Nothampton High School
Junior News
Junior News

Junior Newsletter 15 February 2019

Dear Parents and Girls,

I thanked you last week but ‘THANK YOU’ again this week, as the total raised for the NSPCC was well over £1250, with almost £200 of this coming from the proceeds of the Year 3 cake sale. Mrs Hartley, the charity’s representative who had previously spoken to the girls, was here to count the money and to present badges in Monday’s assembly. She was overwhelmed by how much had been raised and passes on her sincere thanks on behalf of the NSPCC.

Last week I also mentioned the launch of regular performance opportunities for the girls, and they learnt more about these during singing assembly on Tuesday. Avani, an ‘old girl’ from Senior School, played the piano and we were all impressed by her recital. She went on to explain about her musical journey from Junior to Senior School and how performing in assembly can help to develop confidence and skills in performance. Mr Nathan (Director of Music) then spoke to the Junior School students. He encouraged any who are studying an instrument or voice inside or outside of school and are preparing for an exam or have mastered a piece to consider performing in assembly. The uptake has been tremendous and we look forward to hearing everything from ‘Harry Potter’ on the piano to ‘Jazz Music for Beetles’ on the saxophone over the coming weeks.

It was a different type of ‘beetle’ that welcomed us to assembly on Wednesday, as we entered the Hall to the tune of ‘All You Need Is Love’ for Year 2’s timely assembly on the theme of Valentine’s Day. They confidently talked us through the history of the celebration and the story of Saint Valentine himself, explaining that love comes in different forms: family love, romantic love and the love that we feel for our friends. They finished with a highly effective acrostic poem that they had written themselves.

It has been a long, busy but wonderful half term and everyone is ready for a break now. I know that some of you will be off chasing snow or warmer climes whilst others will stay closer to home, enjoying the unseasonally mild temperatures. Whatever your plans, I wish you a happy and restful week.

Caroline Petryszak
Interim Head of Junior School

 

Mrs Petryszak's availability

Mrs Petryszak’s days on site will vary over the coming weeks in order to align with school activities and events:

  • w/c 25 February: Wednesday/Thursday
  • w/c 4 March: Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday
  • w/c 11 March: Monday/Thursday/Friday
  • w/c 18 March: Monday/Wednesday/Thursday
  • w/c 25 March: Monday/Thursday/Friday
  • w/c 1 April: Monday/Thursday/Friday

She is, however, contactable on c.petryszak@nhs.gdst.net or via the school office on any day of the working week.

Achievements

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

Cubs
Fern A – Level 5 swimming badge and sports enthusiast badge

Swimming
Fern A – 1000m
Sophia P – 800m

Tennis
Frankie B – came 2nd in a tournament

General Messages

Assemblies

Class Assemblies are held in the Junior School Hall at 8.35am on Wednesdays and parents are most welcome to enjoy refreshments from 8.00am. Here are the dates for this term:

Year 6N – 27 February

Reception – 6 March

Year 1N – 13 March

Year 3N – 27 March

Year 4N – 3 April

Dates for the diary

  • Mon 18 – Fri 22 February  Half Term
  • Thurs 28 February – Staff Meeting – No teacher-led clubs
  • Tues 5 – Thurs 7 March – 3N and 4N Residential to Beaumanor
  • Weds 6 March – Y5 event ‘Looking Forward to Senior School’ – 4.30 -5.30
  • Weds 6 March – KS1 Birmingham Sealife Centre
  • Sat 23 March – Year 5 and 6 Ski Trip
  • Weds 27 March – 3N Class Assembly
  • Sun 30 March – Year 5 and 6 Ski Trip returns
  • Weds 3 April – 4N Class Assembly
  • Fri 5 April – Last day of Spring Term
  • Weds 24 April – INSET DAY
  • Thurs 25 April – Summer Term starts

Parents’ Evenings:

  • Weds 20 March – Nursery: 4pm – 6pm
  • Weds 20 March –  Reception to Year 6: 6pm – 8pm
  • Thurs 21 March – Nursery to Year 6: 4pm – 6pm

If you go down to the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise…

The installation of a wonderful new shelter has transformed a chilly corner of the Wild Area into a cosy spot, enabling our fearless Forest School girls to enjoy their outdoor lessons whatever the weather.

Here they are, for example, enjoying the brief spell of snowfall we had a couple of weeks ago. The shelter was made possible by a generous donation from FoNHS last year, based on a successful fundraising campaign, including our fabulous Fun Day in June. On behalf of all the girls and staff, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the Committee members, led by the Chair Esther Sooriah, and all parents and colleagues who organised and supported the events to enable us to raise the funds for this improvement.

The girls will, I am sure, enjoy the benefits of the shelter for many years to come.

Dr Stringer
Headmistress

Clubs

Cricket Club
After half term the Friday morning cricket club at 7.30am will change to Wednesday morning at 7.30am.

Clubs that are cancelled:
Year 3 Computing Club on Monday 4 March
Year 5 and 6 Book Club on Monday 4 March

Year 3 Cupcake and Cookies Sale for NSPCC

Thank you for all your cupcake donations, we made almost £200!


Sports

Under 11 Netball Tournament at Winchester House

This week the A team played in an Under 11 tournament at Winchester House. When we arrived we had to wait for the first two matches to finish. We then went on to play Ashfold School, winning 3 – 0. Afterwards we played Winchester House and lost 1 – 5. Following this we played Swanbourne House and won 5 – 3. This meant that we made it into the play-offs. We played in the semi-finals against St Hughes and lost 0 – 8 and then against Milton Keynes Prep and lost 1 – 7. Overall we came 4th out of 9 schools. I am very proud of all the hard work and good efforts all of the team are making.

Gemma S
Captain

Photos on Flickr

To view our latest School photos from our Flickr albums, please click here

Our week

Nursery

Kipper Room
In Kipper Room we have been doing junk modelling, sponge painting and card making for Valentine’s Day. The girls have enjoyed dancing to music in ‘Music and Movement’ and joining in with ring games. We also took Betty for a walk across the field, which the girls were very excited about.

Elmer Room
In Elmer Room the girls have liked developing their balls skills through their gym session and outdoor play where we have focused on throwing, catching and kicking the ball. They have also had fun exploring different textures including shredded paper, pasta and paint. They have enjoyed developing their writing skills through mark making on to different farm animals.

Pre-School
This week we have been consolidating our sounds from this half term by counting in different ways and completing different activities. The girls enjoyed exploring in the shaving foam and ordering hearts into size order to make dream catchers. They have also listened carefully to descriptions of different animals and found them in the farm.

Next half term we begin our new topic ‘Spring, New Life and Growing’, (please look on Firefly to read the topic letter which also includes dates for your diary).

During the first week back your daughter may experience the following activities:

  • Making large flowers
  • Drawing spiral snails
  • Writing snack menus
  • Our sound of the week will be ‘n’

Reminders
Over the holidays please could you check your daughter’s belongings to make sure you do not have anything that does not belong to her.

Reception

After reading ‘Dangerous’ by Tim Warnes, (Mole loves labelling things, but when he comes across a strange thing, he doesn’t know what to call it. It’s lumpy and bumpy, and has snippy-snappy teeth. Could it be dangerous? Look out, Mole!) the girls set about labelling things in the classroom. By the end of the session the classroom was covered in well written post-it notes. A lovely idea to try at home??

We have also been looking at examples of old toys and investigating what they are made of and how they work. The girls were fascinated by them, the diabolo being the trickiest.

Wishing you all a restful half term break.

Year 1

Year 1 have filled this week with learning about the days of the week, diary writing and measuring. In computing, we have been exploring statistics using espresso and in DT we designed and baked Valentine’s Day biscuits. The Spring weather, which has gloriously appeared this week has drawn us outdoors and we have been making time to explore the sensory garden.

Over the half term we have enjoyed the theme of ‘Australia’ and the girls have completed some fantastic home learning projects, building famous Australian landmarks and animal habitats, too. We have celebrated ‘Australia Day’ with refreshments and a film about a koala called Blinky Bill, and next half term we look forward to reading Dreamtime stories

Year 2

This week we had our Class Assembly and it was all about Saint Valentine’s Day. We shared the story of Saint Valentine and our thoughts on Love. We all spoke our words beautifully and had some great feedback from all the teachers. We continued the Valentine’s celebrations in class too. We made a card for our families and we made some delicious heart shaped biscuits!

“We enjoyed making and decorating our biscuits!” Sophie and Dejonai

“We enjoyed our assembly. We liked learning about Saint Valentine and swapping gifts.”  Zoe and Jessica

“I enjoyed making things for our assembly.” Ellie

Year 3

“I liked sandwich making, the taste of my sandwich was delicious. I loved making it with my friends.” Rianna

“I liked sandwich making and I really enjoyed our cake sale last Friday. We sold lots of cakes. I loved being outside and doing the activities with Year 4 in the Wild Area.” Alice

Wishing you all an enjoyable half term break. Don’t forget to learn your spellings, nine times table and read a book. Also, remember to practise the life skills tasks ready for Beaumanor.

Year 4

“I enjoyed Humanities when we went to the Computer Room and we did a bar graph.” Anya

“I loved making the mouth fold because I made it into a bird.” Evie

Year 5

“We did a mental Maths test and I was really proud because I improved my score from last week. I didn’t leave too many boxes empty, I tried to fill them all in.” Lydia

“Last week we enjoyed the BBC 500 Words Live Lesson. I found it really helpful being able to plan ahead and I have already started writing my story.” Niamh

“In Science we were testing irreversible changes by making chocolate chip cookies. I really liked working together because we were taking turns and making sure that we all had the same amounts. I really liked the plain cookie that I made because it was sweeter than the other one and it was quite soft.” Ammara

“I liked computing this week because we looked at a fake website about the Tree Octopus. Then we tried to make our own fake website, trying to make it look as real as possible.” Holly

“My highlight of the week was on Monday when we were doing dance in PE because we finished our dance for the Dance Extravaganza. Some people are doing solos and I am doing a duet.” Isla

Year 6

As usual, we have been very busy in Year 6. We have multiplied and divided decimals in Maths, carried out a mobile phone contract investigation, made our own periscopes in Science and discovered how they work and created our own eco-islands which we look forward to sharing with you in our ‘Perfect World’ Class Assembly on Wednesday 27 February. We hope that everybody has a happy and restful half term holiday.

Isla A and Charlotte L S

“In Science we successfully made periscopes and discovered how light is reflected off two angled mirrors to help us to see over walls. This helped us to see how useful periscopes are in submarines!  I have also really enjoyed preparing for our eco-island presentation- it has been a challenge to think about what a perfect world might look like.” Sonya M

“This week we have been working on multiplying and dividing decimals.  At first we were determined we had arrived at the right answer but we were proven wrong and have now worked out why!” Roja L

“I really enjoyed investigating mobile phone contracts. I cannot believe how many different offers there are and how difficult it is to find the best deal!” Isla A

“I enjoyed the challenge of completing the Science test on light. I felt confident because I had revised well using the study techniques we have talked about in class.” Charlotte L S

GAP Club

The girls have been busy creating butterflies using different media, creating something special for Valentines and learning how to do hand knitting.

“Painting butterflies.” Maisha, Nursery

“Butterfly masks.” Evie, Nursery

“Hand knitting.” Maisha, Year 6

Other News

Singing is good for the soul

Always thought about joining a choir, but didn’t know where to start? Love to sing, but can’t read music? Fear not, the Northampton High School Community Chamber Choir will welcome you with open arms.

We are currently searching for more people to join the choir, to rehearse and sing just for fun on Thursday evenings (7.30-9pm) and to sing at a variety of events over the coming year, including the GCSE Composition Evening, the Junior School Arts Morning, school Open Days and a Christmas Concert and Carol Service.

Led by choir director, professional soprano and music teacher Catriona German, we cover a wide repertoire from Bach to the Beetles, medieval motets to musicals.

Come and make music with us. No previous experience of reading music is required, just a love of singing. The choir is a very friendly and relaxed group, free to attend (other than buying our music) and open to parents, students, teachers, the local community and friends of the school.

You can find out more on our Facebook page – search for Northampton High School Community Chamber Choir – or email Rachael at rachael.eden1@btinternet.com and we can arrange for you to come along to one of our rehearsal evenings to see what it’s like.

Join our Team: Nursery Nurse wanted

We are seeking a committed and enthusiastic nursery practitioner to join our experienced and friendly team.

Full year: 36 hours per week
Salary FTE: £18,141 – £19,497 depending on experience
Required start date: ASAP
Contract term: Permanent

Full details can be found by clicking here, or by contacting Anna Gates via a.gates@nhs.gdst.net. Applications should be submitted by midday on Thursday 28 February 2019 at the latest, however, applications may be considered in advance of the deadline.

Mrs Gates
HR Officer

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