Junior News 31 January 2020

Dear Parents,

This week in school we have been focusing on the key pillars of wellbeing; connecting, giving, staying active, taking notice, caring and learning. It is perhaps worth us all reflecting on our lives and analysing how much time we are able to invest in these all important areas. Staff have been leading by example, participating in early morning singing, lunchtime running and after school yoga. Each lunchtime this week we have offered the girls a mini-marathon (1 or 2km!) around our grounds; it has been so popular that we will continue this moving forwards. Olympic hopefuls galore at Northampton High School!

Year 4 led an inspiring assembly on Wednesday, sharing their learning about inspiring female role models from history, including Amelia Earhart. The powerful messages delivered about perseverance and high expectations really resonated. Hearing their rendition of ‘A Million Dreams’ at the end brought a tear to the eye.

Years 5 and 6 participated in a high-energy choral workshop with the lead vocal coach from NMPAT ahead of ‘The Big Sing 2020’ at The Derngate. We will be one of over 20 local schools taking part in a mass performance of ‘Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.’ This event is such a great opportunity for us to be right at the centre of the Northampton community and reflects our commitment to offer fabulous musical opportunities for your daughters.

On one of our many tours with prospective parents this week, I was asked what the school offers above and beyond its reputation for academic rigour. On that very tour we saw your daughters creating Stop Motion videos with iPads, making and evaluating healthy cookies, getting muddy at Forest School, cosying up in our comfy library, whizzing round on bikes and tricycles, discussing the merits of the artwork of Henri Rousseau, polishing up a ballet routine and putting the finishing touches to a short story about space travel. This week, one of our existing parents mentioned the energy she could feel in the school, and this is precisely what our prospective parents felt too.

This weekend we will be hosting a number of other GDST Junior Schools as we host a high-profile multi-sports festival. Good luck to all the girls participating, and an enormous thank you to our parents who have volunteered to be host families.

Have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to another packed week ahead.

Warm wishes,
Chris

Chris Bailey
Head of Junior School

Achievements

Each week in assembly, girls are invited to share their achievements in activities outside of school. They are listed below for this week:

Music
Lydia D – Piano certificate for completing book 1
Eloise K – Violin grade 2 merit

Tennis
Frankie B – playing for County 3rd in tournament

Ballet
Phoebe S – selected from dance school going to ‘Birmingham Royal Ballet Insight Day’

Assemblies

Class Assemblies are held in the Junior School Hall at 8.35am on a Wednesday. Parents are most welcome to enjoy refreshments from 8.00am in the Community Room. Here are the dates for the Spring Term.

5H – Wednesday 5 February

5N – Wednesday 26 February

2N – Wednesday 4 March

3N – Wednesday 11 March

Reception – Wednesday 18 March

1N – Wednesday 25 March

Dates for Diary

Monday 3 February – Year 5 and 6 Murder Most Unladylike party 3.45-5.30pm

Thursday 6 February – Reception and Year 6 Health Screening

Thursday 6 February – Year 4 walk to Hardingstone

Thursday 6 February – FoNHS Parent Forum 6 – 7.15pm

Friday 7 February  – Nursery Stay and Play

Friday 7 – Thursday 13 February – Year 5 and 6 Play-in-a-week

Tuesday 11 February – UK Safer Internet Day

Thursday 13 February – Play-in-a-Week production 6.30pm

w/c Monday 17 February – Half Term

Tuesday 25 February – Pre-School visit to Richmond Village

Wednesday 26 – Friday 28 February – Year 3 and 4 Burwell Residential

Monday 2 March – Nursery Stay and Play

Wednesday 4 March – Joseph ‘Big Sing’ at the Derngate

Thursday 5 March – Year 5 trip to Bletchley Park

Thursday 5 March – World Book Day

Thursday 5 March – Open Evening

Friday 6 March – Open Morning

Friday 6 March – International Women’s Day

w/c Monday 9 March – Science Week

Wednesday 18 March – KS1 trip to the National Space Centre

Looking ahead: Sports Day for KS2 and Senior School is Friday 5 June

Clubs

The following clubs have been cancelled:

• Monday 10 February – Creative Board Games Year 5 and 6.
• Tuesday 25 February – Digital Leaders club Year 5 and 6

Sports

Our week began at the regional netball rounds at Repton School on Saturday. The Under 19 and Under 15 teams qualified to represent the area. After some tough matches our Under 19s managed to secure their place in the semi-final by winning every game in the group stages. Unfortunately the semi-final didn’t quite go our way and we lost the match 10-8. Every single player in both age groups on Saturday showed fantastic resilience and the girls worked so hard. We are proud of their achievements and look forward to next year’s competition where we will come back fighting for our places at nationals. Our Under 15B and Under 14s went to Wellingborough for a friendly fixture last weekend, winning the Under 14s match. Well played girls. Our Under 13B and Under 12As played Quinton House on Monday and we won both matches. Again a fantastic effort from the girls.

We kicked off our first swimming gala of the term versus Stamford Junior School. A great event with enthusiasm and good sportsmanship. There were some stand-out individual performances and the relay teams smashed the medley relays. Great swimming girls.

The Under 11As and Bs played Milton Keynes Prep on Wednesday and despite the opposition being extremely drilled, we developed our ability to mark tight and worked on our defensive play.

Last week we had a lovely game versus The Grove Independent School where our Under 9s tried extremely hard but couldn’t quite match the standard of their opposition. So we wish them the best of luck versus Quinton House this Friday and hope they can learn from this previous fixture and improve in each and every game. The Under 8s had their first match of the season versus The Grove Independent School and we won 5-2. A fantastic result from the team especially as they are new to playing competitively.

Finally, we look forward to hosting Wimbledon and Newcastle this weekend for a fantastic array of sport for our Under 11s and we wish all of our teams the best of luck. A huge ‘thank you’ must also go out to our parents who are supporting the weekend in hosting the pupils from Wimbledon and Newcastle. Without you and the hard work of Mrs Littlewood, this weekend wouldn’t be possible. So thank you very much.
Emma Blake – Director of Sport

MATCH REPORT

On Wednesday 29 January the Under 11A team played a netball match against Milton Keynes Prep School. We did lose but everyone played their best. As captain, I would say our team played great, with Milton Keynes Prep being hard to beat. Charlotte got Player of the Match. The match tea was good as well! Well done and good luck for the sports rally. Thank you to Miss James, Miss Roworth and Georgie for coaching and being supportive.
Anna, 6H – Captain

SPRING TERM FIXTURES DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Under 10 and 11 Netball matches

Under 8 and 9 Netball Matches

Swimming

Cross Country

Nursery Kipper Room and Elmer Room

Kipper Room:

Kung hei fat choi!

This week started with a celebration of Chinese New Year. The girls listened to some traditional Chinese music, enjoyed delicious Chinese food at snack and lunch time and even had a go at Chinese writing. The addition of some climbing equipment to Kipper Room has also been a hit with the girls. Some have honed their balancing skills, others have practiced going up and down the stairs and a few have been encouraged to take a few risks.
“I’m at the top!” beamed Bonetta.
“Wheeeeeeee!” laughed Penelope.
“Wait my turn,” agreed Yazmin.

Elmer Room:

This week in Elmer Room we have continued looking at our senses, focusing on the sense of smell and listening. We have made sound boxes and smelly bottles to explore, they have been very popular. The girls have enjoyed the role play area as a doctor surgery this week, treating each other and the toys as well as dressing up. At Forest School this week we built a castle with the logs, the girls enjoyed making their own way across these by stepping, jumping or sliding.

Looking to next week we will continue to explore our senses further.

Nursery Pre-School

Highlights:

On Monday we celebrated Chinese New Year. Before going to PE we watched a dragon dancing.  In our PE lesson we danced with scarves and long pieces of material to emulate dragons. We watched a DVD about Chinese New Year, had a yummy Chinese snack, made a large dragon and made small dragons with paper plates and fans. At Forest School we hunted for rats as it is the year of the rat and dragons.

This week we have been thinking, and talking, about different textures. We played ‘Kim’s’ game, describing the texture of the object that had been taken from the tray. For our sound of the week ‘u’ we made pictures of umbrellas and watched Geraldine hunting for ‘u’ objects.

Please can you make sure that your daughter’s library book bag is returned in readiness for our library visits on a Wednesday or a Thursday, so that she can choose a new book.

What the girls have said:

“I like playing with my friends and going on the scooter outside.” Eloise.
“I like playing with the puzzles and the dolls house.” Zara B.
Whilst playing with the sand Rayna commented, “it’s sprinkling.”

Looking ahead to next week:

• Our sound is ‘b’.
• Our sense is smell.
• Exploring smelly pots.
• Painting our clay leaves.
• Counting buttons to a given number.
• Making potions.

Reception

Highlights:

This week Reception girls have been enjoying activities linked to the Chinese New Year Festival. They have been very interested in how each year got the name of an animal, but were slightly disappointed to have been born in the year of the goat and not the rabbit or horse, which were the favoured animals! The girls have played music, dressed up, copied Chinese writing, made dragons, looked at Chinese numbers, made lanterns and cards and taken part in a dance / drama about the festival. They have learnt about ordinal numbers when sequencing the twelve animals and have written about their experiences.

What the girls have said:

“I have liked being the dragon in Ballet and making cards.” Emily.
“I have enjoyed dressing up and playing the instruments.” Caoimhe.
“I have enjoyed playing with my friends.” Isabella.
“I have enjoyed making the dragon.” Shanaya.
“I like playing the music.” Elouise.
“I liked to dress up and dance.” Keziah.
“I liked doing the dragons.” Rhoda.
“I liked finding the longest noodle.” Grace.

Year 1

Highlights:

In Year 1 this week, we have finished off our writing based on the story ‘The Way Back Home’. We have worked really hard on writing each part of the story and changing some elements and finally have produced our final, edited piece of writing. In Maths, we have been using our work on number bonds to help us with subtraction, crossing ten. In Science, we looked at all of the good things the sun gives us and also why we need to be careful and safe with the sun. In Geography, we have looked at comparing England to Greenland and all of the similarities and differences between these two places.

What the girls have said:

“I liked Computing because I enjoy creating pictures.” Kinara.
“I really liked Geography because I like thinking about different places.” Eloise.
“I enjoyed painting my clay-lien.” Amber.
“I had fun swimming because I learnt how to swim without a woggle.” Lucy.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning:

• English – looking at grammar, including punctuation and word groups.
• Maths – fact families and comparing number sentences.
• Geography – hot and cold places.

Year 2

Highlights:

This week in Maths we have looked at statistics and have been studying tally charts and pictograms. We have been collecting data and recording it as a tally and then we have presented the information as a pictogram. We have discussed the results, asking and answering lots of different questions about our findings. In English we have finished our creative story-writing of our own version of ‘The Way Back Home’ and next week we will look to share our writing aloud with the rest of the class. In Art we have finished our clay-lien model-making and have added some colour to them too. In Forest School this week we took part in the RSPB’s Big Schools’ Birdwatch and, linking to our Maths work, recorded the amount of different birds we spotted.

What the girls have said:

“I have enjoyed making tally charts.” Sakinah and Maya.
“I have enjoyed doing the birdwatch and swimming in lanes.” Kyla and Leilana.
“I liked the birdwatch.” Eva
“I like sharing and seeing everyone’s home learning.” Artemisia and Eliza.
“We have liked phonics this week.” Anna and Varnikha.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning:

• English – grammar skills
• Maths – statistics

Year 3

Highlights:

This week in Maths we have been learning about money; how to convert pence into pounds and using this knowledge to add and subtract amounts. In Humanities we talked about the rules that we live by and discussed how these compare in different religions. We then looked at the Ten Commandments and talked about which we thought were the most important in our lives. In Science we found out about our skeleton and why we have bones and muscles.

What the girls have said:

“I enjoyed cross country. We had to do running with straight legs and then high knees.” Ellie.
“I loved racing against the clock in Computing.” Jessica.
“I enjoyed learning about money in Maths.” Sophie.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning:

• Maths – continue working with money and find out how to calculate change. We will also be looking at division, beginning with drills where we are dividing by 2.
• Humanities – finding out about the capitals of Europe and completing some individual research.
• Science – finding out more about muscles.

Year 4

Highlights:

In Maths this week we have used number lines to help with rounding to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. In English we have tried to use adjectives, powerful verbs and adverbs when writing a story set in an imaginary world. We have also started to create a collage inspired by the work of Hundertwasser.

What the girls have said:

“My highlight of the week was doing the grid method for multiplication in Maths because it is a quicker and easier way. I have also got on quite well with rounding.” Phoebe.
“I liked making our stories about our characters in our imaginary land.” Safiya.
“My highlight of the week was making the mouth fold in DT because it was really fun.” Matilda.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning:

• English – we will be completing our stories and trying to make improvements when redrafting.
• Maths – work will focus on finding the area and perimeter of squares, rectangles and other rectilinear shapes.
• Humanities – we are looking forward to our walk around Hardingstone on Thursday 6 February.

Year 5

Highlights:

This week in English we wrote a biography of Rudyard Kipling and analysed some of the ‘Just So’ stories, we love the word play! In Maths we looked at strategies to answer worded problems on place value and addition/subtraction. In Science we have had a very tasty time proving that some materials cannot be separated once they are mixed… the chemical changes are irreversible.

What the girls have said:

“I loved doing the Art lesson on Henri Rousseau and I’m really pleased with my jungle collage. I like all the different styles, shapes and colours of leaves, and I managed to make them because the whole class created 1 or 2 different sheets of green each.” Amelie.
“On Monday we did a swimming gala against Stamford. The best bit was the relay because everybody got an even chance to let their team win. We did really well and we nearly won, but they did really well on the canon race at the end and that got them 4 extra points. Then we got pizza afterwards, and that was actually the best bit!” Lois.
“This week I really enjoyed learning the songs for Joseph and finishing our Rousseau collages by adding more colour and glazing it with glue. I also enjoyed making cookies in Science to test if it was an irreversible change. I especially liked working as a team.” Sophia.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning: 

• English – planning and writing our own ‘Just So’ story.
• Maths – multiplication and division.

IMPORTANT DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
Please note that the class assembly dates are as follows:
5H – Mrs Shaw – Wednesday 5 February
5N – Miss Brandon-Jones – Wednesday 26 February
Scheherazade performance – Thursday 13 February 6.30pm

Year 6

Week 5 – great teamwork this week! An excellent end to January
Another week has flown by and once again we have received many compliments about the good role models Year 6 are. In particular, we have been impressed with the growing resilience that they are showing when they are finding things difficult and the way they are helping each other when a problem is seemingly too difficult to solve – keep up the good teamwork girls!

Just a few reminders to let us know how many of you are attending the Scheherazade performance on Thursday 13 February and also to order your ‘Big Sing’ tickets from the Derngate Theatre!

Next week we look forward to exploring Euler’s rule in Maths, continuing to discuss and question what a healthy lifestyle might look like in Science, completing our animations in DT and Computing and refining our arguments based on, ‘Are we cruel or kind to animals?’ We will also be starting our rehearsals for Sheherazade on Friday –  the costumes and props look great and all we ask is that the girls know their lines, cues and song words before the rehearsal process takes place – this will ensure that they are able to focus on the valuable skills of Stage Craft. Wishing you all a great weekend!
Mrs Fordham and Mr Loveday

Student Voices
“In Enrichment we did the RSPB Bird Watch which was great fun. The weather was beautiful, and we saw an array of beautiful native birds. We saw lots of birds such as: blue tits, robins, jackdaws, green finches and more. We used binoculars to see the birds closer and took pictures using an iPad. It has inspired me to think about how I can encourage birds into my garden.”
“The netball matches against Milton Keynes Prep were really tough. We fought hard against really tough opposition and learnt a lot!”
“I have really enjoyed learning about maps in Humanities. Some of us tried to draw maps of our own houses and it was a lot harder than we thought!”
“In Science we had a really good discussion about whether drugs are good or bad for us. We realised that not all drugs are bad and that we should only take medicine if we really need it otherwise it becomes less effective!”
“On Monday we started learning the songs for the ‘Big Sing’ (Joseph and his multi-coloured dream coat) which will be at the Royal & Derngate theatre. The conductor from NMPAT came in and she was very nice and an amazing singer. We learnt lots about how to improve our singing technique! We warmed up and she made us go very high. We are now rehearsing songs in assembly with Mr Bailey and Mrs Farrar.”
“In Art we have been making animations in groups of four. First we made our scenes. After that we made our characters out of plasticine. Next week we will start filming.”
“In Science we have been working on healthy eating and looking up healthy recipes.”
“In English we were writing a descriptive piece of writing about ‘Are we cruel or kind to animals?’ with different points of an argument. We all found it quite challenging.”
“In Humanities we have been learning about rainforests. We learnt that there are four layers in a rainforest – shrub level, under canopy, canopy and the emergent level. We also learnt about deforestation and watched a 360 degree video tour showcasing the rainforest too.”

GAP Club

Highlights:

We have continued to celebrate Chinese New Year in Gap Club this week. To celebrate the year of the rat we have created paper rats, rat lanterns and used Chinese symbols to decorate fans. The girls have also created springy concertina animals.

What the girls have enjoyed:

“Making the rat lanterns, because it’s the Year of the Rat.” Emily, Reception.
“I love making sausage dogs because it was fun to make a springy sausage (Dachshund).” Anna, Year 2
“We enjoyed doing our bird project because we found it fascinating.” Fern, Verity and Amelie, Year 5.

Looking ahead:

• The girls will be continuing to be crafty and creative in GAP Club next week.

Term Dates

Northampton High School
Newport Pagnell Road, Hardingstone Northampton NN4 6UU
T: 01604 765765 nhsadmin@nhs.Gdst.Net