High News 29 June 2018

The Theatre was full of anticipation and excitement on Thursday morning, as the audience awaited the curtain up on the Community Performance of this year’s musical production, The Sound of Music.

Girls from our Junior School and over 150 visitors from local primary schools and the wider community enjoyed the highs and lows of this ever-youthful drama, as the free-spirited Maria tries to outwit the Nazis.

Tonight sees the first evening performance, at 7.00pm. All are welcome and entry is free, so please come along.

The final performance of this sensational show will take place tomorrow (Saturday) at 7.00pm. Don’t forget the Behind the Scenes interview which will start at 6.00pm tomorrow for some sneak previews of the show. See you there!

Monday 2 July
CERN Trip
LAMDA Exams
L5 TaP Trip to Bhaktivedanta Manor
Y1 & Y2 Sports Day

Tuesday 3 July
CERN Trip
LAMDA Exams
Social Enterprise Staff Car Wash
Dance and Gymnastics Show

Wednesday 4 July
Anna Booth Visit
CERN Trip
LAMDA Exams
Eco Team Environmental Summit
U4 End of Key Stage 3 Lunch

Thursday 5 July
Y4 Sport Enrichment Day
L4 Biology Fieldwork

Friday 6 July
Welcome Day for New Pupils

This Wednesday, Robin Stevens, author of the Murder Most Unladylike series, came to visit the school.

During lunchtime some of us were lucky enough to meet her before her talk that afternoon. In both her talk and at lunchtime she told us about her journey to become a murder mystery writer; she started off by reading mystery books from Enid Blyton and later went on to read crime books from the 1930s by authors like Agatha Christie. Robin also gave us some very inspirational advice to those hoping to be authors one day. The one thing I will take away from her talk is that if we would like to be authors one day we should keep on reading and keep on writing.

Katie Leahy, U4

After the focus on performance in summer examinations, L5 are enjoying the opportunity to find out more about managing stress and using relaxation techniques ahead of the Upper Fifth year.

Groups this week have so far tried yoga and mindfulness with Mrs Eborall, and Zumba and beats with Ms Margareto. The programme is intended to contibute to girls’ wellbeing, and further workshops are being held next week.

Miss Mason, KS4 Team Leader 

Seventeen of our Sixth Form girls have just been completing ‘Salutes to the Sun’ to support Cystic Fibrosis. The girls made a good effort completing 9 rounds of Sun Salutations in the glorious sunshine this lunchtime to support the charity. 153 were completed by the Sixth Form compared with 108 completed by the staff!

Last Thursday on International Yoga Day, a group of yogis including myself, Mrs Langhorn and Mr and Mrs Laubscher completed a staggering 108 rounds of Sun Salutes each!

Big thank you to those who took part in these events for this worthy cause, with the total raised for these two events in the region of £500.

Mrs Eborall, EAL Coordinator and Yoga Teacher

Next Wednesday 4 July, we are delighted to welcome ex-High School student Anna Booth.

Anna studied A Levels in Science and Mathematics at the High School in 2011/12, and she then went on to Oxford University to read for a degree in Chemistry. Anna is now undertaking Ph.D. research as part of the Oxford Nottingham Biomedical Imaging course and she is keen to promote the role of women in STEM.

During her visit Anna will be giving 2 presentations, with the topics being ‘Bones, Brains and Biology: Imaging Science’ and ‘Studying Science at University’

We encourage the girls to come along to support the talks – and learn some Science!

Dr Carr, Chemistry Teacher

On Wednesday 20 June, the Year 10 Latin GCSE students embarked on a journey to Oxford.

When we arrived in the city, we walked to the Bodleian Library and many of us took pictures of this magnificent building. Then, after walking through the cobbled streets of Oxford, we arrived at the Ashmolean Museum and met Mr Alli, who led us around the museum after a brief talk about why Classics is so important. Inside, we saw fascinating statues of Roman Gods and Goddesses and two of Emperor Augustus; one of the statues was painted so we could see what it might have looked like during the Roman era. We then got to have lunch in Worcester College, followed by a tour of the college.

We saw the Halls of Residence built in the 13^th Century and the more modern housing next to a picturesque lake. After this tour we were treated to a lecture by Dr Pitcher, who told us more about the Gauls and Roman Britain as well as Roman authors who were writing at the same time as Tacitus and Caesar.

This was a great trip as we learned so much and were able to have a small taste of the university experience.

Isobel, L5G

Ordeal by Innocence – by Agatha Christie – recommended for U4 and above

No one felt sorry when Jacko Argyle died in prison. Everyone knew he had bludgeoned his mother to death with a poker from the fire.

But when a doctor turns up at the house two years later with proof of Jacko’s innocence, the whole family is horrified. Because it can mean only one thing – that their mother’s killer is still among them…

Ordeal by Innocence was cited by Agatha Christie in An Autobiography as one of her favourite novels, a detective story which plays on the shock of an innocent man’s conviction and its impact on his family.

Miss Buxton, School Librarian

Athletics

We are delighted to report that Georgie Forde-Wells has been selected for the Northamptonshire School’s Team, to take part in the English Schools Athletics Championships in Birmingham!

This is a superb achievement and we wish Georgie the very best of luck.

Mrs Littlewood, P.E Teacher

Tennis

On Wednesday 27 June, a team consisting of Annie Mahil, Charlotte Johns, Zoe Bradley, Lydia Moseley, Issy Thorpe and Ella Nicholas travelled to Queenswood School to play in the summer GDST Tennis Rally.

We started off really positively with a 2 game to 1 win against Croydon School. Zoe and Lydia had an epic match winning 4-3 and 5-4 in the tiebreak, winning on a sudden death point. Annie and Charlotte won 4-2, and Ella and Issy played really well just losing out with a score of 1-4, however they were playing girls much older.

Next, we beat Northwood College, and we stormed through it winning all 3 of our matches. We then played Shrewsbury, beating them 2 games to 1 with Annie and Charlotte winning 4-0, Zoe and Lydia winning 4-1 and Ella and Issy again playing amazingly, however just tightly losing 4-2.

These excellent results allowed us to finish first in our group, meaning we would play Howells in the quarter finals. Howells were very tough and we lost 1 game to 2 however the girls went in with positivity and played excellent tennis.  Annie and Charlotte won 4-0, Ella and Issy lost 1-4 and Zoe and Lydia lost 0-4. Overall everyone played really well and we had an excellent day of tennis.

Annie, U4H

The South Africa tour group 50-50 draw will now take place on Tuesday 3 July at the Gymnastics and Dance Extravaganza.

There is still time to buy tickets (£10 per number) so please contact the PE department if you would like to buy one!

Mrs Ford, Teacher of PE

We politely request that all visitors to the school car park be aware of the 5 mph speed limit. The speed limit is for the safety of all children and adults using this site.

There have been a few incidents reported recently regarding safety, and, as you will understand, it is our priority is to make the school site as safe as possible for everyone.

May we please ask all drivers to give way to pedestrians using the designated crossing points.  Children should be dropped off in the designated bays in the parking areas, and not on the crossings or in disabled parking spaces. Please be conscious of looking both ways when pulling out of the parking bays.

We thank you for taking care and keeping safety paramount.

Mrs Headley, Director of Finance and Operations

Don’t forget to secure your places for September for our Swimming School.

As a joint venture between Northampton High and Northampton Swimming Club, we will be offering swimming lessons in our pool for all levels, which, where appropriate, will then feed into the Northampton Swimming Club coaching programme.

Lessons will run from Tuesday to Friday from 3.45 – 5.15 pm and will be split into three 30-minute sessions daily. Lessons will also run on a Saturday morning. Northampton Swimming Club will employ all swimming teachers, and they will all be qualified to the ASA swimming teacher requirements.

If you are interested in booking a place for your daughter or would like more information, please call 01604 622264 or email coach.smith@northamptonswimming.com.

As you are no doubt aware, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect today (Friday 25 May).

At Northampton High School, and across the GDST, we use information to promote the welfare of our students, help every student fulfil her potential, and manage the School effectively.

To explain what data we collect and what we use it for, we have updated our privacy notice which you can see by clicking here. If you have any questions, please contact Jon Vogel, the GDST’s Information Security and Governance Manager, at dpo@wes.gdst.net.

We also want to remind you that, if you have given consent for your daughter’s photograph to be used in school promotional material and on the school and GDST websites and social media platforms, you or your daughter can withdraw that consent at any time by simply contacting the school office by email at nhsadmin@nhs.gdst.net.