Welcome to the summer term! What an encouraging and positive start it has been!

Our summer sports are underway with cricket, tennis and athletics proving to be engaging and challenging in equal measure; I’m very much looking forward to our sporting experiences and successes this term! We are being offered swimming galas, fixtures, tournaments, celebration evenings and sports days so we will certainly be busy on the sporting front! New topics and units of study have begun across the school and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed how enthused the classes have been to delve in to new learning and consolidate previous learning by transferring their skills.

Above all else our commitment at the High School is to enable our students to use their belief in themselves to achieve whatever they choose. We want our students to bravely and doggedly pursue their dreams whatever they may be. Confidently raising ones voice in a room that lacks diversity can be challenging, but we want our girls to challenge injustices with determination by putting themselves forward for all opportunities that inspire them.

I was encouraged recently to read that the US space agency NASA has named the four astronauts who will take humanity back to the Moon after a 50 year gap. Christina Koch will become the first woman astronaut ever assigned to a lunar mission, while Victor Glover will be the first black astronaut on one. They will join Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen to fly a capsule around the Moon late next year or early in 2025. The astronauts won’t land on the Moon, but their mission will pave the way for a touchdown by a subsequent crew. Christina is an electrical engineer, and she holds the record for the longest continuous time in space by a woman of 328 days. With NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, she also participated in the first all-female spacewalk in October 2019. In selecting a woman and a person of colour, NASA is keeping its promise to bring greater diversity to its exploration efforts. All the previous crewed missions to the Moon were made by white men.

Vanessa Wyche is the director of NASAs Johnson Space Flight Center, the home of mission control. She said; “Among the Artemis-2 crew are the first woman, first person of colour, and first Canadian on a lunar mission, and all four astronauts will represent the best of humanity as they explore for the benefit of all.” We shouldn’t underestimate the barriers Christina Koch will have faced in her journey to this achievement milestone. To have reached this point she will have had to possess a great level of resilience, an unwavering amount of determination and an encouraging amount of self belief. These are all personal qualities we recognise as being important for each of our girls to develop. To have role models such as Christina to inspire them our girls appreciate the importance of working on these skills. As Arnold Schwarzenegger said, “If I can see it and believe it, then I can achieve it.”

I hope our students can watch Christina representing females in space and use this to stoke their self belief that they too could be a pioneering astronaut if their dreams so dictate. If space isn’t sparking their interest then being boosted by this female representation in a male dominated area should itself be a reassurance and motivation for all of our students.

I’m looking forward to our summer term as it promises to be full of opportunities to grow and develop the personal attributes that will enable the future Christina Kochs to have been students at Northampton High!

Miss Hair
Head of Junior School