for a tense entrance of a time-traveller and a dramatic fight took place in the Dining Hall.

Two of our Film Studies students were involved in the professional shoot; Amelia Simpson shadowed cinematographer Sarah Deane and Leila Shahin worked on make-up and hair.

Ms Heimfield

Ruth Purser and Amelia Simpson’s film The Leading Lady was selected by the RSC for a Showcase at the Barbican Cinema on Tuesday. Inspired by Shakespeare’s Roman plays, Ruth and Amelia took the provocation ‘The qualities we value in male leaders are seen as negative in women’ and created a film which inverted the gender of the Bard’s famous lines. Featuring Sixth Formers in a variety of activities – Shefali dancing, Kirsten shooting, Kathryn performing, Julia studying, Caitlin exercising – and a voiceover by Ella, the film was presented on the big screen and discussed by a panel including the RSC Director Iqbal Khan, the actor Alex Waldmann and the RSC’s Head of Education and Head of Digital Learning.

Ms Heimfield

The school signed up to the award-winning GCSEpod last year and it was a bit hit with the Year 11 girls as they studied for their exams. It is a service which offers additional support for GCSE beyond the curriculum, in a format that is really easy to use. Each subject area offers a range of mini lessons known as ‘pods’ which can be streamed on a mobile app for phone and tablets and used on the go, or via the internet on a computer. They typically last around five minutes and can be linked to quizzes and other activities by teachers. Best of all, they are specific to the exam boards and specifications that we use at school and include past paper questions, so students can be confident that the content is relevant and useful.

In a fun-packed assembly on Wednesday, past and present users spoke to girls in Years 9-11 about why they enjoy using GCSEpod. We expect all these year groups to register, but any current senior school student can access the service via the website at www.gcsepod.com – there are instructions on firefly explaining how to sign up which girls can find easily by searching for gcsepod in the search bar on firefly. Parents can find out more at www.gcsepod.com/parents/ where there are also a number of resources to support students in the lead up to their exams.

Happy podding!

Mr Rickman

Art Workshops will be held in Queen’s Cross Centre at Northampton High School on Saturday mornings from 9am – 11.30am on Saturday 25th November, 2nd December and 9th December. It will cost £36 for all three classes.

Come and spend your Saturday mornings having fun, making new friends and learning new skills.

For more information and to book a place contact Emma Lindsay – emmalindsay65@hotmail.com/ 07570 772334.

The Book of Dust: Volume One, La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

Eleven-year-old Malcolm Polstead and his dæmon, Asta, live with his parents at the Trout Inn near Oxford. Across the River Thames (which Malcolm navigates often using his beloved canoe, a boat by the name of La Belle Sauvage) is the Godstow Priory where the nuns live. Malcolm learns they have a guest with them; a baby by the name of Lyra Belacqua…

It has been a week of tournaments in the sports faculty this week. Particular highlights have been the superb netball performances of the Under 14 and Under 16 teams at the County Tournaments with both teams ending the day as County Champions. On the same day the Under 14 badminton team convincingly beat Thornton College, on Wednesday, the Under 12 hockey teams played superbly against Oundle with particular highlights being the 7-1 win. Yesterday we took part in a very competitive rally at Oxford, highlights were that the swim team reached 8 out of 14 finals, and the hockey team lost in the semi-finals to the eventual winners, Howells.

Jo Hackett, Director of Sport

Badminton

On Monday 6 November, the U13 and U14 combined team played in a home match against Thornton. The girls went in to the match with tough competition but came out thrashing the opposition. We had three pairs playing doubles consisting of, Shreya Srinivasan (captain), Isobel Ward, Abhisri Chadalavada, Vidhushi Banerjee, Risha Bhasin and Mei Lai Swan, with Avani Nandhra as reserve. Shreya and Isobel won all of their games with scores of 21-19, 21-10 and 21-4, Abhisri and Vidushi also did well, winning 2 of their matches with scores of 22-20 and 21-13 and unfortunately one loss of 15-21. Mei Lai, Risha and Avani played very well against their competitors with a great win of 21-13 and tight losses of 13-21 and 18-21. Well done and thank you to all the girls who played on Monday with great resilience with an amazing overall win of 6-3 to Northampton High School. Thanks to Mrs Hackett for organising a great game, I speak for everyone when saying we had fun. Well done girls and keep up the great wins!

Shreya Srinivasan

Swimming

On the 9 November,  we went to the GDST rally in Oxford. The junior team consisted of Anna Johnson, Rebecca James, Rebecca Lowe, Ellie Chinnock and Phoebe Haynes. The team swam exceptionally well with the highlights coming from Rebecca Lowe finishing 3rd and the freestyle relay team finished in 3rd place.

Three girls from the senior swim team also competed in the Rally. Unfortunately one of the members couldn’t make it, however two members of the junior team swam up into the senior age group. The morning consisted of heats: Chloe Mercer in the 100m medley, 50m breast stroke and 50m freestyle. Maddie Saunders in the 50m backstroke. Freya Stevens in the 50m butterfly. And the medley relay team consisted of Maddie Saunders, Freya Stevens, Phoebe Haynes and Rebecca Lowe. The same team swam in the freestyle relay. The girls swam hard and managed to qualify for the finals: Chloe Mercer swam the 50m breaststroke and finished 5th overall. Maddie Saunders swam the 50m backstroke and finished 4th. Freya Stevens swam the 50m butterfly and finished 6th. Both relay teams qualified for the finals and both teams finished 6th. This was a really good result after a long day of racing. Well done to all the senior and junior swim team.

Freya Stevens

Hockey

On Saturday 4 November the U18 team played a match against Princethorpe. After battling weather extremities including heavy rain, we began the match. The first half started slowly and we were unlucky to concede a goal early on. We fought back with some breaks up the wings by Hollie Megan Mullen and Frankie Musson, however unfortunately Princethorpe scored another two goals.

The second half started better with some strong attacking runs and a couple of shots on goal and we were unfortunate not to score. Unluckily we conceded a final goal, leaving the full time score at 4-0.

Amelia Simpson

The U15 team played really well In the first half, focusing on everything we had been working on in training. We had great communication and were pressing really well too. By the end of the first half the score was 2-0 with two great goals from Gemma and Issy. At half time we discussed our focus for the next half which was transfers as we were sometimes crowded around the ball on the left wing. In the second half our opposition stepped up their game and although  we fought hard throughout and managed to get a lot of balls into the D we were unable to score any more goals. The final score was still 2-0 after the second half.

Hannah Whitfield

On Thursday 9 November, the U15 team travelled to Oxford to compete in the GDST rally. There were some great schools there, so lots of hard competition. Our first match was against the hosts, Oxford. Oxford managed to score early in the match and for most of the game we were 0-1 down. However, luckily in the last few seconds of the game Georgie managed to finish a great goal, so the final score was 1-1. Our next game was against Shrewsbury with a great win, 3-0. By this point we were working really well as a team as two of these goals were made by excellent team work. Our final game in the pool round was against South Hampstead with a great win of 2-0, sending us into the quarter finals. In this match we faced Newcastle. It was a fast paced game with 5 goals scored but unfortunately 3 were disallowed. We then moved into semi finals where we faced Howells, the eventual winners. We all worked together but were unfortunate not to score. The final score was a 1-0 loss but the opposition stated it was the hardest game up until that point. We played against Nottingham in a 3rd place play-off. Both teams battled hard and by the end of the game it was a 1-1 draw. This led us into golden goal, Nottingham were the first to score meaning we finished in 4th place. It was a very successful tournament and everyone played extremely well.

Hannah Whitfield