Junior News – 14 October 2022

Last week, a group of six Year 6 girls were invited to a Maths event hosted at the University of Oxford and to say they embraced and enjoyed the opportunity would not do the experience justice. The girls represented our school impeccably modelling perseverance, collaboration, curiosity, risk taking and independence in abundance. They challenged their mathematical knowledge as they applied their skills to new contexts and together embraced the opportunity to challenge themselves further within an area they are usually comfortable and confident within. It is so wonderful to be able to facilitate opportunities such as this one for our girls to experience inspirational events during which their imaginations are sparked and their minds stretched.

Part of our commitment to our families is to ensure our curriculum offer to the girls is engaging and challenging and for me, learning can’t achieve these outcomes without being inspiring. To spark interest, engage and motivate children to learn you’ve got to hook them in and excite them. If an experience was rated on ‘ooo’s’, ‘aaah’s’ and ‘wow’s’ then the inflatable planetarium on Tuesday this week achieved a top rating! The girls, and adults, were hooked from the moment we set eyes on it filling our Junior school hall. To be able to learn in a unique space is engaging in itself. To lie down on the floor and watch in awe as the learning content was projected on to the walls was truly captivating. From our girls in Pre School to our Year 6 class the experience was unique and this will make recalling the learning content so much easier. 

Tuesday provided us with the wonderful experience of a mindfulness walk. To mark World Mental Health Week there have been several activities happening across the school but a personal favourite of mine was the mindfulness walk on Tuesday lunchtime. All children, and staff, who wished to join us set off for a walk around the grounds over lunchtime and it was wonderful. Simplistic, peaceful and enjoyable. I hope we can do more of these in the future as the benefits for all who took part were clear to see. 

Thank you for your support with the Book Fair. We have raised a fantastic £837.07, and now we will carefully select new books for the library to support the stock selection for the girls to enjoy. Having 150 bookworms is wonderful but takes some keeping up with! 

I wish you all a peaceful weekend and look forward to entering our last week of the half term together. 

Miss Hair 
Head of Junior School 

Diwali

We will celebrate Diwali with the children on Wednesday next week. There will be a talk and then learning opportunities during the school day for the girls to engage with and learn more about this religious festival.

If your daughter would like to wear traditional ethnic dress on this day then please do encourage her to. Our Year 3 children are then visiting a local temple to compliment their curriculum work in RE regarding this festival and what it means to the people who celebrate it.

Secret Present Workshop

The first of our Christmas events is our secret present workshop on Thursday 1 December. This is a first for Northampton High and we know it is going to be a popular one!

Parents are able to book through Parent Pay and can pay £10 per adult gift that they’d like their child to choose. The children will then come into the secret present room to choose their gifts for their chosen family members or special adults in their lives. These gifts will then be wrapped and have a gift tag placed on them for the children to then bring home and gift at Christmas time.

Lots of families have already booked their places for this event but if you have not yet and would like to please do so as soon as possible to assist the elves with their preparations!

RSE Parent Consultation 

First and foremost, you may be asking, “What is RSE?” RSE stands for Relationship and Sex Education. It is usually taught as part of the PSHE schemes of work in most schools and is made compulsory for schools to offer it, by the government. Relationship and sex education is about the emotional, social and physical aspects of growing up, relationships, sex, gender, sexuality and sexual health and is tailored according to age, and physical and emotional maturity of the children and teenagers to which it is delivered.

The Department for Education introduced compulsory Relationships Education for primary pupils and Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) for secondary pupils from September 2020, though here at Northampton High School, we have been doing that for many years as we believe it to be a vital part of education for all children and teenagers.

Through the topics covered in these lessons, the government aims to “support all young people to be happy, healthy and safe”. As part of the wider education of our pupils, we aim to ensure that they are able to leave us, after completing their education, as well rounded citizens with excellent A level grades, are able to navigate the tricky waters of the modern world. It is also important to us here at the High School, that we are able to engage in open dialogue with you as parents about this, and believe that working in partnership is essential to your understanding of what we are teaching, but also giving you options for you and your child. We fully appreciate that there may well be topics that you are less comfortable with and even topics that you wish to opt out of for your child. Our hope is that with further discussions and consultation, we are able to put your minds at rest, and offer further detail on what is delivered, however that decision remains yours to make. The idea is not to indoctrinate pupils with ideas that go against the individual beliefs of members of our community, but to foster opportunities for pupils to explore themes that they are exposed to via social media and through conversations and interactions with their peers.

So why is it so important to include it within our curriculum? High quality RSE ensures children and young people are equipped with the knowledge, understanding, skills and confidence to cope with the many pressures and challenges of modern society. Learning about friendships and family in RSE are the building blocks to help children to understand themselves and others. Knowledge alone is not enough. Developing skills such as listening, negotiation and decision making means young people will be more prepared to take responsibility for, and enjoy, sexual and emotional relationships free from the unwanted consequences of sexual relationships such as sexually transmitted infections and the dangers of exploitation and abuse.

To read the full piece, please click here.

Miss Kneen
Assistant Head – Pastoral

Club Information

Please note that due to Parents Evening on the 18 and 19 October, all Junior teacher led clubs (not including Sports or Senior teacher led clubs) will not be running.

Please inform your daughters’ class teacher if you wish them to attend Late Prep from 3.30-4.15pm on these dates.

Festive Wreath Workshops - Adults Only

Have you booked your spaces for this workshop yet? 

We have arranged for an excellent florist (Bouquet Chic) to deliver Wreath Making Workshops for any interested parents and members of the community.

Why not book a place to enjoy making a festive creation with friendly people and a supportive and talented instructor? Spaces are £65 per person which includes everything you’ll need to make a fantastic, impressive wreath and refreshments during the workshop. These events are on Tuesday 6 December 5.30 to 7pm or Wednesday 7 December 12.15 to 1.45pm.

To book please contact the school office junioradmin@nhs.gdst.net.

Harvest Festival Food Bank Collection

From 10 to 21 October we will be inviting our children, staff and parents to bring in food donations for our collection for a local food bank. The food bank we are supporting is Weston Favell which is run by the Emmanuel church and associated with the Trussell Trust. Below is a list of the food donations that would be most appreciated:

Tinned vegetables, Tinned fruit, Pasta sauce, Curry sauce, Tinned or packet soup, Tinned fish and meat

Thank you in advance for your support.

Cinema Event

Next Thursday we have our first cinema event of the academic year. This event will run from 3.30 to 5.15pm and is available to all pupils from Nursery to Year 6. We will be showing three film options for the girls to choose from:

Sing 2 (U)
Turning Red (PG)
Gruffalo and Stick Man (two shorter films aimed at our youngest girls but open to all) 

To book your child a place for £3 please do so through Parent Pay.

Parents Evening

We have the first Parents Evenings of the year on 18 and 19 October for children in Pre School to Year 6.

You will have received a school post this week with instructions on how to book your appointments. Please reach out for more information or support if required. We are looking forward to seeing you all there.

Class Assemblies

So far this academic year we have enjoyed class assemblies led by Year 3,4 and 5. Year 2 are next week and we are looking forward to sharing their assembly with them.  Class assembly dates for this academic year are on the school calendar but as a reminder please see the list below for the upcoming dates for next half term:

Year 1 – 23 November
Year 6 – 30 November
Year 3 – 7 December

Parents are invited and encouraged to join us from 8.20am for refreshments before the assembly at 8.35am. The assemblies will finish by 8.55am.

News from our classrooms: Nursery and Pre School

This week has been a busy but fun one in Nursery!

In Phonics, we listened to different musical instrument sounds as we were playing them. We then had to use our listening ears to guess which hidden instrument was being played.

We created gingerbread depictions of ourselves, using different skills to decorate them.

We have embraced the benefits of getting outside, we took Betty the school dog for a walk and, at our Forest based learning, we used whatever we could find to create an obstacle course to tackle.

Music time has had an animal theme, the favourite song being the ‘Dingle Dangle Scarecrow’ where the girls pretended to be sleeping animals.

In Pre School our feelings have been a main focus point this week to coincide with World Mental Health Week. We have thought about mindfulness and how we can adapt it for our girls’ to gain some understanding of the concept of what this means.

This included a mindfulness walk, writing on a card to describe what makes us happy to place on the tree alongside the other girls’ thoughts throughout the Junior School and in PE dancing to songs which involved lots of movements where laughter was consistent throughout. The girls got very engaged copying the actions displayed.

Reminders

If you haven’t already booked your daughters’ place for Parents Evening please do! (Pre School children only).

A polite reminder to ask that you please arrive on time, or earlier, for your daughters’ departure time. Late charges will be applied for parents who are late collecting your daughter.

Reception

It was lovely to see everyone at our ‘Open Classroom’ event on Wednesday. The class were very excited to be able to show some of the activities they had been doing and have the opportunity to talk about their school life! A particular highlight was the outdoor classroom as many wanted to show their favourite area and the activities they liked best.

Phonics this week has covered the letter sounds ck, e, u, and r, with umbrellas and rain conveniently featuring in our activities and in real life! On Tuesday a Planetarium came to school and inspired the girls with star patterns, moons and an animation show.

This has lead to some questions and follow up about space, including the story about Mae Jemison, the first African American woman to travel to space.

In Mathematics we have been sorting, comparing and subitising with the numbers 1, 2 & 3. We have introduced the 10 frame as a way of visualising how many objects we have got.

Our focus for our senses has been ‘our ears for listening’.  We all enjoyed a guess the sound game and then listening for sounds around school.  At Forest School we had a ‘listening ear’ to listen carefully for outside sounds. It is amazing how quiet it goes when you are really concentrating on listening (until someone giggles).

We are looking forward to being able to discuss with you, how your daughter has settled into Reception class and her progress, at Parents Evenings next week.

Year 1 - Science Focus

We have been learning about the properties of different materials.

This week we carried out an investigation to find out which material would be best for an umbrella – unfortunately lots of teddies got very wet!

Year 2 - Science Focus

We have been finding out about nocturnal animals and how they have adapted to the dark so they are able to move about with very little light to see by.

The girls used their ChromeBooks to research a chosen nocturnal animal, finding information and pictures to add to their digital fact file.

Year 3 - Science Focus

In Year 3 this term we have learned about different types of rock and how they are formed. This week we looked at the layers of soil and rock beneath us.

We had a lot of fun making a dirt pudding to show our learning. Each ingredient represented a different layer of soil or rock.

Year 4 - Science Focus

We worked in groups to construct circuits to match pictures and operated switches to observe the effect on the bulbs.

We recorded our results carefully in a table and talked about how we need switches to control circuits in everyday life!

Year 5 - Science Focus

We learned about the stages of the flowering plant life cycle, acting out the sequence and drawing pictures to show the life cycle of a bean plant.

After that we discussed the conditions necessary for seeds to germinate.

Year 6 - Science Focus

To help the girls learn about the components of blood, we created ‘blood’ using red sweets to represent red blood cells, marshmallows to represent white blood cells and yellow jelly beans and rainbow drops to represent platelets.

Then we covered them in a sticky mixture of shower gel and yellow food colouring to represent plasma, before learning about the functions of all the different components.

Junior Sports News

On Wednesday 12 October we played a match against Bedford Girls School. It was a great match and we won 1-0.

Ishani, ‘The Captain’ scored the winning goal. All the players tried their hardest and the player of the match was Emily C. Our goal keeper was brilliant because she kicked all the balls out so no one could score.

The girls who played were Ishani, Emily C, Shreya, Tami, Scarlett, Mia, Sri, Preesha, and Aliza. Ishani, Captain

News from outside of our classrooms: Year 6 Trip to the Thinktank Science Museum

It’s safe to say a fantastic time was had by all when Year 6 visited the Thinktank Science Museum in Birmingham this week.

We began the visit by exploring and discovering the varied mechanical, technological and engineering exhibits around the museum itself.

Next, we took part in a Lego coding workshop where we all successfully created robotic vehicles and controlled them by inputting instructions into a programme. Perseverance was needed when creating our vehicles, as we often needed to amend the design and tweak the programme in order to produce an effective moving creation.

Finally, we visited the museum’s Science Garden. Here, we all got ‘hands on’ with the interactive exhibits, one of the highlights being the giant ‘hamster wheel’ which was trickier than it looked!

Awards for this week

Star Learners of the week – Ishani S, Elodie, Aleya, Aurelia M, Eloise R, Anna H, Aurelia T, Tara S, Risara, Sri 

Swimmer of the week – Iman S
Ballet Dancers of the Week – Annabel W and Grace A

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

Emily T – awarded 7th place in a horse riding competition
Grace B – attended Scout camp
Ellie A – achieved Gymnast of the Week
Emily K – achieved Gymnast of the Week
Pixie – awarded 2nd place in an ice skating competition
Artemisia – learnt CPR at Scouts and was awarded a medical badge
Poppy – awarded Football Player of the week
Daisy P – awarded Footballer of the week

Birthdays for this week

This week, we wish a very Happy Birthday to the following members of our Junior School family:

Zehra, Annie and Scarlett

Christmas at Northampton High: Save the Dates!

Community Sessions

Term Dates

Northampton High School
Newport Pagnell Road, Hardingstone Northampton NN4 6UU
T: 01604 765765 nhsadmin@nhs.Gdst.Net