High News 27 April 2018

Monday 30 April

Silver Duke of Edinburgh Practice Expedition
GCSE French and Spanish Oral Exams
Year 5 Assessment Week
Y6 Trip to Osmington Bay

Tuesday 1 May

GCSE French and Spanish Oral Exams
Year 5 Assessment Week
Y6 Trip to Osmington Bay

Wednesday 2 May

Northampton High School’s 140th Birthday
GCSE French and Spanish Oral Exams
Year 5 Assessment Week
Y6 Trip to Osmington Bay
L5, U5, 6.1 and 6.2 ‘Applying to International Universities’ Workshop
Oxbridge Application Workshop

Thursday 3 May

GCSE French and Spanish Oral Exams
Year 5 Assessment Week
Y6 Trip to Osmington Bay
L4N and L4H Read and Relax
Forest School Open Day
Whole School Production Rehearsal

Friday 4 May

GCSE French and Spanish Oral Exams
Year 5 Assessment Week
Y6 Trip to Osmington Bay
World Challenge Meeting

Sports Fixtures

Monday 30 April

U12 and U13 Cricket v Thornton College (H)

Wednesday 2 May

U12 and U13 Cricket v Spratton Hall School (A)

Thursday 3 May

U12 and U13 Tennis v Wellingborough School (A)

During the Easter holidays, 40 of the L5 and U5 students who are studying IGCSE German or GCSE History went to Berlin for 5 days. We set off bright and early from school on the 25 March and arrived at the Meiniger Hotel in Berlin in the afternoon, after which we walked to the Fernsehturm in Alexanderplatz and ate delicious chocolate covered strawberries at the market.

The next day we took the U-Bahn to The Story of Berlin Museum and a tour of the nuclear bunker. We also visited the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche and after lunch in Potzdamer Platz (where we all got some much-needed rest) and we saw the Holocaust Memorial and the Brandenburg Gate where we had some time for reflection and for photos. Lastly, we split into German and History groups and had a guided tour of the Reichstag (Parliament) building. At the end of the fantastic (albeit exhausting) first day we were ready for some rest.

The next day we took the U-Bahn to Bernauerstrasse, to the Berlin Wall memorial and visitor centre and then to Hackescher Markt where we stopped for lunch. Next, we went to the Tränenpalast which was a checkpoint during the Cold War era. After dinner, we had an exciting evening activity of bowling. First thing on Wednesday we had photo opportunities at Checkpoint Charlie where we were unfortunately met by pouring rain, sleet and snow! After travelling by U-Bahn and rushing to shelter in a hospitality tent, we then had a guided tour of the Olympic Stadium and in the afternoon we visited the Topography of Terror museum. As our evening activity, we watched Peter Hase at the cinema, where the German students watched the film in German.

On the final day, we took our last U-Bahn to the Berlin Mall where we got some retail therapy before our flight back home. The trip was an amazing opportunity and reinforced our German and History knowledge.

Thank you to Mrs Hill, Mr Donaldson, Mrs Curtis, Mr Loveday and Mrs Morgan for organising the trip and accompanying us.

Shruthi Nagarajan, L5

Last Saturday, four members of the Eco Team spent the afternoon litter picking in Abington Park. Kate Jameson, Gigi Howard, Lexy Daly and Jess Cressey-Jones along with Mr Earp spent two hours walking round picking up rubbish around the park to help the improve the environment and reduce the risk to both animals and humans. We successfully filled 7 bags of rubbish, putting them into the Park bins, and although the parts of the park we cleared looked cleaner there is still more everyone can do individually to help reduce the world‘s rubbish problem. We hope to make this an annual event and that more people will get inspired to join us then.

The Eco Team

140th Anniversary Charity Ball

There are still some tickets available for the FoNHS 140th Anniversary Charity Ball on Saturday 16 June.  Please contact either school office for an application form. The ball is a fundraiser for school and The Cynthia Spencer Hospice. If you would like to donate any raffle or auction prizes please contact Mrs Esther Sooriah – esther@hrscare.com

Family Fun Day – Save the Date!

In conjunction with FoNHS, we are hosting a whole school Family Fun Day on Saturday 30 June 2018 as part of our 140th Anniversary celebrations. Make sure you save the date, more information to follow soon!

Mr Urquhart, Head of Junior School

We were delighted to welcome Michelle Blanchard from Quorn into school on Tuesday. She created a series of dishes including a variety of wraps, Penang Curry and a Sriaracha and Mango Quorn salad for the students to sample.

There was an excited buzz in the dining hall and the girls really enjoyed sampling the food on offer. The chefs will recreate these dishes either for the hot counter or salad bar over the coming weeks and will be trialing different Quorn recipes for all to enjoy.

Mrs McCue, Catering and Hospitality Manager

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins – recommended for U4 and above

Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, the first Victorian ‘sensation novel’ and one of the earliest mystery novels in English, weaves multiple narratives into a thrilling and suspenseful tale of mistaken identity and dark desires.

The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright’s eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his ‘charming’ friend Count Fosco, the ‘Napoleon of crime’, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.

Miss Buxton, School Librarian

We have been delighted to get started this week with the summer term sports clubs. We are yet to start fixtures but the numbers at clubs and enthusiasm for Tennis, Cricket and Athletics has been superb.

We would like to offer huge congratulations to our Team of the Year, the 90cm Equestrian team, on their fantastic performance last weekend at the National Finals. Also, congratulations to Gemma Watts who, as you will read, has just become the UK Junior Show Jumping Champion! Finally, we are delighted to attend the Cricket match between the GDST Select XI and MCC today, and good luck goes to Abigail Passmore, who is not only playing as Wicket Keeper but is also joint Captain!

Mrs Hackett, Director of Sport

Showjumping

On Sunday, I went to the UK Junior Showjumping Championships to compete with my two ponies, Claggan Silver Length (Freddie) and Rectan Bombardier (Bomba).  I started off the day with Freddie in the 95cm class, jumping a clear round to go through to the 1m jump off. Freddie again jumped a clear round to come 3rd.

Then, Bomba jumped in the 1.5m also jumping a clear round to win 1st place!  He also flew over the course to clear at 1.10m! This victory means I am now, therefore, the UK Junior Showjumping Champion!

Gemma Watts, U3S

Netball

Georgie Forde-Wells (L5) has enjoyed an extremely busy Netball week.  On Saturday, she was part of the Northamptonshire County Squad who were runners up in the East Midlands Regional Championships, and she was also selected to play for Loughborough Lightning against Hertfordshire Mavericks on Saturday evening.  Finally, the GDST Select VII training squad was announced this week; we are very proud to announce that Georgie will be training alongside girls from all over the GDST in June, hosted in Northampton, prior to final squad selection. We look forward to hearing more from Georgie later this term about her experience.

The Northamptonshire County Squad also featured Hannah Whitfield and Gemma Urquhart who should also be congratulated on being runners up in the East Midlands Regional Championships.

On Saturday at Leicester Arena, more of our girls were involved in the East Midlands Regional Netball Championships. Phoebe Haynes and Jess Picot were in the team who won (congratulations girls) while Jane Ampiah and Angelica Suma were in the team who were runners up (again, congratulations)!

The trophies and medals were presented by Beth Cobden, who was part of the England gold medal winning team from the recent Commonwealth Games in Australia. Phoebe then went on to act as ball girl for the Superleague Netball Fixture between Loughborough Lightning and Hertfordshire Mavericks.

Mrs Ford, Teacher of Physical Education

Please click here to view photos from the above sporting events

The Northampton High School Sports Department are delighted to announce their participation in the programme Cricket for Girls. Cricket for Girls was formed in 2017 by England International Cricketer Lydia Greenway, as a way to deliver high quality Cricket coaching to females of all ages and abilities. All of the coaches have vast experience in the game, and that can certainly be said for the coach we welcome to Northampton High School, Ciara Metcalfe.

Ciara Metcalfe is a vastly experienced Ireland international Cricketer, who will be joining us over the next 2 months to train our girls. Ciara is a leg spin bowler, who has played over 50 times for Ireland in all formats of the game, including in the 2000 ODI and 2016 Twenty20 World Cups. We are delighted to welcome someone with Ciara’s amazing pedigree to the School, and we are sure the girls will find her coaching to be an invaluable experience, as many of them begin their journeys into the world of Cricket.

You can find out more about the Cricket for Girls programme by clicking here.

Mrs Hackett, Director of Sport

As part of the school rebrand we are delighted that we have had the opportunity to update and renew the sports clothing, and would like to show everyone the new sports clothing. This will be available for all girls from September 2018. The in no requirement for girls to purchase the new kit but as they change their sports kit this is what the replacement items will be like. The compulsory warm layer will now be the cobalt blue mid-layer top and the optional warm layer which is currently the tracksuit top will be replaced with the soft shell jacket. We are sure that the girls will all really like the look, feel and warmth of the new kit as well as an improvement to the functionality of the garments. If you have any questions please contact me.

Please click here to download the PDF

Mrs Hackett, Director of Sport