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Junior News – 30 September 2022 |
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We have had another busy week in Junior School that has ended on a ‘sugar high’ from the incredibly successful Year 5 Macmillan Coffee morning. As I write the girls have counted over £350 and with a further sales push at playtime I predict this to rise! It was a wonderful event that provided the Year 5 girls the opportunity to organise and manage a charity event of their own and of course provided us all the opportunity to enjoy some delicious cakes whilst donating to such an important cause. The atmosphere in the dining hall this morning was bustling and positive and it really is such a pleasure to be able to open our doors more to parents post COVID. Thank you sincerely for all of your support for this event. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of experiencing the origami workshops alongside the 37 people who attended across the three sessions. The tutor we arranged to lead these sessions led us through a relaxing and enjoyable hour and a half learning a new, creative skill. Everyone, including me, was very proud of what we produced and embraced the opportunity to relax and enjoy simply being together. There was an expression to repeat these workshops again and whilst I hadn’t planned to, I will now look into a future date so that more people can join in and some people can attend again to make something new. Our Year 6 Leadership Team are now in place and embracing the responsibilities of their new roles. This morning in assembly the House Captains and Deputy House Captains delivered a speech to the Junior School introducing themselves and making a commitment for the year ahead. The girls spoke confidently and provided an example of inspirational role models to us all. I have spoken to this group of girls about the following quote; “Leadership is not a position or a title, it is action and example.” This is such an important skill for them to develop for their future success and I know these opportunities this year will enable them to achieve a deeper understanding and appreciation of leadership. Looking ahead to the next few weeks I am looking forward to welcoming parents to our first Open Classrooms event as well as Parents Evening ahead of the half term break. There are several upcoming events for you to sign your child up for to benefit from as well as an adult only, Festive Workshop. All details are below so please do take time to read through and to note the dates and actions needed. It is wonderful to be able to be together in these ways again and to strengthen our sense of community and I appreciate your support in facilitating these. Tomorrow we have our Open Day and with over 100 families signed up to visit us we are motivated and excited to showcase our wonderful school with them all. Our Year 5 and 6 pupils are ready to act as our tour guides for Junior School and I know our visitors will leave here with no doubt that Northampton High School would be a fantastic place for their daughters. I hope you enjoy your weekends together and I will look forward to another week of focus and productivity together. Miss Hair |
Open Classrooms |
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We have our first Open Classroom event of the year on 12 October. These events are opportunities for your child to welcome you into their classroom and show you the work they have produced so far this year. These will be relaxed events and will be once per half term (all dates are on the school calendar for the year). There is no need to book for these events. They will run from the end of the school day (3.30pm) to 4pm but once you have finished looking through your child’s work and celebrating with them you can of course leave. Please note that the following clubs will not run on this date, so if you are attending the event and your child usually attends one of these clubs you will need to inform their class teacher that they will be attending the Open Classroom event with you or GAP club until 4.15pm instead.
We are looking forward to seeing lots of you on 12 October to celebrate your daughter’s success so far this year. |
Book Fair |
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We are excited to be hosting our annual Book Fair from Monday 10 October until Thursday 13 October. The books will be displayed in the Junior School entrance hall and can be purchased between 8-8.30 am and 3.30-4.30pm. Payments can be made by collecting a QR code from the school office and completing the purchase on your mobile phone. Every book that is purchased by you will earn points towards free books for our Junior School library so please do support us. |
Theatre Trip Opportunity |
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As an additional opportunity for the children, we have taken advantage of group booking prices and booked 27 tickets for the performance of David Walliams’ ‘Demon Dentist’ at Milton Keynes Theatre on Thursday 23 March 2023 at 6pm. Tickets are £15 per person, which includes transport there and back. You can either choose to buy one ticket for your daughter or you can choose to book a ticket for yourselves to join us. As we only have 27 tickets these will be assigned on a first come, first served basis. To secure your tickets please click on this link. |
Club Information |
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Please note that Book Club and Current Affairs Club will not be running on Tuesday 4 October. Please inform your daughters’ class teacher if you wish them to attend Late Prep from 3.30-4.15pm on this date. |
Nature, Wildlife & Gardening Club |
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We are really excited to be able to expand the work of the 2021-22 Gardening club led by Mrs Hymers, into a whole year Nature-Gardening club in 2022-3 for Years 4-7 on a Friday lunchtime, 12:20-12:55, beginning the process of working towards the RHS School Gardening Awards and a pollinator, wildlife, environmentally friendly school habitat with the potential for ‘grow your own.’ If any parent (or family member of a student) would like to help lead and run the sessions with me, has a particular area of expertise which they might like to share, or else might be able to donate relevant materials, we would love to hear from you. We had our first meeting last week, and audited the courtyard and wider school environment for butterflies, bees and birds as well as any nature friendly habitats. We will finish making our journey stick next week, and look forward to creating some pond habitat! |
Festive Wreath Workshops - Adults Only |
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We have arranged for an excellent florist (Bouquet Chic) to deliver Wreath Making Workshops for any interested parents and members of the community. Why not book a place to enjoy making a festive creation with friendly people and a supportive and talented instructor? Spaces are £65 per person which includes everything you’ll need to make a fantastic, impressive wreath and refreshments during the workshop. These events are on Tuesday 5 December 5.30 to 7pm or Wednesday 6 December 12.15 to 1.45pm. To book please contact the school office junioradmin@nhs.gdst.net. |
Harvest Festival Food Bank Collection |
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From 10 to 21 October we will be inviting our children, staff and parents to bring in food donations for our collection for a local food bank. The food bank we are supporting is Weston Favell which is run by the Emmanuel church and associated with the Trussell Trust. Below is a list of the food donations that would be most appreciated: Tinned vegetables, Tinned fruit, Pasta sauce, Curry sauce, Tinned or packet soup, Tinned fish and meat Thank you in advance for your support. |
Cinema Event |
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On Thursday 20 October we have our first cinema event of the academic year. This event will run from 3.30 to 5.15pm and is available to all pupils from Nursery to Year 6. We will be showing three film options for the girls to choose from:
To book your child a place for £3 please do so through Parent Pay. |
Class Assemblies |
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Class assembly dates for this academic year are on the school calendar but as a reminder please see the list below for the upcoming dates: Year 4 – 5 October Parents are invited and encouraged to join us from 8.20am for refreshments before the assembly at 8.35am. The assemblies will finish by 8.55am. |
News from our classrooms: Nursery and Pre School |
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Autumn has arrived in Nursery and we have used lots of natural resources for craft activities including conker rolling and leaf painting. We have also been singing ‘Autumn leaves are falling down’ whilst bouncing leaves on the stretchy material. As a prewriting activity we used play dough to strengthen our muscles in our fingers and for phonics we made funny faces as practice for future letter sounds. In Pre School, we have been working hard developing our Maths knowledge with a range of activities including displaying them on their fingers, singing number songs, putting apples on the trees and our spiders with number legs. Reading was a big success and after demonstrating to the girls with a picture book, we worked together as a team to retell the story. The girls were really engaged, ideas were shared and we also learnt about the process of the story including title, author, reading from right to left and illustrations. This then led on to girls self selecting the books and retelling stories to themselves, friends and teachers. Please remember to take their reading books home and share this important experience and learning process with your daughter. Painting with a twist when spaghetti became paintbrushes for the girls to develop their mark making and prewriting skills. |
Reception |
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This week we have been using mathematical language in our learning. The story of ‘Goldilocks’ helped to order objects by size, making towers out of various equipment led to ‘taller’ and ‘shorter’ and comparing two groups of objects used the language ‘more’ and ‘fewer’. In phonics we have revised the letter sounds m, i, n and d. We are encouraging listening for sounds in words and when writing. We have been finding out about our sense of taste and that different parts of the tongue taste for different things. We tasted something bitter, salty, sweet and sour. Our weekly cooking sessions are a huge success with the class, developing many skills including fine motor. As the weather is now changeable, please can you ensure that your daughter brings her coat and cardigan to school and that they are clearly named. |
Year 1 - Maths Focus |
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This week in Year 1 we have been comparing numbers and learning to use the less than, greater than and equal to symbols. It is quite tricky! What has helped us understand is plenty of counting using practical apparatus from our Maths area and using our crocodile mouth less than and greater than posters. |
Year 2 - Maths Focus |
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In Year 2 we have been learning about place value and the importance of the order of the digits in a two-digit number. We have then been introduced to the inequality signs, so we can decide if numbers are, less than <, more than > or equal = to another number. We have imagined they are a crocodile’s mouth which likes to eat the biggest number! We are now beginning to count in 2s, 5s and 10s getting ready to learn our times tables and some of us are starting to use TimesTable Rockstar. |
Year 3 - Maths Focus |
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In Year 3, we have been recapping place value whilst working with numbers up to 1000. We have been looking at number lines, partitioning, comparing and ordering numbers and finding 1, 10 and 100 more or less of a number. We have used equipment to support some of our learning. |
Year 4 - Maths Focus |
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This week in Maths we have been comparing and ordering numbers in ascending and descending orders. The girls loved playing a game with dice where they tried to compete against each other using place value knowledge. Next, we learnt to read and write in Roman numerals; the girls practiced their skills in a relay competition working collaboratively together in teams of 5. The final skill of the week has been focusing on rounding; focusing on the position of the number on a number line. |
Year 5 - Maths Focus |
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This week Year 5 have been consolidating their understanding of place value in order to round numbers effectively. They have used number lines and place value charts to support their learning. We have also been thinking about how to approach worded problems and investigated different ways to pay for a balloon using 6 coins, with an emphasis on logical and systematic recording. |
Year 6 - Maths Focus |
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In Year 6 Maths, we have been learning about factors, multiples, primes, squares and cubes. We have consolidated this understanding by doing activities and puzzles. We are now moving on to practice multiplication and division. We have thought about big numbers that are divisible by 3, and very big numbers that are divisible by 9, using the digit sum method. |
News from outside of our classrooms: Macmillan Coffee Morning |
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Today, Year 5 brought the light to a foggy morning! With the assistance of their teachers, they organised the Macmillan Coffee Morning to raise money to support cancer patients. The delicious aroma of cup cakes brought crowds of excited customers flooding into the dining room. Thank you for all your baking contributions, for joining us to eat cake and your generous donations. We have raised a fantastic £375 so far! |
Awards for this week |
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Star Learners of the week – Luna, Georgina, Zehra, Evie I, Emily K, Elouise S, Kinara, Annabelle R, Angelie, Scarlett, Amelie, Ellie J-M, Aliza Swimmer of the week – Agnes Each week girls are invited to share their achievements in activities outside of school. They are listed below for this week: Lillian– awarded a dance trophy |
Community Sessions |
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Term Dates |
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Northampton High School |
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