Rainy days and grey skies have done little to dampen the girls’ spirits, and the energy in our classrooms remains as vibrant as ever.

Across the Junior School, pupils have been engaging with their learning with commendable enthusiasm. In Religious Education, the Year 1 class has been exploring the theme of friendship, reflecting thoughtfully on what makes a good friend and how we can show kindness and empathy to others. In Maths, our Year 3 pupils have been mastering the art of telling the time to the nearest five minutes, while Year 4 have taken their time work even further, confidently converting between standard and 24-hour clock formats.

Year 5 have been delving into their English texts, using inference and prediction skills to consider what might happen next, demonstrating great insight and imagination. Meanwhile, Year 6 celebrated success outside the classroom at a fantastic swimming gala, where teamwork, fair play, and spirited competition were on full display.

Mr Rickman and I would like to offer a special well done to Year 2, who performed a truly delightful class assembly. Their interpretation of The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch, alongside their vibrant artwork and a beautifully sung song, was a joy to behold. Our thanks go to Mrs Cartlidge for planning such a creative and engaging assembly, and to Mrs Farrar for her musical accompaniment on the piano.

This week’s edition of Junior News has a special focus on Science, an essential subject that encourages curiosity, critical thinking, and a deeper understanding of the world around us. From hands-on investigations to thought-provoking discussions, our pupils have embraced scientific exploration with enthusiasm.

I do hope you enjoy reading about the discoveries and achievements taking place across the Junior School

Mrs Saunders-Wall
Interim Director of Junior School Liaison

As we enter our last half term in Nursery, we are looking back at trips we have been on.  

The starting point of our discussion was our story of the week ‘You Can’t Take An Elephant On Holiday With You’.

We have also been role playing in the ice cream shop, serving up and making ice creams for our friends.

At Forest School, we went on an exciting dinosaur hunt.

It has been lovely to welcome the girls back to Preschool after the half term, many of them telling us about what they have been up to over the break.

This week we have looked at holidays, as many of the girls have been away experiencing a wide variety of breaks over the past few weeks. The change from home corner to travel agents has been very popular with the girls, who are choosing to spend lots of their time role playing and exploring the technology toys in this area.

It has been quite interesting to see what the girls thought of the ‘old fashioned’ cameras as we all tend to use our phones for photos these days.

Lots of chatter about holiday destinations and upcoming holidays were also very important in this area.

The girls have made some flip-flop feet by having their feet and toes painted, which was a new experience for some girls and they laughed as it tickled them.

Because of the strong winds, we were unable to go all the way to Forest School, so we went on a dinosaur hunt and helped icy dinosaur eggs hatch on the big grassy hill behind pre school garden.

We have also been continuing to practice our Sports Day activities during our PE session ahead of the big day coming up soon.

Reception have had a wonderful first week back after the half term holidays.

The girls were super excited to see that the butterflies had finally emerged from their chrysalis’ and that they were delicately feeding from the sugar water we had provided for them. We released the butterflies and watched them fly freely away to have their own adventures.

This week, we have also worked very hard in PE to practice for Sports Day, which is in a few weeks time. There was lots of concentration when jumping the hurdles and a wonderful sense of sportsmanship shown by all when completing activities which involved racing, jumping, throwing and aiming skills.

Year 1 are looking forward to having a ‘blooming’ time with our new topic of Plants.

The girls have planted sunflower seeds this week and are hoping for the sunshine to return, along with a little rain as we learn what is needed to make sure our seeds grow into beautiful and hopefully tall sunflower plants.

The challenge is to look after our own sunflowers and hope that they grow to be taller than we are!

Year 2 have enjoyed the start to their new ‘Plants’ topic.

This week, we have sewn cress seeds and are looking forward to observing them as they grow.

We have also planted beans in clear bags, which will allow is to see the each part of the newly developing plant.

They were intrigued by the idea that the Earth is rotating while the Moon is orbiting the Earth and they are both orbiting the Sun.

Activities included watching animations, taking part in group role play activities and explaining their ideas in writing.

This week, our Year 4 students dived into the fascinating world of inheritance! They explored what traits we can inherit from our parents and how these features shape who we are.

In a fun and hands-on activity, Mr Brave and Little Miss Brave were selected as our starting point to create what they thought the offspring would look like. Each student then chose a secret pair of characters from the Mr Men and Little Miss series to be ‘parents’. Using their imaginations, they created unique offspring based on the traits of their chosen characters and recorded them on paper. The challenge? Each student’s offspring was collected and randomly given back out! Students then had to piece together the puzzle and determine who the parents of each offspring were.

It was trickier than they thought, leading to some fantastic discussions about characteristics and the science of heredity.

“In Science, we have been learning about forces, including air resistance. We did an experiment where we had to tie a man to a piece of fabric and drop him from a height and see how long he took to fall to the ground. We changed the parachute material each time to test which one had the most air resistance. It was definitely my favourite lesson!” Emily.

“I really enjoyed measuring random things in Newtons to learn about the difference between weight and mass. It was fun testing different things in the classroom like a mug, a tissue box, the globe and a chair. Some results were really surprising.” Orla.

Year 6 have been learning how to separate different types of material.

Practical activities have included testing kitchen products to see which would dissolve in water, investigating which conditions cause sugar to dissolve the fastest and using different methods of separation.

The girls have learnt to use the correct scientific vocabulary for these processes: filtration, evaporation, sieving and magnetic attraction.

This year, we are delighted that Junior School will be taking over the space in the Senior School Foyer with their Art Exhibition.

Their work is always delightful and highly creative. The Art and Textiles exhibitions across all year groups are being prepared by staff. GCSE and A Level students, through their original and sophisticated pieces, have yet again reached exceptionally high standards, so please do come and see for yourself.

Additionally, we are running two informal and fun opportunities for our students to draw or paint live!

‘Draw Your Pet’ – Open to all age groups from Nursery-Year 13. Come and grab some pencils and sit in our beautiful gardens to draw your pet using your chosen photograph.

‘At The Easel’ – Landscape Painting – Open to Year 6-Year 13. – Come and paint your landscape in the grounds or classrooms – there will be easels set up with brushes and paints ready for you to select from. Students can come and discuss their composition and chosen photograph with the Art Department.

There will be prizes awarded to works that particularly impress the judges but the most important point is to enjoy the experience. A warm welcome awaits you with delicious refreshments from our amazing catering team and summer bakes and pastries will be served in the Food Department.

Mrs Beacroft
Head of Creative Arts

We are very excited to share the news of our brand new girls-only toddler group!

Girls aged 1-3 and their parents, grandparents and guardians are all welcome to come along and delve into a wide variety of toys, crafts and ‘surprise play stations’ created to spark imagination and fun times. Always remember ‘dress to get messy!’.

This toddler group will be held fortnightly on Tuesdays, 9.15am – 10am, a full list of dates and the online booking form can be found on the school website https://www.northamptonhigh.co.uk/admissions/open-events/

Please feel free to share this with any friends who may be interested, and come and join us with your little ones too. These will be returning after the half term break, details coming soon.