At assembly this morning we were struck by how important it is to celebrate the girls’ achievements. From Star Learner to sports match success, from competition participation to achieving Blue Peter badges – we genuinely celebrate each and every girl’s achievement and take pleasure in cheering them on. The girls are encouraged also by each other – their peers take delight in recognising others’ success and applauding others’ achievement. 

We thanked Mrs Saunders-Wall, Director of Sport, for her fascinating assembly presentation on the value of sport today; the pupils were thrilled to see themselves appear in Mrs Saunders-Wall’s video of our newly  refurbished Astroturf, sharing their views on what sport means to them. The sporting calendar is fully underway, and it was heartening to hear the many and various sport-related achievements, whether these are in school matches, extracurricular clubs, out of school clubs, or at home with family – for example learning to ride a bike and learning to swim. All of these endeavours are valuable and valued by us in school.

This week marked the first of our Reading Weeks. The love of reading is central to learning, and we hope that your daughter has relished the opportunity of additional time to read and explore new and loved books. We have seen reading in every corner this week, be it on the playground, in the corridor or even while hula hooping! Particularly gratifying was witnessing our older pupils reading to our younger girls in wraparound care.

With half term upon us, we are already looking ahead to the second half of the autumn term. We look forward to welcoming families to our Junior School Parent Coffee Morning on Wednesday 6 November (8.15am to 9am) when our central theme will be our new ePraise reward system. Miss Kneen, Deputy Head Pastoral will take us on a tour of the programme, and we would like to gather your input and experiences so far – this is in its early stages on implementation and we are keen to gather both parent and pupil voice next term. 

We look ahead to class assemblies for Year 6 and Year 3, trips, Children in Need, our annual Christmas Fayre (Friday 29 November, 4.30-6.30pm) and lots of festive celebrations for girls in all year groups. We are pleased to be hosting our second Parent and Staff Quiz on Thursday 21 November, 7-9pm. Last year we had over 60 participants and it was lots of fun. Booking opens today – we would love to see you there!

In the meantime, we wish you and your families enjoyable break, with rest, relaxation and quality time together. Thank you for your support this term and we look forward to a productive, positive and action-packed November and December.  

Mrs Wilmot
Acting Head of Junior School

It all turned orange at the beginning of the week in Nursery when we looked at big, small and also painted polystyrene pumpkins.  

The children have been busy learning to play with the doll’s house watching their grown ups as they model language and play giving them the skills to play independently.  

At Forest School, we had fun using all of our lovely donated resources from our wonderful families. It’s been great watching all of the girls making marks in the environment, whether it be marks in the sand, marks on the chalk board or using our fine motor skills on paper. 

During our walk down to Forest School this week in Preschool the girls were chatting about the season autumn and what that meant for the plants and trees. They could explain that leaves change colour then fall off the trees. We were able to observe this by watching the leaves fall down from the trees in the wind. Whilst at Forest School the girls had the chance to use a mallet and bang nails into pieces of wood. The girls were very sensible when using the mallets and understood why they needed to be used safely.

In French we looked at autumn harvest fruit and the girls all chose which their favourite piece was.

During PSHE we talked about being responsible and being able to look after toys and belongings. Miss Cooke gave the girls all a little ribbon to look after for 10 minutes while they were playing, explaining why these were important to her. When she returned the girls all came back proudly handing in their well looked after ribbons. We have also been talking about looking after our own belongings like coats, bags and water bottles and returning them to where they should be after using them.

The Maths number matching game on the interactive whiteboard has been popular this week with the girls returning for multiple turns. The idea was to count how many spots the ladybird had and then choose the corresponding numeral. This has been helping to strengthen the girls number recognition.

In Reception we have been continung our learning about The Little Red Hen. Now we know this story retell very confidently, we have used the storyline to innovate our own versions by choosing a new character.

The class have loved using our role-play bakery to engage in narratives with their peers.

Our Maths focus has been recalling 1 more and 1 less number facts and to begin to talk about the composition of numbers using part-whole models.

Year 2 began the term with the very important topic of online safety. This involved searching safely in Purple Mash, creating ‘feelings’ portraits to upload to a class display board and emailing Baby Bear about Barnaby Bear’s travels.

We have now started a new unit on coding. This began with writing instructions to make planes take-off when clicked before trying to work out how to add a sound effect for a collision!

Year 3 have been learning how to use the Read and Write software on their Chromebooks. This gives us a special toolbar with extra functions when we are typing our work in a Google doc. Some of our favourite functions are: hearing our typed words read back to us, using the picture dictionary and adding a reading light to the screen.

We are looking forward to using Read and Write in some of our lessons after half term!

This week, our amazing Year 4 students have been diving into the exciting world of coding! They’re learning how to create their very own programmes that include an IF statement and a timer, all while having heaps of fun.

Starting off, our budding coders developed a raining programme to get familiar with the basics. Once they were ready they took it a step further by selecting backgrounds and objects, which they will use to ask questions. Depending on their answers, something magical changes in their programme.

“I learned that data is information that you store and it’s usually on a computer. It was so cool when we were watching videos about different robots that could clean and walk like humans (but a bit slower). We talked about whether robots should have rights, like whether we should let them make another robot. I mainly thought robots should have rights because they are a bit like humans, but I didn’t think they should be able to make more.” Rhoda

“It was fun finding out all the things that our teachers know about us, and the data they have in school. I knew they had some information, but I didn’t know they had so much!” Alice

“Watching the online safety video taught us some really good lessons about who we could trust and not giving away our personal data. Also, that you should treat people how you want to be treated, otherwise they might be mean to you back.” Dia

Year 6 have been spending this half term learning how to code. They have been using 2Code on Purple Mash to learn how to write a sequence, program a turtle to move around the screen, make things vanish and create a game. We have many excellent coders who are able to help their peers and debug their programs to make them work. We are all learning new skills each lesson.

“I like being able to practise the functions prior to using them in our games. Elizabeth and I have enjoyed making our own game but it was difficult. Leah and I liked making different kinds of games and include some tricks!” Avani

“I like being able to practise the functions prior to using them in our games.” Elizabeth

The Junior School teaching team has been reviewing prep in terms of what is given, quantity of work and time allocation. Our prep policy states that it is seen as an integral part of the educational process, which should not cause students undue stress, nor be put in place excessively or needlessly.

There should be a balance between different types of prep and sufficient time allowed for completion. Pupils are encouraged to manage their time effectively in order to produce work they are proud of and to meet deadlines, whilst leaving time for other interests both in and out of school.

In Junior School, prep will focus on giving pupils the opportunity to reinforce and embed key skills in Reading, Spelling and Mathematics. We believe prep should be used to help prepare students for work to be completed in lessons, also feeding into the other strands of practise, reflect and explore, which allows pupils the opportunity to review and consolidate their classroom learning, whilst also satisfying their curiosity and imagination.

With all this in mind, we have decided that prep tasks should take no more than 20 minutes to complete, and girls should have a minimum of 2 days to complete each task, to accommodate busy family schedules. If the prep task is set over the weekend, additional days will be given. Furthermore, prep tasks  are often differentiated in order to stretch the most able and support those students with educational needs.

We feel that family time is a very valuable part of growing up as are all the additional activities families take part in over the weekends; the girls also need time to relax and unwind ready for the week ahead.

Each teacher will explain the new prep pattern to their classes, a summary of which is below:

• All ages should read daily through the week and this is reflected in our expectations for reading prep.
• Reception will have reading, phonic sounds and tricky words to practise. A topic-based mini project is set during the summer term
• Years 1-6 will have spellings to learn weekly. Lists are given by the teacher and there are activities set on EdShed for the girls to practise them.
• Years 3-6 will also be encouraged to practise their times tables using Times Tables Rock Stars, but this may be part of their Maths prep time.

In addition to the above,

• Year 1 & 2: 1 piece of prep to complete each week.
• Year 3 & 4: 1 piece of Maths and English each week.
• Year 5 & 6: a piece of English, Maths, French and an additional subject which may vary each week (known as ‘Tutor prep’).

Years 1-6: prep tasks will be written in planners and class teachers will monitor the pupils prep and progress. For pupils in Years 4-6, prep will also be displayed on Google Classroom to prepare the girls for the transition to Senior School.

Netball Captains
Hi, my name is Thea and I am this year’s Netball Captain with Eloise. I am very funny, social and passionate about sports. I am delighted to have a Netball role for this year. I will bring to this role an understanding attitude if we lose matches and make sure I get the best out of people. I go to Futureprint Netball which is an out of school club, which I enjoy. I prefer to play in the attacking part of the court but I can play defence as well. This year my goal is to win more successful matches. I am very excited for the year ahead.

Hello, my name is Eloise and I am Netball Captain with Thea this year. My personality is energetic, cheerful, sporty and kind. I go to Futureprint Netball and I also got into U12 Storm Club which I was very happy about. I am very excited for everyone’s matches this year and I hope you do well.

Hockey Captain
Hi, I am Olivia and I am very happy about being chosen for this role. It will be a very good opportunity for me to show how I can help others and make everyone better. I am very happy and will enjoy encouraging the other girls in matches.

Cricket Captains
My name is Leah and I am Cricket Captain. I play for the Brixworth cricket team. I will read and write match reports and be the best captain I can be.

I am a good captain because I am organised, supportive of my teammates and a good leader.  Although I am Captain I will listen to other people’s ideas and be respectful of my players. In the summer I go to training in Brixworth for matches and tournaments.

Hello, my name is Avani and I am your Cricket Captain for this year. I play for the U12’s Hardball Cricket Team Saints and I play for under elevens softball Saints Cricket Team. Another team that I play for is Steelbacks County Cricket Club.

My favourite part in Cricket is definitely bowling because I like bowling quickly and I like trying different types of bowls like spin bowling instead of sticking to pace. I am really excited to be your Cricket Captain this year.

Athletics Captain
I’m Annabel and I’m your Athletics Captain this year. In my first ever athletics rally, I did really well coming 3rd in both my 90m and 150m sprints. I love athletics and I’m really excited to see what responsibilities I have. I hope I can help some of you improve your athletics and inspire you to try it for yourself.

Swimming Captain
My name is Evette and I am the Swimming Captain. When you are the Swimming Captain you need to write swimming gala reports and help others who need it. I swim for Northampton High School club.

Reading Champion
Hello I am Eloise, I really like the role I got because I love reading. My favourite books to read are the Lottie Brooks series and some of my auntie’s books like Keith among the pigeons. I also read a lot of Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss. I am excited to help the younger girls pick out some books. I hope that when the younger girls are in the library I will be able to talk to them about what they like and what suits their taste. I am also excited to be helping out in the library at lunch time. I like learning English and I like books that are funny but also increase vocabulary range to make pieces of writing more interesting. I like writing more scary descriptions and they are very fun to write and easier for me to do. I remember that I used to pick out a book with a nice cover and thought I would like them but I never really did, but now I think it is better to read the blurb first or maybe read the first couple of pages before getting it from the library. If you love reading then you can improve your English by reading different books. It is also good to read a different range of books so you can have different vocabulary to learn.

For the rest of the year as Reading Champion I hope that I can help some of the younger girls find different authors and inspire their love of reading.

STEM Champion
My name is Kinara and I am the STEM champion. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. I really like science and learning about the world. My favourite hobbies are singing, dancing and reading. I really like to travel to different places and spend time with my friends and family.

Chair of School Council
My name is Elizabeth and I am the Chair of the School Council. I will help Mrs Purvey-Tyrer to run meetings with my Vice, Cristina, and my Secretary, Anushka. I am 10 years old and have a little sister called Robyn in Year 2. I love drama, baking, reading and history. I can’t wait to hear your suggestions and get to know you. School Council will meet every Monday and talk. Together we can make the school even better!

Vice-Chair of School Council
Hello my name is Cristina and I’m very excited to be Vice-Chair of the School Council.  I am open to any ideas anyone would like to share with me so that I can discuss it with the School Council. I think it will be a wonderful experience being Vice-Chair. I think I’m good for this role because I have some ideas for the school and because I’m good at listening. I love writing books during my spare time because I love reading and it makes me relax and wander into my own world. I like animals and have a pet rabbit. I also love doing drama and I enjoy singing and dancing. I have a younger sister in Year 4 named Isabel. I am very pleased I was chosen to help make the school a better place. Thank you.

Secretary of School Council
I am Anushka, and I am the School Council Secretary. I am in Year 6, class 6N. I love doing art and writing and I enjoy spending time with my friends. I believe that I suit this role because I enjoy writing and would love to write things for the school to read, so that they know the decisions the School Council have made. I hope that my writing will be enjoyable for the school to read whenever I share my work.

Hockey Fixtures 

U8 Hockey v Quinton House – 11 October
There was great excitement on Friday for our first official fixture against Quinton House and even though some of the girls were feeling a bit nervous they all did really well in trying their absolute best.

The first part of the fixture was played as a training match with Northampton and Quinton combining to make two teams. We learnt about different positions (trying to avoid all of us going for the ball!) and passing to our teammates. 

A short 4v4 fixture followed and some strong dribbling was seen by Inara and Anne with Aleya making some excellent tackles in defence. The final result 2:0 to Quinton.

The highlight of the afternoon however (from the girls perspective) was of course our first ever match teas. Thank you to all the parents who came to support us on Friday.

U9 Hockey v Quinton House – 11 October
On Friday the U9s played a match against Quinton. The first two thirds were played as a training match with lots of advice being given on spacing, strong passing and dribbling into space. This was a fantastic warm up for the actual match which was played as a 5v5.

All of the girls worked extremely hard, supporting one another and demonstrating solid tackles and movement into space.

The final result  0:0 and Player of the Match was Dulcie.

U10A, U10B, U11A and U11B Hockey v Bilton Grange – 16 October

This was always going to be a tough match against a strong team from Bilton Grange on Wednesday.

U10A
We had a good afternoon playing against Bilton Grange. The game was going fine as we were running up the pitch running and taking many shots on goal. We were really unlucky that there was an opposition goal because they took three shots on goal and the third one went in on the opposite side of the goalkeeper. Our player of the match was Olivia since she was tackling, dribbling and would have been one of our top scorers if their goalie hadn’t been so good! The final result was a 0:1 loss
Isabella 

U10B
On Wednesday we had a fun time playing against Bilton Grange, even though we lost. We worked really well as a team and Aggie scored a goal right at the end of the match which made us all feel like we had a chance. They were much taller than us, and a lot faster, so it was difficult to get the ball. Our player of the match was Maya because she was really good in defence, had a lot of power when she hit the ball and smiled the whole time. The result was 6:1 Loss.
Emily

U11A
It took a little time for the team to settle as they seemed to be a little overwhelmed with the opposition. After an early goal against us the team woke up and started to move the ball with pace.

The team showed resilience and perseverance and I was impressed with how well the team could support one another and work hard. The final result was a win for Bilton Grange.

Particular mention goes to Eloise and Evette who were voted players of the match.

U11B
We started off extremely well and the ball was moved about the pitch well with both teams having the opportunities to score. Unfortunately it was Bilton Grange who managed to find the goal a few times. However we had fun and the team are beginning to have the confidence to move with the ball and tackle with strength. Particular mention must go to Holly in defence, Amber and Kinara in midfield holding roles and Leah in Goal who received player of the match.

The day began with two hard-fought 0-0 draws against Beachborough and Kimbolton, where the team displayed solid defensive organization but struggled to find the back of the net. However, the squad faced a setback in their next match, losing 1-0 to Tranby Prep School, followed by a challenging 3-0 defeat to Pownall Hall School. Despite these challenges, the players continued to grow and learn from each game.

The toughest test came against Warwick Prep School, who proved to be formidable opponents. Despite a valiant effort, Northampton fell 1-0. Despite having chances to score themselves. Nevertheless, the team’s spirit remained high, and they entered the knockout stage with renewed determination. Northampton qualified for the plate completion. 

In the semi-final, Northampton High School found their rhythm against The Elms. A standout moment came from Olivia T, who brilliantly converted a goal kick, skillfully maneuvering past two defenders before slotting the ball into the net. This decisive goal secured a 1-0 victory and propelled the team into the final.

Facing Wolverhampton Grammar School, Northampton put forth a valiant effort but were narrowly defeated 1-0 in the dying minutes of the match. Despite the heartbreak, the team’s journey through the tournament highlighted their growth and resilience, laying a strong foundation for future competitions.

Overall, the players should be proud of their performance, demonstrating determination and skill against tough opposition. We look forward to building on this experience in the next tournament as the girls will play in the GDST rally later on this term.