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Junior News
Junior Newsletter 30 November 2018
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Dear Parents and girls
Whether you celebrate or not, there is no avoiding the fact that the Christmas season is approaching, and before the first door of the advent calendar is even opened we are already celebrating with this evening’s FoNHS Christmas Disco, which has proved to be very popular indeed. The girls have been busy preparing for their Christmas productions, too. These begin next week, with three performances of ‘A Wriggly Nativity’ by girls in Nursery to Year 2, and continue into the final week with KS2’s production of ‘Straw and Order’.
Several Year 5 and Year 6 girls have had to miss out on today’s celebrations, but for very good reason as they are attending the annual GDST Sports Tour, which takes place at Newcastle High School until Sunday 2 December. Over the next three days the A and B teams will be competing in Hockey, Netball and Swimming competitions and staying with host families. They will have the opportunity to socialise with the Newcastle High students at their homes as well as on the side of the pitch, and it is almost certain that some long-lasting friendships will be born. We waved them off this morning, with warm wishes for a fun and successful weekend and look forward to hearing all about it on their return.
In addition to Christmas performances and rehearsals, several of our classes have trips out next week: Year 3 and Year 6 travel to Thinktank in Birmingham on Thursday, for a fun-packed day of hands-on STEM activities; and on Friday girls from Nursery and Reception will travel to the Royal & Derngate Theatre to see a production of ‘The Everywhere Bear’ by Julia Donaldson. I would like to thank the many parents who will accompany this trip and trust that they will enjoy it just as much as the girls!
I look forward to seeing you at the Christmas Celebrations.
Have a lovely weekend.
Caroline Petryszak
Interim Head of Junior School
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Mrs Petryszak's availability
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Mrs Petryszak’s days on site will vary this half-term in order to align with school activities and events:
Week commencing:
3 December: Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday
10 December: Monday/Tuesday/Friday
She is, however, contactable on c.petryszak@nhs.gdst.net or via the school office on any day of the working week.
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Achievements
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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:
Swimming
Varnikha K
Lydia M Stage 3
Brownies
Sophie H
Gymnastics
Priscilla L
Rainbows
Priscilla L
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General messages
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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 5H – 5 December
Year 1 – 12 December
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Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday 4, 5 & 6 December: EY & KS1 Christmas Production
Thursday 6 December: Year 3 & 6 Think Tank Museum Trip
Friday 7 December: 140th Birthday Gala Concert at All Saints 7 pm
Friday 7 December: Nursery & Reception Theatre Trip
Tuesday 11 December: KS2 Christmas Celebration 7 pm
Friday 14 December: Christmas Jumper Day & Party Afternoon
Friday 14 December: End of term
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Christmas Jumper Day - Friday 14 December
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Please wear your Christmas jumper for a donation of £1 for Save the Children which is Nursery’s chosen charity. There will also be a ‘Design a Christmas Jumper’ competition coming soon with prizes for EYFS, KS1 and KS2 handed out on Friday 14 December.
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Christmas Dinner Menu – Friday 14 December 2018
Chilled Orange Juice
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Roast Breast of Turkey served with Pigs in Blankets, Sage and Onion Stuffing Balls, Thyme Flavoured Roast Potatoes, Roasted Parsnips, Glazed Batons of Carrots, Button Brussel Sprouts, Minted Peas, Cranberry Sauce and Fresh Gravy.
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Vegetarian Option: Oven Roasted Mediterranean Vegetable, Feta Cheese Filo Pastry Parcel served with Roast Potatoes, Roasted Parsnips, Glazed Batons of Carrots, Button Brussel Sprouts, Minted Peas and Fresh Gravy.
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Chocolate Coated Christmas Tree Ice Cream or Rudolph the Reindeer Christmas Cookie
After Dinner Chocolates
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U11 Hockey Sevens
C Team Hockey v Akeley Wood
On Wednesday, the C Team played a hockey match against Akeley Wood. Unfortunately we lost 6-0, but considering the strength of the opposition and the terrible weather, we played well as a team and managed to keep the ball away from the goal on some occasions. Player of the Match was awarded to Imogen.
Rose and Imogen – Captain C Team
D Team Hockey v Akeley Wood
On Wednesday, we played Akeley Wood. It was a tough match and the opposition had some strong players, but we worked hard as a team and won 6-0. Lola scored 3 goals, Millie scored 2 goals and Chanan scored 1 goal. Player of the Match was awarded to Izzy. I am very proud of my team and I thought we played very well!
Lola – Captain D Team
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To view our latest School photos from our Flickr albums, please click here
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140th Birthday Gala Concert
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On Friday 7 December at 7pm, we are delighted to host our 140th Birthday Gala Concert at All Saints’ Church in the heart of Northampton. The concert is a collaboration between pupils and staff of Northampton High with The Orchestra of the Swan, an English professional chamber orchestra of international renown, based in Stratford-Upon-Avon. The Orchestra of the Swan is the Resident Orchestra at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and we have enjoyed a number of collaboration events with this ensemble at Northampton High in the past.
This event promises to be a magical musical celebration, hosted at All Saints’ Church, which was historically the spiritual home of the High School. Northampton High girls and the Northampton High Community Chamber Choir will be performing alongside Concert Master and violinist, David Le Page, and Rebecca von Lipinski, making for an evening not to be missed!
Tickets are priced at £10 for adults and £5 for concessions (children and seniors) and are limited, so please secure your tickets as soon as you can. Tickets are not required for girls performing in the concert. To book your tickets, please go to: https://www.trybooking.co.uk/GUF
We look forward to spending the evening with you at this finale event of our 140th Birthday Year.
Mr Nash
Marketing and Communications Officer
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Our week
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Kipper Room
This week the girls have enjoyed practising their jumping, bouncing and running skills in Physical time. We have also had lots of fun taking Betty the school dog for a walk around the school grounds. The girls have also enjoyed joining in the actions to the tooth-brushing song.
Elmer Room
This week we have been exploring different textures, jelly, paint, play-dough, sticks and flowers. We have also made observational drawings of pink flowers, welcomed new friends to nursery when they visited and looked for rectangles in the environment, which we printed with.
Next week we will be continuing with our colour, number and shape focus along with beginning Christmas activities.
General information
Elmer Room
We are looking forward to our concerts next week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The Elmer girls have been busy learning the songs with Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. We would like to thank parents for providing the amazing costumes.
Theatre visit on Friday 7 December: if you are attending with your daughter please arrive in school by 1.15 pm. We are leaving promptly at 1.30 pm as the show starts at 2.00 pm.
Kipper Room
We are looking forward to our Christmas fun afternoon on Tuesday 4 December, from 2.00 pm – 3.00 pm
Both Rooms
Nursery has chosen Save the Children as our School charity. On Friday 14 December your daughter may wear a Christmas jumper for a donation of £1. In the afternoon the Christmas parties are being held. Please can your daughter bring her party clothes in a named bag; we will change the girls after lunch. If your daughter does not normally attend Nursery on a Friday, we would love for her to come to the party. Please could you bring her in at 1.30 pm. If your daughter only attends on a Friday morning please collect her at 3.30 pm.
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Our word of the week has been ‘for’ and challenges have included writing it on the light up boards, writing cards ‘this is for my…’ , saying the letter sounds needed and independent writing. Our number has been 10 and the different ways to make 10, shape is the trapezium and the colour brown. Some girls have been working on listening for initial letter sounds in words and others have been sounding and blending 3 sounds to make words.
We are looking forward to a very exciting week with our performances and a trip to the theatre.
Theatre visit on Friday 7 December:
If you are attending with your daughter please arrive in school by 1.15 pm. We are leaving promptly at 1.30 pm as the show starts at 2.00 pm.
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This week girls in Year 1 have continued to rehearse their parts for ‘A Wriggly Nativity’, which has included learning a poem. Please help them polish off their performances with plenty of practise at home. In English we have been using drama to become familiar with the Nativity story. We have enjoyed retelling it to our friends using pictures and songs to help. We hope that this will help us to eventually write the story in plenty of detail. In Maths we have begun using number lines to solve subtraction problems and this involved lots of jumping backwards, which has been great fun!
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We’ve been learning lots in English this week. We have been reading the story ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers. We have created a class story map and retold the story aloud. We have also been focusing on our use of punctuation, including apostrophes and inverted commas. We’ve worked really hard to understand when they are used so that we can use them in our own writing.
“I’ve had fun learning how to shorten words using apostrophes.” Avleen.
“I’ve enjoyed doing the story map for the Lost and Found book.” Sophie.
“I’ve enjoyed learning about how to use inverted commas in my writing.” Ellie.
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“My favourite thing I did this week was to find out about tigers and write a fact file.” Celesani
“I enjoyed drawing the storyboard about the Indian story we acted out last week.” Esme
Reminder – It is our school trip to The Think Tank on Thursday. Please remember to bring a packed lunch and water bottle. We are wearing school uniform and everyone needs their school coat, as weather permitting we will spend time outdoors in the Science garden.
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“I enjoyed using the rods in Maths to do activities and make fraction walls and to learn ½, ¼, 1/5, 1/6 and lots of others. But the tidying up took a bit of time!” Verity
“I liked learning about food chains. I learnt a lot.” Natalie
“I enjoyed the food chain work in Science because I liked looking at how the energy passes through animals’ bodies.” Beatrice
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“In English we have been doing describing. I have enjoyed learning new words by using a thesaurus and making my sentences really long and descriptive. My favourite thing to describe has been the firebird… it was vibrant, vivid, bright, gleaming, and immense, with rose-coloured feathers as soft as a new-born baby’s skin.” Millie
“I’m happy about being one of the Maccabees in our assembly next week. In Enrichment we learned about the story of Hanukkah. We found out that if the Maccabees didn’t follow orders they would be killed!” Anna
We have now received the results and certificates for the Bebras challenge completed by Year 5 recently and mentioned in Junior News by Mrs Petryszak last week. The challenge focuses on ‘computational thinking’ problems. We were really pleased with our final results and with the progress all of the girls made during the challenge preparation.
Special mention should go to Emily and Isabelle who both achieved ‘Best in School’ and Hania, Indiana, Niamh, Lucy, Sherain and Dharmini who all achieved ‘Distinction’.
Well done to everyone!
Mrs Shaw
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This week has been a very eventful week and we have all enjoyed it. We have had a lot of fun in every subject. In Science, we dissected a lamb’s heart, in English we wrote letters to Dr Stringer requesting a trip to Mars, in Drama we acted out ‘A Christmas Carol’, in DT we continued making our cushions and in Maths we enjoyed an investigation about angles called, ‘Olympic Turns’.
“In class we are making our own cushions. This week we started to cut out our patterns and our shapes – it is so much fun!” Isobel
“In Science we dissected a lamb’s heart to see what it looked like inside. We could see the 4 chambers of the heart, the valves and the main veins and arteries that take blood to the lungs and the rest of the body and back again. It looked quite disgusting but we learnt lots about the muscle in our body called a heart”. Phoebe
“We really enjoyed performing our own versions of ‘A Christmas Carol’ in Drama this week – it was fun and exciting!”
“In Maths, we had a lot of fun exploring the angles Olympic athletes make when taking part in their chosen sport.”
Manha
Eryn
“Writing to Dr Stringer to ask if we could build a GDST school on Mars was great fun and we cannot wait to get a response from Dr Stringer!” Ashana
“In Maths, we have been exploring the magic of numbers including models of square and cube numbers to show what they are.” Maisie
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As Christmas fast approaches, it is time to get out the glitter and sequins. The girls have been enjoying getting sparkly, making glittery snowflakes and angel wands. They have also used water colours to paint a winter landscape. The older girls have been designing their own Christmas cards, and made pom poms using a fork.
Two girls have shared their highlight of the week:
“Glittery snowflakes with blue sticks to make it really cold.” Amelia Reception.
“Making pom poms.” Charlotte Year 5.
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Northampton High School
Newport Pagnell Road, Hardingstone Northampton NN4 6UU
T: 01604 765765 nhsadmin@nhs.Gdst.Net
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