With the sun shining and the end of term in sight, the girls have embraced every opportunity with enthusiasm and their usual positive spirit.

Reception to Year 2 brought determination to their annual Sports Day. From the classic egg and spoon to the ever-entertaining sack race, obstacle course, foam javelin, and long jump, it was a morning packed with joyful competition. We were so proud of all the girls for their sportsmanship and spirit. A huge congratulations goes to Demeter, who were crowned overall winners on the day! The parents’ race added an extra level of excitement, and competition, with plenty of laughter and cheer from the sidelines.

Meanwhile, girls in Preschool to Year 5 welcomed new faces during their special Welcome Day. It was lovely to see the girls embracing their new classmates and getting to know the teachers they will be moving up with in September. There was a real buzz of anticipation and a sense of growing confidence as they looked ahead to their next steps.

Friday’s Celebration Assembly was a time for reflection and recognition, filled with pride at the many achievements of our pupils. However, we did miss our Year 6 pupils, who were busy spending the day in the Senior School, taking part in the Year 7 welcome programme. They ended their week on a high after a brilliant trip to Willen Lake on Thursday, where they challenged themselves on the high ropes and had a fantastic time enjoying water-based adventures together.

As the term draws to a close, we look forward to all that is still to come, including our much loved Summer Fayre. The excitement continues!

Mrs Saunders-Wall
Interim Director of Junior School Liaison

The book of the week in Nursery this week is ‘The Runaway Pea’. We have had a giant pea as a prop which the girls have enjoyed rolling on the floor. We have also had a range of different activities including a mixture of green materials on the table so the girls can make their own peas. The peas have been set up in the tuff tray and they definitely ran away as they ended up all over the classroom, in the home corner, water tray and over the floor at different points throughout the week.

Fruit and vegetables were set up on the creative table with different coloured paint, to coincide with the story. The pupils were able to identify the different colours and pieces of fruit and vegetables. They liked making different marks on their paper using the fruit as their mark making tools. 

We have played the ‘guess that sound game’, to improve listening and engagement skills. With this activity the girls remained focused throughout and got very excited shouting out what they thought it might be like a sheep, owl, pig, chicken and many more. 

Open Ballet was a huge success and the girls did so well, thank you to all the parents that came and watched. 

On Wednesday we had the opportunity to go and watch Senior School’s performance of ‘The Little Mermaid’. Before the show, the girls got to try on the director’s headphones and spoke into the microphone saying hello to George, who was controlling the light and sound for the show. Once seated, we watched the first half and the girls were engrossed throughout. Other schools were present and our girls behaved beautifully, representing our school wonderfully! Well done girls.

Our travel agents role-play area has changed into a library as the girls are showing a love for reading and wanting to spend their own time looking through and exploring books. This is fabulous to see.

In PSHE we have explored things that change over time such as plants. We talked about how a seed grows into a plant and the things they need to help them grow. We then compared this to what we need to help us grow.

This week we have had open ballet which was great fun! It was lovely to see lots of parents coming to watch their daughters in their ballet lessons. We hope you enjoyed yourselves and have not got too many of the catchy songs stuck in your heads!

In our Art based learning this term, our focus times have been based around a wonderful series of books by James Mayhew. In these books, a little girl called Katie visits the art gallery and the reader is introduced to a range of famous pieces of artwork including ‘Sunflowers’ by Vincent Van Gogh and ‘Tiger in a Tropical Storm’ by Henri Rousseau. We have used paint, collage, pencil and mixed media to create our own versions of these paintings.

Year 1 have been continuing their work focusing on flowers and the garden. They created some beautiful sunflowers using printing techniques and some torn tissue paper gardens, all of which have been on display this week as part of the Arts Festival.

Year 2 have had another busy term in Art and DT! We have enjoyed linking our lessons to our Great Fire of London topic. First, we looked at a piece of art called The Burning of London, created by an artist called Samuel Rolle in 1667. We were fascinated by the swirling smoke effect and used this as inspiration for our own artwork.

We have also been busy baking scones, and can confirm that they were absolutely delicious!

Year 3 have risen to the challenge of designing, making and decorating a box for a pair of toy shoes. They have drawn on their learning in Maths, Humanities and Art, to create some interesting and imaginative shoe packaging. They started by looking at a selection of boxes from shoe shops and decided that whilst some were very attractive, others were incredibly boring to look at. Design features on their boxes have included information about the history of the company, carefully chosen colour themes and the addition of bar codes!

Year 4 been hard at work wrapping their lightboxes, each uniquely decorated with flair and imagination. Not only did they craft their wonderful designs, but they also created circuits, complete with switches! They can hardly wait to bring their shining masterpieces home.

In art class, they have been honing their sketching skills, learning to use shading techniques to capture the beautiful contrasts of light and dark in their sunflower drawings. Their creativity knows no bounds, and the results are simply spectacular!

Year 5 are so proud of the artwork they have at the Arts Festival – this week we had a great time deciding what to display and thought about how our confidence and enjoyment had developed throughout the year.

The best thing that we have done in Art & DT this year was not, however, on display. All but two of the girls agreed that their favourite unit was definitely breadmaking! The other two liked sketching apples… so the food theme remains!

Year 6 have been studying Georgia O’Keeffe and looking at examples of her flower paintings. She focuses on the flower itself and paints them larger than life to draw your attention to them. The girls have copied some of her flowers and initially coloured them with pencil crayons. They then produced the same flower using acrylic paint, which made them more vibrant.

In DT lessons we have been studying children at play. We took photographs of each other using equipment such as netballs, hoops and skipping ropes. Then we used wire to produce 3D sculptures of the images. We have had fun twisting and turning the wire and are very pleased with our end results, which were on display at the Arts Festival.

They had a picnic to show how important it is to share and to understanding each other’s feelings. The girls made beautiful friendship flowers and talked about their best friends, showing off their writing in the presentation for parents and families to see. They also sang a lovely song about being good friends.

With thanks to Miss Brandon-Jones, Mrs Farrar, Miss Preston and Mrs Latimer for helping the girls to prepare for their assembly.

U11B

On 18 June, a team of Years 5 and 6 played a match against Broughton Manor. We were batting first with some great hits including 4s and 6s from multiple girls. We were bowling next and the practice really showed with some very good effort.

Although it was very hot, the team persevered very well and won! It was a great opportunity to showcase what we have been learning and well done to all who played.

Results:

U11A
Player of the Match:
Bowler – Avani
Batter – Leah
Scores:
Northampton High School 322/4
Broughton Manor 278/4

U11B
Player of the Match:
Batter: Eve
Bowler: Eloise R
Fielder: Elizabeth
Scores:
Northampton High School 278/0
Broughton Manor 264/2

What an exhilarating afternoon our Year 4 pupils had last week! After immersing themselves in Shackleton’s incredible journey to Antarctica during English and learning all about this fascinating continent in their Humanities lessons, they transformed into intrepid explorers!

As they entered the world of ‘Snozone,’ the children were quick to appreciate that even though they may have felt cold, it was nothing compared to the extreme temperatures faced by explorers in Antarctica. They also discovered just how challenging it could be to navigate through deep snow. But the thrill did not stop there! The highlight of the day was, without a doubt, the sledging! Our young adventurers raced each other down the slopes, creating delightful caterpillar formations as they zoomed together.

The laughter and smiles were contagious as they embraced the winter wonderland around them. More photos can be viewed on Flickr.

Last week, Year 3 went on a brilliant trip to Northampton Museum. We travelled back in time to see lots of cool artefacts from the history of Northampton, before looking at some amazing shoes and taking part in a shoemaking workshop.

A huge congratulations to Caoimhe in Year 5 who has been crowned UK Champion at the Irish Dancing OPIDF Open Championships. This is a fantastic achievement showcasing Caoimhe’s hard work and dedication. 

The World Challenge team are fundraising for their expedition to Borneo in 2026, and are hosting an end of year movie night. Junior school pupils are invited to attend on Monday 7 July, with the event finishing in time for the late bus.

Please book using this link and a letter with more details has already been sent out.

Thank you for your support.

The World Challenge Team

Due to the Summer Fayre taking place, there will be no Swap Shop on the 4 July and on the 11 July as school will be closing at 11.50am for the end of term.

Thank you for your continued support.