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Junior News – 13 May 2022 |
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This week has offered the typical diversity of opportunities for the children in Junior School and I have enjoyed seeing the excitement and development this has provided. I started my week waving our Year 6 children off on their residential trip to Osmington Bay – laden down with a fair amount of luggage for only 4 nights away, full of excitement and energy and smiling from ear to ear. I am hopeful when I greet them off the bus later today their smiles will be just as radiant but I suspect the luggage won’t be as neatly packed as when they left nor the energy levels as high! I am sure they will sleep well tonight and this includes the staff! I have enjoyed hearing children in Reception, Year 1 and 2 read over the week. Enjoying books alongside children and supporting their development in this fundamental skill is a core part of school life and I have really enjoyed the snippets of my week contributing in this way. It has of course also provided me fantastic opportunities to get to know the children on a 1:1 basis. This week I have spent some time reviewing our Forest School facility and have observed how well the children engage in the sessions and develop important key skills. A scavenger hunt in the sunshine within such a wonderful, purpose-developed facility was a privilege to enjoy alongside the children (and Betty!). It is photos of this part of my week that I have chosen to share with you this week. I was invited by Year 2 to join them for their swimming lesson this morning and they took the task of impressing me by showcasing their swimming talents very seriously. I was truly impressed with their water confidence and developing stroke skills. As swimming is one of my favourite hobbies I enjoyed seeing them enjoy their time in the pool as much as they did – I am sure as parents you are also pleased with how well they are developing this important life skill. I am looking forward to another diverse week next week with more opportunities to enjoy and explore together. I wish you all a wonderful weekend together and I am hopeful the sun will shine for us! Miss Hair |
Remembering Mr Bailey |
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As many of you know, former Head of Junior School, Mr Chris Bailey, sadly passed away in March 2021. This loss was significant and challenging for our school community and it was made harder with the backdrop of the pandemic increasing the distance felt between us. We planted a cherry tree in his memory in the grounds of the Junior School and have been waiting patiently for it to blossom so that we can enjoy it and also add a plaque to mark its significance for us all. |
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This week we took the opportunity to complete this act of memorial and it was a special moment for remembrance. We sang together loudly, proudly and with passion so we know Mr Bailey would have loved it. Mr Bailey will always have a special place in our school community and we hope you too can enjoy the cherry tree in his memory. |
Lego |
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Next term, we are looking to provide the girls with a Construction Club as part of our clubs offer. We’d like to focus on using Lego as it is such a diverse resource. If, over the coming weeks, you are having a clear out please do consider donating any unwanted Lego for us to put to good use and add to our collection. Please send any donations in with your daughter to pass to the school office or drop it into the school office yourself if this is easier. |
Swap Shop |
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The return of the uniform swap shop was warmly received last week by a group of parents. As previously shared, we will open the swap shop every Friday during the summer term, between 3.15-3.45pm. Parents are welcome to come and browse the pre-loved uniform available. Payments are taken with our card machine. Funds from any purchases made are then shared with 80% being returned to the parent who donated the item of uniform and 20% is contributed to school funds supporting our offer to the girls. If you have any items of school uniform your daughter has grown out of that you’d like to donate, please bring them to the school office where you’ll be provided with slips to complete so that we have the details needed for when a purchase is made. If you are unable to come to the school office in person then please email the Junior School office who will assist you. Also, if you’d like us to view the stock for you this can be arranged. |
Jubilee Celebrations in Junior School and Nursery |
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You will have received a letter earlier this week outlining the planned celebrations for the Jubilee on Friday 27 May. All children are invited to attend school on this day in clothes that are red, white and blue. We will be starting the day with a whole school assembly, the children will then rotate around a series of themed activities in mixed age groups learning about the occasion of the Jubilee. We will enjoy a special, themed lunch together and end our day with a Junior School celebration. Children are invited to enter the baking competition – details of which are in the letter sent this week. We are really looking forward to enjoying this day together and know that the children are going to really enjoy the day of celebration. As always, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us. |
Summer Term Events |
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Cinema Event: Parents of Nursery and Junior School children are invited to buy a ticket for their child to attend our cinema event on Monday 13 June. We will turn our school hall into a cinema to show the popular film Encanto. The tickets are £3 per child and available to buy from today through ParentPay. The ticket price includes admission, drinks, popcorn and a sweet snack. All allergies and intolerances will be catered for.
Summer Fayre: On Friday 8 July, we will be holding our Summer Fayre. All parents of Nursery and Junior School children are invited to purchase their child a ticket to this event. For the cost of £7.50 per child the children will enjoy an entertainer, face paints and transfers, craft activities, inflatables, balloon models, pizza and ice cream. The children will be supervised by staff for this event. Whilst the children are having a wonderful time, we will have an adults-only area for parents, grandparents, family members and neighbours to enjoy afternoon tea. For the price of £15 per adult we will provide 1.5 hours of adult only conversation, a glass of prosecco and a wonderful selection of afternoon tea treats. Child and adult tickets are available to buy from today through ParentPay. |
Meet the Bus Drivers - Guy |
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Each week, we look forward to introducing you to one of our school minibus drivers. They will talk a little bit about themselves, and what they enjoy most about working at Northampton High. This week, we are delighted to talk to Guy Ashley, who drives the Milton Keynes South route. Tell us a little bit about your career: I started by completing an apprenticeship in carpentry and joinery, before starting a 30 year career in the police service. I then set up my own carpentry and joinery business. |
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What do you like to do in your spare time: I still enjoy undertaking small carpentry projects, but otherwise I enjoy gardening and exercising with my two dogs. What is your best memory of being at school: A teacher, Mr Mandale. He was the woodworking teacher who was inspirational, and encouraged me to follow my interest in carpentry. What are you most looking forward to about working at Northampton High: Being part of a team that provides the best care for students and reassurance for the parents. To find out more about our school transport offer, please click here. |
Northampton High excited to support Hardingstone mural project! |
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Northampton High School are delighted to be supporting Hardingstone village’s special project to honour the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The aim of the project is to transform the surrounding wall of the village recreation ground with artwork, creating a mural which will commemorate this special year. The village are welcoming all members of its community to collaborate to bring this mural to life – which is where we come in! Students from both Junior and Senior School will have the opportunity to create designs in their art lessons or via an independent task, and we are so excited to see the imaginations of our students come to life in this exciting opportunity! Our Year 6 children will also be helping to paint the final design on to the wall in early July. This is a community, collaborative project so for more information on how as a family you can get involved please see the information from the organisers here. |
Music Awards |
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This is a reminder that we are offering a Music Award opportunity to all girls who will be in Years 4, 5 and 6 in September. The Award will be free music lessons for 3 years. We encourage all girls who enjoy music to apply; girls do not have to be a certain grade in order to apply. The Music Award application form and information sheet were sent previously via SchoolPost and the deadline is Monday next week. If you would like to apply, please contact Mrs Berry, Registrar, to indicate your intention h.berry@nhs.gdst.net. Application forms can be emailed to Mrs Berry or brought into school in an envelope for her attention. Mrs Berry will send an acknowledgment email when she receives the form. |
The Early Years Fun Day and Arts Experience Morning |
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We were delighted to welcome 33 externals girls into School for our Arts Experience Morning and 25 families in for our Early Years Fun Day last Saturday. Our Year 6 House Captains and Vice Captains helped look after all our visitors very well and there was great buzz around the school. |
News from our classrooms: Nursery & Pre School |
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This week we have been taking a closer look at mini beasts. A dead bee had been found and the girls showed a great interest in being able to look closer at it. They have been able to see the stripes on its back, to count its legs and to see its string, while staying safe. We have also had some guest snails in the classroom. We watched how the snails move around the tuff tray and even caught one that liked to try and escape to other parts of the classroom! For snack we had vegetable sticks, and one of the girls asked if she could share hers with the snails as they would like cucumber and carrot sticks. One of the craft activities was based on making our own symmetry bugs, painting half an insect and then folding the paper over to create a whole insect. Language was modelled to support the activity such as matching, mirroring, patterns and symmetry. Another activity was to create our own spiderwebs; we used a paper plate, with holes in it, to thread the wool to create the spiderweb. We then drew a spider onto the plate. In group times we have been looking a fact books, finding out about different insects and bugs from all over the world. Some of the children found some interesting names for bugs and returned to the books throughout the week to refresh their knowledge. In the outside areas, the children have been gaining in confidence using the bicycles, developing their co-ordination with peddling the bikes instead of pushing themselves with their feet. The mud kitchen has also proved to be very popular, with one child making cakes the way she does with her grandmother, describing mixing the ingredients and cooking them. Also, as her grandmother doesn’t wear an apron while baking this means that she doesn’t have to wear one in the mud kitchen, showing logic and understanding. We had lots of visitors on Saturday at the Early Years Fun Day, where families could join us to share in experiencing some of the activities that we offer the children. This included painting, coloured pasta, cornflour, a song time, a story time, decorating biscuits, an introduction to French and exploring the outside areas. Mrs Bing and the Nursery Team To view more photos please click here. |
Reception |
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This week we have been looking very carefully at different seeds. We have considered shape, size and colour, then have drawn what we could see using some describing words. We have planted some Nasturtium and Sunflower seeds. Remembering our experience, we have sequenced pictures on how to plant a seed and written instructions. After reading ‘Katie’s Picture Show’ by James Mayhew, the class have begun to create their version of the famous painting ‘Surprised!’ by Henri Rousseau, collaging the background. We took a flowering geranium plant and named the parts of the plant, removing it from the pot to examine the roots. Then we created our own picture of a flowering plant and labelled the parts. In Maths, we have been revisiting addition, using the language ‘First, then and now’, e.g. “First 3 people got on the bus, then 2 people got on, now there are 5 people on the bus!” Trickier questions involved finding the ‘then’ part and the ‘first’ part. Perhaps you can have a go and make up some similar number stories at home? At Forest School, we observed the flowers growing and named them. We then chose a flower to draw and correctly labelled it. Mrs Farrar & Mrs Shaw To view more photos please click here. |
Year 1 |
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It has been a busy week in our Maths lessons with counters everywhere! We began by counting equal groups of 2, 5 and 10 and are getting really good at it. We then moved onto making arrays with more counters, peg boards, mini people and buttons. Learning what is a row and what is a column has been very hard but we are getting there. Later in the week we focussed on doubling and found lots of surprising patterns. We have ended the week making more equal groups but using bigger and bigger numbers. Lots of fun and lots of learning! Mrs Purvey-Tyrer To view more photos please click here. |
Year 2 |
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This week in Maths, Year 2 have been measuring in centimetres and metres. They have learnt to measure from 0cm on their rulers and they know that 100cm is equivalent to 1 metre. We measured our classroom using lots of metre sticks and found out it was 8 metres 8 centimetres long! In groups of three we measured our arm span using tape measures because our rulers were too short, the longest was 1m 30cm and the shortest 1m 13cm. Mrs Dadge To view more photos please click here. |
Year 3 |
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This week in Maths, we have continued our study of fractions. We have been looking at making the whole, adding fractions, and counting in fractions too. As well as learning a lot of new vocabulary, we have been practising drawing bar models which are particularly useful for helping us to solve fraction-related problems. We still have so much work to do in this area of Maths, including looking at equivalent fractions and ordering and subtracting fractions. It can be a tricky concept for most, but the girls have shown great perseverance and resilience in their learning as they navigate this area of Maths and begin to understand and apply their problem-solving techniques. Miss Scott-Evans To view more photos please click here. |
Year 4 |
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In Maths this week, we have been consolidating and developing our understanding of pounds and pence. This work has built upon the previous week’s learning on decimals as they have been writing money using decimal notation. They were able to verbalise that 10p is equivalent to one tenth of a pound and 1p is one hundredth of a pound. They have used part whole models to recognise the total amount being partitioned into pounds and pence. Using these skills to convert between values written in pounds and pence, they have sorted mixed values in both ascending and descending orders. The girls have also rounded money written in decimal notation to the nearest pound and moved on to estimating the total value of several items as seen in Sakinah’s work (Picture 3). Picture 1 – Cordelia explained clearly how to round amounts of money to help us estimate with money. Picture 2 – Aurelia’s super explanation of this reasoning problem. Mrs Shaw & Mrs Smith To view more photos please click here. |
Year 5 |
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In Maths over the last couple of weeks, the Year 5 girls have been converting units of measurement and revising their understanding of mass, length, capacity and time. They revisited multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1,000 to convert metric units, and have learned a little bit about imperial units of measurement. We had a really good discussion this morning about the reasons why time and money are so difficult to learn nowadays, and talked about what life was like ‘in the olden days’ when the teachers were children! Back when you had to wait for television programmes to start and were able to pop down to the local sweet shop to buy penny chews with your pocket money. Those were the days! Miss Brandon-Jones To view more photos please click here. |
Year 6 Osmington Bay Residential Trip |
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A fabulous week has been had by all on our residential trip to Osmington Bay. As always, our girls have been a credit to Northampton High School and approached every activity with great enthusiasm. Activities have included dragon boat racing, the giant swing, problem solving, a beach walk, the trapeze and much more. The final evening ended with dancing the night away at the famous Osmington Bay Disco! We set off home with treasured memories of shared experiences that will never be forgotten. Mrs Fordham & Miss Taylor To view more photos please click here. |
News from our extracurricular offer: GAP Club |
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This week in GAP Club we have been experimenting with paint. We have continued designing pebbles for our outside area and thought about symmetry by folding our picture in half using just paint and then string and paint. We have continued serving afternoon tea in our café and spent more time outside. Mrs Howell and the GAP Club Team To view more photos please click here. |
Awards for this week |
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Ballet Dancer of the week – Amelia C-L Star Learners of the week – Millicent, Emily K, Holly, Cristina, Diya, Annabelle R, Poppy, Harriet Each week, girls are invited to share their achievements in activities outside of school. They are listed below for this week: Millicent – achieved a Rainbow Bronze Award Playground Helper – Lucy A was very helpful on the playground this week and made sure everything was tidied away. |
Birthdays for this Week |
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This week we wish a very happy Birthday to the following members of our Junior School family: Eva, Matilda, Emily F, Cordelia B-B, Rosaya Z |
Upcoming events and key dates |
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Uniform Swap Shop – open every Friday 3.15-3.45pm Junior School Swimming Gala: Year 3 Friday 20 May 1.15 -3.00pm arrival from 1.00pm Please note that next half term there will be opportunities to see the Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 girls swim. There will be no Ball Skills Club on Tuesday 24 May and Tuesday 7 June. There will also be no Walking Betty Club on Wednesday 25 May. Please can parents pick up at 3.30pm or book a space in GAP club on these days. 13 June – Athletics Rally in Nottingham Class assemblies for this term – 8.35-8.50am, with refreshments with the head of school from 8.20am:
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Term Dates |
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Northampton High School |
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