Junior News 14 January 2022

I am delighted to report that despite a more cautious approach to the start of term and the temporary requirement for face coverings in classrooms for Senior pupils, there is still a buoyant feel to the school; it is hard to believe we have only been back for eight school days!

Clubs are running again and attendance and enthusiasm for them remains high – particularly with the return of more after school sports clubs. The Year 11 pupils have approached their mock examinations calmly and with good humour.

As the weather turns a little colder, we turn our thoughts to site safety and practicalities in the event of a heavy snowfall. We outsource our site gritting to a local company who use the Met Office data to guide their service. As a result, on any frosty and icy days they will have been around long before school opens and gritted the surfaces.

As an SLT, we updated our snow procedures earlier this week; there was much reminiscing about ‘snow days’ from our own school years and the realisation that Covid and Guided Home Learning has changed the face of them forever!

We have well practised procedures for communicating with everyone should there be a day when we wake up to snow, and here is a brief summary of how we will communicate with you:

1. If your daughter uses school transport to get to school, Vectare will communicate directly with you to confirm whether the route is running.

2. By 7am we will send all parents a text message via School Post, to let you know whether the school building is open or closed.  If we cannot safely open, we will revert to Guided Home Learning and live lessons will run, wherever possible, via Google Classrooms.

3. Any updates will be communicated with parents in the same way.

4. If a pupil cannot get into school due to the weather, but the school has been able to open, they will be able to join lessons remotely via Google Classroom.

5. If the school opens as usual but a heavy snowfall during the day means we must close early, we will communicate with parents via School Post text/emails. We encourage parents not to telephone the school when it snows, nor for pupils to call their parents and ask to be collected. However, we are understanding of each family’s circumstances and if you feel that it is safer for your journey to collect early on such days, we authorise this to happen.

6. Snowball fights are definitely considered suitable sporting activities in lieu of Games lessons!

Mrs O’ Doherty
Acting Head

Achievements

Each week in our assembly, girls are invited to share their achievements in activities outside of school. They are listed below for this week:

Lydia – completed 3,450 flights up and downstairs to ‘climb Mount Everest’ to raise money for charity.

Asmi – completed an intense 3-day ice-skating course.

Lucy – took part in the County Swimming Championships in Corby and swam for four hours. Lucy swam in the County time trials, winning two races. She also achieved county times, including competing in a grueling 400m medley race.

Avani –  achieved a 25m swimming certificate.

Grace – moved up a level in swimming to the Piranha group.

Rhoda –  achieved a level 7 certificate in Gymnastics.

Caoimhe – achieved a level 7 certificate in Gymnastics.

Playground Stars

The weather has been cold but the sun has been shining too and the girls have enjoyed lots of activities this week.

Lily, Poppy, Cordelia, Thea, Eloise C, Adn and Kara – Thank you for tidying the toys and games away this week.

Lily, Adn and Kara – well done for doing a super job of organising the toys ready for the next day.

Eliza and Diya – well done for inventing a new game, by throwing the ball into an upturned stilt. This was challenging, but they said it was great fun.

Avani and Eloise C –  helped get the games and toys out for everyone and organised them too.

Poppy – helped organise a Year 3 group skipping game which they really enjoyed.

Lydia and Beth – wanted to help and organised games for girls from Years 3 and 4 great fun was had by all.

Lucy, Kinara, Amber, Avani, Felicity and Mollie – entertained us with their singing.

Aiyana and Alice – made an obstacle course for Reception, Years 1 and 2. The younger girls really enjoyed trying it out.

Jessica, Zoe, Harriet and Avleen – enjoyed an exciting volleyball game.

Year 6 Play-In-A-Week

The performance of the Year 6 Play-In-A-Week will be held on Thursday 10 February. Refreshments will be served from 6.00pm, with the play starting at 6.30pm.

Dates for your Diary

Just as a reminder, the GAP Club phone number is 07816 751456; please do keep this number handy, so that you have direct access to the GAP team should you need it.

Class Assemblies

We are pleased to welcome back parents and grandparents/family members to our Wednesday Class Assemblies, 8.35am-8.55am. Refreshments will be served in the Community Room from 8.15am. We do hope you will be able to join us.

Nursery - Kipper Room and Elmer Room

It has been lovely welcoming new and old faces back after the holidays and we hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas.

The girls have settled back in as if they have never been away, getting stuck into the endless activities and opportunities on offer.

For the theme this term we are focusing on old traditional storybooks. We have had a range of props to support the story of Goldilocks And the Three Bears, where they have been acting out their own versions of the story. Trying the porridge oats seemed to be the favourite part. We have now moved onto The Three Little Pigs, where they have created their own houses using a variety of construction toys from our prop tray.

Following on with the girls’ interests we have set up our very own musical area complete with a stage, musical notes, song words, musical instruments, and a CD player. The girls then decided to use construction materials to create their very own microphones, putting their own ideas to the area, singing some beautiful songs on the stage. Lovely singing girls! We will be expanding the area following on from the girls’ lead and through what we observe.

We have been putting our wellies on and going for walks on the school grounds talking about the weather changes and what we have observed.

Betty the dog has joined us which makes the experience more special for the girls, where they take it in turns to hold the lead and stroke and talk to Betty.

We wish everybody a Happy New Year!

Nursery - Pre School

Preschool are Exploring the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. In doing so we have made our own bridges across the water tray, some of which were not successful, meaning we need to think not only about the size but the material too. The girls have traveled under and over bridges in PE and then, in groups, made their own bridges which needed lots of teamwork and negotiation.

We have used the internet to discover some facts about goats such as they are vegetarian, they produce milk and they are fantastic climbers; we watched them climb very step mountains and even trees. Then we watched the story in French.

Next week we will continue to explore this story.

Reception

This week we have been using the story ‘The Three Little Pigs’ as our focus for activities.  After sequencing the story and recounting the main events, we looked at speech bubbles and decided which phrases the characters said. We also then thought about the ‘wolf’ character and some describing words that we could use for him and enjoyed making a wolf mask. In a practical activity, the class all made salt dough, following the instructions carefully and then deciding if they would turn it into a pig or a wolf. This was then set up for a free choice activity to enable many more different creations to be made.

In Maths this week, we have been focusing on the composition of the numbers 6,7, and 8. Sorting and matching numbers and number formation.  The number 8 is very tricky to form correctly, so if you have any time to have a practice with your daughter, then please have a go.

In our learning about materials, we thought about the materials that the Three Pigs used to make their houses and then we focused on ‘plastic’.  We hunted around the classroom for objects made from plastic and created a picture using only plastic items.

It has been lovely to see the class return to school energised and ready to go!

Year 1

The first full working week back is always hard for young children as they readjust to early starts and the full programme of lessons and activities.  I have been so impressed by how well Year 1 have settled back and indeed the progress they are demonstrating across the curriculum. We arrived in the classroom on Monday to find a sad and lost penguin looking for a home.  By the end of the week he had become an established member of the class and the reason for some great writing using noun phrases. In Maths, we have been getting to grips with numbers from 11-20 and using our understanding to solve some tricky problems.

A couple of housekeeping notes – PREP will again be set on a Monday for handing in by Thursday. If you are running late (after 8.35am), please take your daughter straight to Junior School Reception to be signed in.

What the girls said: 

“I liked it in English when we used traffic lights to think of words that mean the same as sad and lonely”. Amari

“I really enjoyed Maths because we learnt about tens and ones and ones and tens”. Zara

Next week:

English – use noun phrases to describe a character and identify adverbs

Maths – compare and order numbers up to 20

Year 2

This week we have prepared and delivered our Class Assembly about New Year. The girls reflected on last year and thought about what they wanted to work on this year. They all spoke very clearly and confidently in the assembly.

In Maths, we have been finding equal groups and making repeated addition sums ready to start looking at multiplication.

What the girls said: 

“I liked doing the Class Assembly because I started it off”. Grace B

“I liked doing Maths and learning about equal groups”. Eve

Next week:

Maths – Multiplication & Division

English – Introducing our new book, trying to think about what we want to find out and recognising homophones, so we can use the correct spelling in a sentence.

Science – Electricity

Year 3

The main highlight of our week was our Topic WOW Day. Our focus for this term is India. Our WOW day was jam-packed with fact finding as we learned more about the country, its location, its people, popular food, and traditions.

We looked in detail at the Taj Mahal and why it was built, and we had a go at drawing and painting it. At the end of our WOW day, we were treated to some Indian food. We tasted poppadom, naan, samosas, and onion bhajis, as well as some tasty dips.

The girls had a great time exploring the Indian culture and we are all looking forward to finding out and learning even more this term.

What the girls said: 

“I liked using the iPads to research facts.” – Kinara

“I didn’t think I liked Indian food, but I do.” – Lucy

“I’m really pleased with my Taj-Mahal painting.” – Eloise R

Looking Ahead:

Maths: Multiplication and Division

English: Conjunctions and Imperative Verbs

Science: Forces

Year 4

Highlights:

In Maths, we have looked at multiplying two-and three-digit numbers by one digit using a range of methods and equipment.

In English, we have loved reading our new text: Winter’s Child. The illustrations and language are beautiful. We wrote a postcard to Nana about our reindeer adventures and also wrote dialogue to convey emotions.

In Science, we learnt that gases have mass and we used this knowledge to investigate which was the fizziest drink.

What the girls have said: 

“I enjoyed French because we played a board game. When you landed on an animal you had to say if you liked it or not in French and I won!” Cora

“I really enjoyed Science because we got to see which drink was fizziest. I was surprised that Lucozade was the fizziest. I thought it would be Coke.”  Daneka

“I enjoyed DT when we learnt about pop up books.  I really enjoyed looking at the different types.”  Diya

“I have loved PE and Games.  Netball was lots of fun and I love sports.”  Hester

Looking ahead to next week:

English – write a letter to the Winter’s Child describing the change to spring using effective adjectives and noun phrases, identifying themes, and planning our own piece of writing.

Maths – we will be learning how to divide both two- and three-digit numbers by a one-digit number using a range of methods and equipment.

Science – another investigation – this time about changing state through melting. What might we be melting I wonder…

Dates for your diary:

Tuesday 18 January wear PE Kit all day. Girls can come into school wearing their kit but do remember warm coats and hats for playtime too, please.

Wednesday 19 January 4N Class Assembly.

Wednesday 9 February Forest School.

Year 5

Highlights:

Y5 have had a lovely gentle start to our new term. The girls are learning about the properties of materials and had a great time in Science testing thermal insulation and trying to scratch various chopping boards – I had a very interesting discussion with some girls about the reasons why granite would not be suitable as a worktop in a festival food van.

We have just completed a short unit in English looking at the narrative poem ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes. The girls enjoyed discussing the figurative language used in the poem and have learned several ‘new’ old-fashioned words. It is quite a dark poem, but the romantic nature has appealed to most of the class and the diary entries they wrote for the main character were fabulous.

What the girls have said:

“I was very interested learning about blind people in our Enrichment lesson and how they read and how they learn. We had to draw dots to write secret messages in Braille. When I was walking to school today, I felt underneath where you press the button on a pelican crossing and there is a little spinning cone that tells blind people when to go across the road because they can’t see the green man.” Jessica

“Last Thursday we showed the class our presentation from the History of Film club. It was about what was true and what was false in Disney movies, especially the one we were learning about, which was Pocahontas. I was really surprised how much was false, especially the age gap between John Smith and Pocahontas. Even though I enjoyed watching it, I think there should be a few more true facts in films.” Harriet

“I enjoyed testing and tasting bread in our DT lesson. I didn’t know there were so many different types of bread – I hadn’t heard of many of them. We tried all of them, but we didn’t really like the rye bread. My favourite was the French stick because it was nice and crunchy on the outside and squishy on the inside.” Avleen

Dates for your Diary:

Week beginning Monday 7 February – Y6 Play In A Week (Y5 supporting as evacuees and land girls)

Year 6

It has been wonderful to welcome the girls back into the classroom and hear about their holidays. They have bounced back into the classroom ready to work hard and approached all they have done with great enthusiasm.

This week we have prepared for the Maths Entrance Assessment and started many exciting new topics in other subjects. In English, we have introduced the girls to a new text called,‘The Promise’ and learnt some fascinating facts about the symbolism of acorns through the ages. In Science, we proved that light travels in straight lines.

Next week we look forward to learning more about light in Science, starting our cushion project in DT and continuing our exploration of ultimate questions in Humanities.

Highlights of the week include:

“I enjoyed painting my clay fish lots of pretty colours and giving it big pink lips!” Esme

“My highlight of the week was doing Mrs Fordham’s Maths Club because I liked playing ‘Bingo’ with fractions.”  Emily

“I really enjoyed the Science experiment to find out if light travels in straight lines. We tested this by showing that when you put chalk powder over a laser you can see a straight line, by lining up targets so that we could see all the way through them, and then using a pinhole camera. The more holes we put into the camera the more light filaments were shown on the screen and the image was upside down!” Evelyn

“I enjoyed reading through our play, Traitor’s Quay because it helped me to understand my character even more. It is going to be great fun when we get to rehearse and perform it in the week before half term!” Safiya

Another highlight has been reading through our play, ‘Traitor’s Quay’ and we hope that you enjoy looking for costumes and props for your daughter’s character. We are hoping to collect costumes during the week beginning Monday 24 January and thank you in advance for your support.

Happy costume hunting!

GAP Club

We began the week making winter collages and then had a rethink deciding that snowmen were too Christmassy. We then created amazing pictures using paint sticks and bubble wrap, they particularly enjoyed making the bubble wrap pop whilst applying the paint.

Mrs Shah showed us how to make air-dry clay using stale bread and PVA glue which we are going to use to create beads.

We ended our week sugar painting creating pictures with icing sugar and water.

“I really enjoyed the food.” Lucy Year 5.

“I liked twister and being with the big girls.” Ella Reception.

“I liked snowman.” Miya Year 1

Parent Talks - Gender identity and young people

On Wednesday 2 February 2022, from 6pm to 7.30pm, we will be hosting in school an event for Senior School parents (however, parents of Junior School pupils are most welcome to attend) on Gender Identity and Young People. Refreshments will be served from 5.30pm.

In a society where young people are freer than ever to express their true selves, this session considers how the school deals with gender identity issues, how parents can support their children, and why gender identity is an important topic for us all today. There will also be opportunities to ask questions. To book your place, please click here.

Should you wish to see the full details of our 2021/22 Parent Talks programme, please click here.

Mrs O’Doherty
Acting Head

School Blazer Sale

Join Our Team - Minibus Drivers Wanted

For more information and to apply please click here.

Mr Nash
Marketing & Communications Officer

Term Dates 21/22

Term Dates 22/23

Northampton High School
Newport Pagnell Road, Hardingstone Northampton NN4 6UU
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