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Junior News – 2 February 2024 |
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Our marking of NSPCC Number Day has got us all focused on numbers in our everyday lives. The girls have enjoyed thinking about how they are represented as individuals in number form: height, shoe size, birthdays and home addresses to name but a few! I’m looking forward to reviewing the prep task returns next week that has been set as a challenge for pupils in Reception to Year 6. A key motivator for me remains the notion that children only get one ‘go’ at childhood, and therefore it’s important we make every moment count in their schooling experience. Considering this in numbers, our children have approximately 3 years in EYFS, which is 500 days in Nursery and Preschool and 180 in Reception, totaling 680 days, 4760 hours of opportunity to embed the foundational skills of learning. They experience 360 days in Key Stage 1 where they emerge competent readers possessing a strong sense of self. 720 days in Key Stage 2 that guides them through key skills and character development securing them a smooth and happy transition to Senior School. This totals 1620 days, 12,150 hours at Junior school in their lives (excluding wraparound care and after school activities)! This is irrefutably a large amount of time, yet with so much to develop academically and pastorally in this crucial early stage of childhood, it leads me to a firm conclusion that taking the approach of ‘every minute counts’ is highly beneficial. We encourage the girls to spend time developing their hobbies and build passions for things that interest them. The Year 5 Hobbies Morning this week was a wonderful experience for us all to celebrate the importance of hobbies and passions, and Year 5 certainly presented an eclectic offering to us all. From Lego to writing and from piano to fell walking and everything in between, we heard about the inspirations for these hobbies and what they enjoy most about them. Without exception, each hobby they shared demands a time commitment from them all. Appreciating the value of time and that we have a choice how to spend our time is an interesting concept for children to grasp. At a young age, they can become frustrated when they don’t achieve success quickly or become perplexed as to why their friend doesn’t enjoy the same interests as them. Taking the units of time in minutes and hours and considering the choice we often have over how to spend, it may well spark some interesting conversations for you at home as they certainly did today in school. When given 30 minutes of time to do whatever you please, what would you choose? Miss Hair |
Miss Hair – Change of name |
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I would like to take this opportunity to let parents know that, after the February half term break, I shall be returning to school with a new surname! This is due to me getting married over half term, and I look forward to returning as Mrs Thompson. Apologies for any confusion this may cause, and thank you so much for all of your well wishes. Miss Hair (Mrs Thompson!) |
Parent Reps |
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You may recall that earlier this year we asked if any parents would like to act as a parent rep for their daughters class this academic year. This would involve sharing reminders from school, sharing feedback with us where appropriate and coordinating engagement on occasions. Please see here the list of parent reps for this year: Year 3: Mrs Price, Year 4: Mrs Barnett, Year 5: Mrs Plowman and Year 6: Mrs Price. This does not replace any communication process we have in school currently, and will be utilised for group communication only. |
NSPCC Number Day |
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Today is NSPCC Number Day. We have celebrated this in school and each child from Reception to Year 6 has been set an additional prep challenge to complete please. They have brought home with them today a sheet that asks them to represent themselves in numbers. Each box asks them to consider an aspect of their lives as a number; our younger pupils will write the numbers in the boxes and the older pupils will challenge themselves to write calculations that have the correct answer for their representation. A self portrait in the middle is also being asked of the girls please. Please can this prep piece be handed back to the teachers by Thursday 8 February for Miss Hair to then review. To support the important work of the NSPCC we would like to welcome you to make donation using our Just Giving page here. Thank you in advance for your support as the work of the NSPCC is a crucial lifeline to many families across the UK. |
Dismissal from After School Clubs |
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From next week, please can parents who are collecting their child from an after school club (that is not Wraparound Care), collect from the door before they reach Wraparound. This is to allow us to spread out the parents who are waiting to collect, as well as the girls who have attended a club not having to walk through the Wraparound Care classroom. Thank you for your support. |
February Half Term Sessions |
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Whole School Open Morning - Friday 8 March |
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We look forward to welcoming so many lovely families to our upcoming Whole School Open Morning on Friday 8 March. The events promises to be a superb showcase of life at Northampton High School. If you would like to come along, please do feel most welcome, and should you have family, friends, or neighbours keen to visit us, please encourage them to book their place here and join us! Mr Nash |
What's on at Northampton High - Spring Term |
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Save the Date: Alumnae Reunion Lunch |
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We are delighted to share the date for our 2024 Alumnae Reunion Lunch. This special lunch is always a highlight of the school calendar, and we are thrilled to be hosting this year’s event on Saturday 2 March at 12:30pm. We hope to be joined by as many alumnae as possible from both the Hardingstone and Derngate sites, as well as former staff and friends of the school for a delicious two-course lunch and the opportunity to connect with friends old and new. For more information and to book your tickets, please click here. Mrs Wilmot |
News from our classrooms: Nursery and Preschool |
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This week has flown by in Nursery! We started by building nests at Forest School and this tied in with our story of the week, ‘Owl Babies’. The girls used their listening ears to hear the beautiful birdsong from the trees. The girls have also continued to explore the obstacle course that has been created there. In Phonics, we have continued to listen out for other environmental sounds, playing a game that requires picking the correct answer from a choice of three. It certainly has created a clamour of different opinions! One social aspect that is really coming to the fore is how helpful the girls want to be, particularly when it comes to helping each other whether it be helping hands reaching out to assist a friend balance on a plank, or fetching their belongings at home time. |
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This week in Preschool, we have been looking at the book ‘Grandma’s Saturday Soup’, making various styles of our own soup. On our way back from Forest School, the girls collected lots of natural resources and made their own nature soup. The girls have also had the opportunity to play with chopped up vegetables in the water tray, making a more realistic soup. This then led to the girls wanting to chop up the vegetables, further demonstrating how careful they can be when using dinner knives.The girls have made observational drawings and paintings of vegetables and also used some for printing. In French, the girls have explored the story ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’, using their knowledge of the French names of the rooms in a house and learning key phrases from the story. In PE, we played games with the parachute and all had a go at showing off our rolling skills to each other. |
Reception |
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This week, we have continued to learn about traditional tales. We made decisions on which would be our favourite book and character, and enjoyed using the class puppet theatre and puppets to retell these stories. In assembly, we learnt about National Storytelling Week and had the choice of which story we would like to listen to – ‘Cake‘ by Sue Hendra or ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle. In our Forest School session, we enjoyed making bird food hangers to encourage more birds to the area. We look forward to visiting the area again to see if any of these have been nibbled! Next week we shall be visiting Richmond Village, where we hope to share some our favourite books and songs with the residents. |
Year 1 Design Technology Focus |
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This half term we are having great fun with our Food Technology unit. We have created posters to help us learn about food hygiene and preparing food safely. A highlight was tasting and evaluating a range of dips and dippers. Next week we will go on to design our own dips and evaluate them. Tasty work! |
Year 2 Design Technology Focus |
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Year 2 have been making scones this week. We started off the topic by trying some shop-bought scones and evaluating their appearance, taste and texture. We then thought carefully about what shape and flavour we wanted our own scones to be. Vanilla was the flavour of choice! We had a great time mixing the ingredients and rolling out the dough. Of course, we had to taste them… they were delicious! |
Year 3 Design Technology Focus |
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Year 3 have been busy designing patterns to add with fabric paint to their 3D Indian elephants. The girls have been learning how to do running stitches and practising their sewing skills. The elephants have then been stuffed and sewn up. |
Year 4 Design Technology Focus |
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Year 4 have been learning how to make different types of pop-ups. We have made box fold, lift the flap, slider, mouth fold, rotating and spring folder. Some children even worked out how to make a slider mechanism! We are looking forward to their end product of moving picture scenes inspired by a book of their choice. |
Year 5 Design Technology Focus |
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This week the Year 5 girls have been focusing on visual design tasks, and creating individual Hobbies Morning displays for their blue boards and their Google Slides presentations. Miss Brandon-Jones was incredibly proud of her class. They spoke brilliantly in assembly, and then spent the whole morning interacting with pupils, parents and staff. |
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After the event, they talked about how they had to keep changing their answers, especially when the littlest girls came to visit, so that they could be understood. It was an amazing morning, full of variety and excitement. If you would like to see more photos, please click on this Flickr folder link. |
Year 6 Design Technology Focus |
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This week, we presented slides to Miss Hair and pitched our ideas for a new playground design. We had spent several weeks working in House groups to evaluate the current facilities, carry out a pupil survey and make models of our designs from craft materials and recycled items. The winning Artemis group – Cordelia, Avelyn, Artemisia and Annabelle – was selected because of their unique design, which included hamster wheels for humans and lots of flowers! We worked really hard on this DT project and it has definitely helped with our creativity and team building skills. Diya B and Annabelle R (Year 6 STEM Champions) |
News from Outside of the classroom: Milton Keynes Theatre trip to see ‘Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World’ |
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Year 6’s visit to Milton Keynes theatre to see ‘Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World’ was – fantastic! It was a very entertaining way to learn about important women in history. We liked the fact that the main character, Jade, met lots of amazing women and found out how their actions have had an impact on the world. It was inspiring to learn about the lives of Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo, Emmeline Pankhurst and many others. We think the performance showed how hard it is to be resilient, and reminded us that nothing is achieved overnight, but we left knowing that we can all do our bit to change the world! Artemisia U and Eliza A (Year 6, Creative Arts Champions) |
News from Outside of the classroom: Visit from Author Tom Palmer |
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Author Tom Palmer visited the school on Friday 26 January, and talked to us about how he became a brilliant author, and the stages he goes through in the process of writing his books. His latest book that he is finishing and publishing soon is called ‘Angel of Grassmere’, and it tells the beautiful story of a girl whose brother had died tragically at Dunkirk as a soldier, and she is facing the very real threat of the Nazi invasion on her home. The majority of his books are set in WW1 or WW2, and if you are interested in writers such as Michael Morpurgo, I would recommend you have a go at these sets of books. They are not too long and they are dyslexia friendly with large font sizes, and a range of compelling plot lines that are based on true stories. Emma B, 6H |
Weekly Awards |
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Star Learners of the Week: Congratulations to Diya B, Alishba F, Lulu P and Jesleen R who took part in the RSPB Big Schools’ Birdwatch 2024. External Achievements: |
Birthdays This Week |
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This week, we wish a very Happy Birthday to the following members of our Junior School family: Olivia C, Cordelia B, Elodie K and Robin M M |
Pauline Quirke Academy |
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Term Dates |
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Northampton High School |
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