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Junior News 21 May 2021 |
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As part of a Spring Clean at home I came across a box filled with some childhood mementos -and was delighted to find my old kaleidoscope. The memories came flooding back and I felt exactly the same fascination, excitement and wonder as I did as a child, as I watched the ever changing patterns, all completely unique yet working so beautifully together as a whole. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, (Professor of Business at Harvard Business School) once said, ‘Creativity is a lot like looking through a kaleidoscope. You look at a set of elements, the same everyone else sees, but then reassemble those floating bits into entirely new possibilities’. This got me thinking. Now that we are able to start welcoming prospective pupils and their families again into school, I have had the pleasure of giving tours of our Junior school. As I go into classrooms, the set of elements that make up our relaxed and purposeful learning environment that is conducive to learning remains the same, but what I observe in the teaching and learning that is taking place is wonderful and ever changing, with a myriad of possibilities, just like a kaleidoscope. A kaleidoscope also conveys the idea of movement, which provides a further analogy of how teachers and pupils are constantly changing, all shaping and adapting to different ways and approaches in learning. Never has this been more true. The world of late can sometimes feel as if the Kaleidoscope has been shaken, with all the contents thrown in the air, but what we do know is that the pieces will all settle and regroup into place, including new and exciting patterns and ways. The constant changes and challenges the girls have faced and embraced during these unprecedented times is enormous and yet it is remarkable how they have reassembled themselves at each and every stage, recreating new ways of working and certainly showing the strongest reslience. Goodness, all I did was pick up an old toy-I wonder what else is in my box…….? Have a lovely weekend, everyone. Marissa Davis |
Achievements |
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Each week in our virtual assembly, girls are invited to share their achievements in activities outside of school. They are listed below for this week: Amelia N – “I got my Chief Scout’s Silver Award at Cubs. It means that I have done all of my challenge badges and once I have done that when I’m 10, I can go up into Scouts. Which I am really looking forward to!” Artemisia – has earned her Home Helper and Athletic badges in Scouts. Matilda and Emily F. – started Sea Cadets last week. On only their second visit they had a water confidence test, they had to swim in the Nene fully clothed in readiness to begin activities in the boats. I don’t think either of them gave it a second thought and jumped straight in…….I cant wait to see their official beret ceremony after the 8-week probation, Matilda and Emily are SO excited for the adventures in store! Shanaya – Received her certificate for her GDST Creative Writing piece. |
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Dates for your diary |
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Monday 31 May to Friday 4 June – Half Term Please note that Summer uniform is compulsory after May Half Term. Thursday 10 June – Class photographs Friday 11 June – Sports Day (unfortunately no spectators are allowed due to our Covid risk assessment) Wednesday 16 June – there will be no Year 5 Art Club |
Nursery - Kipper Room and Elmer Room |
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In PE this week, we have been using our ‘listening ears’, dancing, jumping, hopping, skipping and running until the music stops and then freezing! We have also been playing the ‘Honey Pot’ game, creeping quietly and listening to hear which friend stole the honey. Listening has been a theme of the week. We have been exploring the different instruments in the music box and the variation of sounds each one can make depending on how it is played. Florence has been tapping out rhythms on the hand drum, comparing the sound when using her hand and then a beater. Natalie discovered the difference between holding the triangle in her hand and hanging it on a string. There was great excitement when we met one of the Starship delivery robots which delivered some supplies for a painting activity. ”It’s a broccoli. We’re painting with broccoli?” queried Sahana. Danaya remarked how much she thought the robot looked like a snowman. |
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Nursery - Pre School |
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This week in Pre School we have been learning about minibeasts. In PE, the girls were able to move in a variety of ways pretending to be a caterpillar, spider, ant, worm and butterfly. We then played a game where Miss Hillery was a spider who had to catch her flies, which were the children, before they ran to the other side of the room. The girls have had the opportunity to get up close and hold a snail after Adaya spotted one on the way into school and collected it. A whale joined the table to recreate ‘The Snail and the Whale’ story. This seemed to be a favourite. “We’re going on a minibeast hunt”, got the girls engaged and focused with drawing their own versions of the minibeasts, ready to tick them off when we went on our hunt. We were lucky to see a variety of minibeasts from our lists which included a ladybird, caterpillar, butterfly, ant, spider and dragonfly. String has turned into worms for mark-making with paint to create wonderful pictures. The children displayed a variety of different poses when practising their yoga skills with Bugs Cosmic Yoga. |
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What the girls have said: “The snail, the whale, and the shark’s tail.” Adaya. Looking ahead: |
Reception |
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This week we have been using non-fiction books to find some facts about a minibeast. Using this information each girl has made a fact file leaflet on their chosen minibeast. They have described its appearance, where it lives, what it eats, and an amazing fact. In Maths, we have been revisiting subtraction and, in every scenario, Mrs Howell had eaten some leaving us with less. When a snack had been mislaid, a little voice said, “I think that Mrs Howell has eaten it”! We have been thinking about habitats, where different minibeasts like to live, and chose the windiest, wettest afternoon to go outside to have a look for some. We will hopefully go again on a better weather day. |
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Please send in any photos on Tapestry if you manage to find any minibeasts in your house or outside! |
Year 1 |
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This week in English, we have looked at an alternative version of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. The story is called ‘Honestly, Red Riding Hood was Rotten’, and the children have really enjoyed looking at this twist on the classic story. We have been writing speech bubbles for the different characters and writing about the similarities and differences between the two different versions. In Maths, we have been finishing off our work on fractions, by looking at recognising and finding quarters. The girls have worked really hard on recognising what a quarter looks like in different shapes and also working out how to find a quarter of a quantity. In Science, we have been looking carefully at different types of plants and trees. We have learnt two new words, deciduous and evergreen, and we can now explain what these two words mean for different trees. In our PSHEE lesson this week, we have thought carefully about the people who can help us in school. We have thought about the jobs that people have, and people who can help us with different problems we might have. In our Design work, we have finished creating our traditional tale faces and have been evaluating our fantastic work. |
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What the girls have said: “I have enjoyed finding quarters in Maths.” Shanaya. Looking ahead to next week: Maths – position and direction |
Year 2 |
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This week in Maths we have been learning about position and direction and practising our left and right. We have created treasure maps for pirates and had some fun with the BeeBots writing our own set of directions and testing them out. In English, we have listened to the story, ‘Honestly, Red Riding Hood was Rotten.’ It is a version of the story, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ as told by the wolf. We have written a detailed character description of Rotten Red, and we have been learning to use inverted commas for speech. In Science, we have learned about photosynthesis and how plants make their own food in their leaves. We have set up an experiment to understand how important light is for this process and we have been monitoring the changes we see over the week. In DT we have evaluated our fabric faces. We have thought carefully about what we have done as well as what we would like to improve next time. |
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What the girls have said: “I liked DT and thinking about what I can do better another time.” Eloise C. Looking ahead to next week: Maths – describing turns |
Year 3 |
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This week we have started our new book, ‘How to Live Forever’ by Colin Thompson, which has prompted a lot of discussion about the pros and cons of immortality. I have been very impressed with the thoughts and ideas that have been shared in these English lessons. In Maths, we have continued with telling the time and looked at am and pm as well as digital displays. In Science, we found out how fossils are formed. |
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What the girls have said: “I liked making branching databases in computing and sharing them with the rest of the class.” Anna. Looking ahead to next week: |
Year 4 |
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In Maths, we recapped on telling the time to 5 minutes and to the minute. We learnt about am/pm and the 24-hour clock. Do ask your daughter to tell you the time at home for extra practice. In English, we have enjoyed learning more about being evacuated during WW2 through our text ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’. We used inference skills to write a character description and the conjunction ‘that’ to turn direct speech into reported speech. In Science, we had a fun investigation to learn about soundproofing and develop our investigation skills. I was impressed with the teamwork and problem-solving skills on show. |
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What the girls have said: “I have really been enjoying Maths because we have been learning time and I like doing the 24-hour clock.” Maya. “I enjoyed doing flower pressing in Nature Club. We used leaves, flowers and petals to make them. We organised it in a certain way then put them under Maths text books to press them.” Tami. “I enjoyed writing about our book for English, ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’. We wrote a diary entry about a boy called Lenny who found a special garden and met a friendly man there.” Ellie. Looking ahead to next week: |
Year 5 |
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Year 5 have had a nice gentle week. Lots of hard work, but in a finishing off sort of way, which has been lovely. We came to the end of our Michael Morpurgo book ‘Kaspar Prince of Cats’ and the girls completed their newspaper articles from April 16 1912 (no prizes for guessing the headline). They also used their computing skills to create a Concept Map for the book, which proved very challenging. We finished the lesson concluding that technology doesn’t always make things better or easier! |
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What the girls have said: “My favourite subject is Art because we get to do a lot of fun things. At the moment we’re doing clay modelling of Mayan things inspired by Dan Fenelon. I have done a snake because I saw some snake images when we were researching Mayan artwork and patterns. This week we are going to paint our sculptures which I am really looking forward to.” Emilly S. “I enjoyed the Science lesson this week because we were doing experiments to show irreversible changes. The best bit was when we held some Casein plastic that we made by combining milk and vinegar. The Casein felt fairly sticky, and not a completely formed solid yet, but it will dry out over the next couple of days.” Rithika Dates for your diary: |
Year 6 |
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This week has flown by in a flurry of enthusiastic activity in Year 6. We have worked hard to improve our systematic and logical approach whilst problem-solving in Maths, learnt some fascinating facts about how mail was sorted and delivered by steam train in the 1930s through our in-depth analysis of ‘Night Mail’ by W.H.Auden and had a brilliant time at Forest School improving our orienteering skills. |
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What the girls have said: “My highlight of the week was Forest School where we did ‘capture the flag’ and we also did a hunt where we had to follow co-ordinates. My group went first, and we hid all the tags! We were waiting back at Forest School for ages watching the other teams searching in the hedge where we had hidden one of the tags!” Natalie. “My highlight of the week was Forest School because it was really fun to be in a group with my friends and winning the activity with the map co-ordinates hidden around the school, so we could find where to go next. We all had some biscuits and played games when everyone got back. We played ‘capture the flag’.” Emily. “I liked Forest School on Wednesday – we did a scavenger hunt. We went all around the school and had lots of fun. Then we played a game of ‘capture the flag’. After that, a few of us had Sports Club which was really good, but we were all super tired!” Georgia. Looking ahead to next week: Next week we look forward to writing and performing poetry for our Year 5 and 6, ‘Poetry Extravaganza’. The week starts with a virtual workshop with the writer, Jo Stokes, and culminates in the recording of the girls’ work to be shared with you at home. Have a lovely weekend! Karen Fordham and Nicola Taylor |
Tennis4All Development Programme |
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We are delighted to offer specialist Tennis coaching to our students across the school with the Tennis4All development programme. The programme introduces children from across Northamptonshire to the fun of tennis, helping participants to have fun and reach their full potential in the game. The sessions are delivered by Tom Stevenson, a LTA Level 4 qualified Tennis coach, with whom our Junior pupils will already be familiar from his recent coaching sessions; Tom is offering Tennis Camps during the May half term and summer holidays, and after school clubs after half term. Further details on the sessions can be found on the above flyer (or by clicking here). For more information, including pricing, please contact directly on tom@northamptontennis4all.co.uk. We hope you enjoy! Mrs Blake |
Term Dates 20/21 |
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Term Dates 21/22 |
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Term Dates 22/23 |
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Northampton High School |
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