We were delighted to see so many visitors to the Fayre and are grateful for the abundant good cheer. Significant sums of money were raised for our school charity, the Hope Centre Northampton – we will communicate the totals as soon as the results are in!

Congratulations to our Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 classes for their charming production of ‘Everyone loves a baby!’ earlier this week. The girls have been practising so diligently over the past weeks, learning words, songs, actions, dances and timing for costume changes! They performed in front of our whole Junior School and Preschool on Monday and then delivered two sparkling performances to their supportive families and friends.  Their adaptability is to be applauded, from practising in our Junior hall to taking to the stage in our professional Theatre. We are so very proud of each and every one of our children for their bravery, perseverance and collaboration.

We are equally proud of our Nursery and Preschool girls who took to the stage in the Junior hall this week for their Christmas Sing-Along and Craft Afternoon. Thank you to parents for coming to cheer on the girls, making their stage debut a positive and enjoyable experience. All the girls proudly sang their songs to a delighted audience. It was a treat to see parents and pupils work on their Christmas craft creations together. 

Next week we have our Christmas Celebration on Tuesday 10 December from 6pm (refreshments) for a 6.30pm performance. A letter was sent to all parents earlier this week to confirm logistics, however should you have any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch.  There are still some seats available in the upper tier and these can be booked here.

All parents and pupils are also welcome to attend the Christmas Carol Concert on Thursday 12 December at 7pm (refreshments from 6.30pm) which will feature a variety of ensemble and solo performances from our Senior School pupils.

Wishing you and your families a restorative weekend, ready for a fun-packed final week of term. 

Mrs Amanda Wilmot 
Acting Head of Junior School 

Welcoming families, friends and associates of the school, Northampton High was thrilled to commence the festive season with our annual Christmas Fayre. Embracing the joys of Christmas, guests from across the Junior and Senior School came together to celebrate the occasion and raise money for charity.

Taking place on Friday 29 November, Dr Lee opened the event with a wonderful speech, encouraging guests to enjoy the evening and all the activities taking place throughout the night. This Christmas, Northampton High School is supporting the Hope Centre and we were pleased to welcome Kyla from the charity to the event, who explained how the charity delivers vital services to support those experiencing problems of disadvantage and marginalisation.

The night’s festivities began with a series of Christmas carols sung beautifully by the Senior School choir, led by members of the Music faculty. The atmosphere was buzzing from the moment doors opened, with tuneful sounds spilling into the Theatre Foyer to greet arriving families. The evening saw the opening of the fabulous Christmas Market to friends of the school, following an extremely successful lunchtime opening for students. Each stall consisted of wonderful items – including knits, bakes, jewellery, artwork and more – all of which were popular with visitors. Staff and parents also had the opportunity to host stalls and it was fantastic to see many members of the school community involved.

We also hosted a bottle tombola, festive games, a Christmas raffle (prize winners below) and a silent auction on the night, offering guests the chance to win many excellent prizes! The raffle, which featured lots of valuable treats, was kindly supported by local businesses who generously donated vouchers and gifts to help our fundraising efforts. This portion of the event was extremely popular, with nearly all attendees getting involved and staking a claim for a prize. The silent auction consisted of experiences donated by staff and gave pupils the opportunity to bid on prizes such as ‘Head for a day’ and ‘Have your homework done by the Deputy Head’!

In true Christmas spirit, Santa had graciously accepted an invitation to the Fayre and dedicated his evening to meeting families in the Christmas grotto. Along with the arrival of two real-life donkeys, which brought plenty of joy and entertainment to all, Santa’s attendance made a magical addition to the festivities and was a highlight for the Junior School children!

After another successful Christmas Fayre, we are delighted to share gratitude with staff, students and families for their participation in the evening’s activities and for their continued support with fundraising events. We now look ahead to another successful year of fundraising, and look forward to updating you on the full total raised at this event!

Raffle prizes to be claimed (please take your ticket and claim your prize at Senior School Reception):

White: 942
Brown: 656
Pink: 47, 280, 331, 353
Blue: 183, 229, 353, 609, 627, 871, 894, 958

It has been lovely to see relationships and empathy develop so strongly amongst our Nursery cohort. The development of the girls, in all aspects of their learning between the ages of 2 and 3, is fascinating and an absolute delight to be a part of.

This week, we performed Christmas songs to our grown ups.  The girls really enjoyed practising their songs and, although some of them found it overwhelming at the actual performance, we know those songs are being sung at home. This process has helped with the development of their confidence and of course their growing language skills.

We have looked at the story of the ‘Gingerbread Man’ this week. The girls have shown an interest in the story and we have had our very own gingerbread man in the room as well as exploring ginger scented play dough.

This week in Preschool we had our very exciting Christmas sing along performance and craft afternoon. The girls all did very well both on stage and joining in with the songs. It was lovely to see so many of you there. Afterwards we were all very busy doing Christmas crafts with our families. Thank you for joining us

We have looked again at some phonics sounds this week by taking part in a group session. The girls all helped to work out the initial sound of each picture and were very engaged with this activity. Stories and reading books is something we all enjoy in Preschool and we do see many of the girls sitting reading with friends or by themselves. We have continued our book advent calendar where the special helper chooses a book to unwrap for our reading time. We also had a group interactive reading session on the board with one of the reception teachers. This was about a family who played different musical instruments. In PE this week we practiced throwing balls into targets which were both high and low. We learnt that this is a lot trickier than it looks! We all enjoyed practicing.

We are so proud of our Reception class this week as everything has been a little different every day! They have taken these changes in their stride and coped brilliantly with new activities, new faces and new venues.

Their first school production of ‘Everyone loves a baby’ was delightful and everyone loved having a new costume and has worked very hard to learn all the songs and our Angel dance.

Alongside all the predations and performance for this we have managed to continue with phonics programme – learning the new sounds of ‘ai’ and ‘ee’ and linked out Maths learning to ensure careful counting of larger groups of objects.

This week, Year 1 missed almost the whole of their PSHE lesson on Tuesday morning because… they were being BRILLIANT in the Senior School Hall!

When we got back to the classroom, we did do a little bit of PSHE. Our unit this half term is ‘Celebrating Difference’ and, although the teachers thought we were all amazing in the Christmas play, we decided it would be nice to think of a different reason why every single person deserved a special ePraise point. The girls took turns to nominate someone else in the class for a point and give their reasons… and guess what? They all got a point!!

Year 3 have been discussing ways that their families are the same and ways that they are different. It was really interesting finding out about all the people and pets that others live with! The girls drew pictures of their families and looked at photos of families who weren’t getting along. They tried to work out what had happened and thought about how the people might be feeling, before suggesting ways for the families to try to resolve their conflicts. After this, they tried to work out how to explain bullying to an alien and they will be thinking about the role of witnesses and bystanders in future lessons.

This term, our Year 4 students have been diving into the important theme of celebrating difference during their PSHE lessons! They’ve explored the significance of looking beyond stereotypes and embracing the unique qualities that each person possesses. As part of their journey of self-discovery, the children created beautiful self-portraits, reflecting on what they love about their appearance and what makes them extraordinary. Each masterpiece tells a story of individuality!
In another exciting activity, our students learned the power of compliments, writing anonymous notes on each other’s portraits to highlight what they admire about one another’s personalities. It’s heartwarming to see kindness and positivity flourish in the classroom! Additionally, they tackled a crucial topic by examining a case study of someone who faced bullying. Working in small groups, they provided thoughtful advice on how to support a friend facing such challenges. This lesson reinforced the importance of standing together and promoting a culture of respect and empathy.

This half term, Year 5 have thought a lot about ‘difference’ in their PSHE lessons:

“During Anti-bullying week we had a live lesson. It was really fun to learn about how we can treat others kindly, even if they are getting us really angry! It is always good to be kind and we learned that with a simple video starring Hacker T Dog from CBBC. It was fun to watch because they had an interesting way of showing how conflicts can be sorted out using compromise.” Caoimhe

“I liked learning about racism, because our topic in English is ‘Hidden Figures’, and racism was a huge issue in America back then. We also talked about the fact that racism still exists in the UK and how it affects people.” Eve

“I enjoyed doing the ‘What makes you happy?’ lesson because it was interesting finding out how different things are important in peoples’ lives.” Emily

This half term in PSHE, Year 6 have been celebrating difference and ways we should react to people who are different. This has linked to our English unit of work about bullying.

We have had many in-depth and interesting discussions, where the girls have debated the best ways to resolve differences and how we are all the same on the inside. There was a great debate about – What is normal? With suggestions such as, it’s impossible to be normal because everyone is different, normal is boring, non-existent and invisible.

We have then celebrated the achievements of paralympians and how they have overcome many obstacles to succeed in their sport. The girls researched some female paralympians, including Ellie Robinson who was a pupil at our school.

U8 Hockey V Bedford, Friday 29 November: It was a bright and sunny Friday afternoon when we welcomed two mixed ability U8 teams from Bedford Modern School to our Astro. Some great hockey followed and, due to the friendly nature of the fixture, plenty of coaching took place as the girls learnt about different aspects of hockey. I was very proud of the progression that the girls have shown since their first game of the season, well done to everyone who played. Unfortunately, both Bedford teams were too strong for us (on this occasion) but congratulations to Ella who was nominated as player of the match by her respective opposition. A huge thank you must also go to the parents who came along to support us. Mrs Van der Merwe

Christmas Parties: We have changed the date of the class Christmas parties from Tuesday 10 to Thursday 12 December. On this day, girls are welcome to come into school in their party clothes and a Christmas jumper; this date is national Christmas Jumper Day and raises funds for Save the Children.

KS2 Forest School Sessions – spring term: Dates can be found here.