Nothampton High School
High News

Friday 29 March 2019

We are delighted to announce that we will be hosting BBC1’s flagship political discussion programme, Question Time, hosted by Fiona Bruce on Thursday 9 May.

This is a great prospect for our girls and for us as a school.

We will set up a production office on Wednesday 8 May after school, ready for the production team to arrive from 9am on the Thursday morning. The programme is regularly broadcast from learning institutions, and therefore the production team understands very well the sensitivity of working from such venues. Disruption to the school day will be minimal and the school will operate as usual on Thursday 9 May.

Question Time selects local audiences which reflect a broad range of political views. People apply to be in the audience for Question Time via the website and by phone and producers get in touch to ask questions on their previous voting record and future voting intentions, whether they have party political membership and also how they voted in the EU Referendum. This is to ensure a range of views are represented in the audience. Occasionally, if production staff feel any group or view is under-represented in the applications, they will promote the programme through relevant local media channels to encourage people to apply.

As with the make-up of the panels, Question Time is aiming to achieve due impartiality in the membership of the audience across the series as a whole, rather than being confined to an exact mathematical formula for each programme. However, particular guidelines will apply during election periods to both panels and audiences.

Should you be interested in applying to be part of the audience, please click here or call 0330 123 9988.

We will keep you updated on the preparations for this event.  Should you have any queries, please feel free to contact me.

Amanda Wilmot
Director of Admissions and Marketing

Week Ahead

Monday 1 April
Senior School Assembly
U4S Charity Easter Egg Raffle
Classical Studies Stream from Open University/ACE for Sixth Form

Tuesday 2 April
U4S Charity Easter Egg Raffle
6.1. Particle Physics Day
UK Premier of the Spanish film, YULI
Sports Presentation Evening

Wednesday 3 April
U4S Charity Easter Egg Raffle
Gold DoE Practice Expedition
L4 & U4 Team Maths Challenge
IGCSE German Oral Exams
6.2 Spectroscopy in a Suitcase

Thursday 4 April
U4S Charity Easter Egg Raffle
Gold DoE Practice Expedition
IGCSE German Oral Exams
School Production Rehearsals
GCSE Composition Evening

Friday 5 April
U4S Charity Easter Egg Raffle
Gold DoE Practice Expedition
Senior School Presentation Assembly

Term Ends

'New Way' participate in the Northampton Showcase Final

On Wednesday evening, the school’s Young Enterprise company ‘New Way’ participated in the Northampton Showcase Final held at Weatherby’s in Wellingborough. Competing against nine other companies from schools across Northampton, the girls were required to deliver a presentation on their Young Enterprise story so far, be interviewed by a panel of judges and showcase their products.

The girls had prepared a fantastic presentation which they delivered confidently and eloquently, including a brilliant video that showed the production journey of their bottle lights from an empty bottle destined for the recycling bin to a stylish lamp that can be customised to suit individual customer needs.

At the end of the evening the awards were announced and the girls were delighted to learn that they had won the award for ‘Best Customer Service’, and were one of five teams who proceed to the next round of the competition at the end of April. They also received particular praise for their excellent company report and presentation. Very well done to all involved!

Mrs Tansley
Head of Economics & Business

Awareness for International Day of Forests

On Friday during lunchtime, the Eco Team held an event in the Senior School foyer to raise awareness for International Day of Forests, which is organised by the United Nations. Forest ecosystems are vital to normal planet functioning, particularly through their role in regulating global climate. For more information please see this link.

In order to increase awareness the Eco Team created a pledge tree, with staff and students adding pledges for action they could take to help reduce the pressure on forests, such as reducing the purchase of products containing palm oil, prioritising the environment more in future voting intentions and reducing meat consumption. Earlier in the day the Eco Team also held a cake sale, raising almost £50, which will be donated to conservation work associated with safeguarding Orangutans.

The next Eco Team event will be to encourage as many people as possible to participate in Earth Hour on Saturday 30 March; to find out more please click here.

Mr Earp
Head of Humanities

See all photos

GCSE Music Evening, Thursday 4 April, 7pm

There is always a great relief for our students when exam coursework has been completed. To celebrate this year, the Music Department will be hosting an event for all, enjoying the written scores from our female composers. We have been fortunate that Dr Stringer has led many assemblies featuring female composers recently, culminating on International Women’s Day. To this end, we are proud to bring our own GCSE female composers to the fore.

This will be a unique occasion, as we shall be showing and reading, on-screen, the scores that the girls have written. Thanks to computer software, we can present the written scores as a performance. Additionally, we shall be celebrating acoustic solo performances on a range of instruments.

Our Junior ‘Singing Stars’ and Junior Recorder Ensemble will also perform, and we hope that our younger children will be inspired to consider adding Music to their GCSE choices when the time comes.

Finally, the school’s choir for parents and friends in the local community, will also join us for combined performances, celebrating our growing High School musical family. The Northampton High School Community Chamber Choir and the Junior ‘Singing Stars’ will close the evening with a beautiful two-part song entitled, ‘I Remember.’  We hope that you, too, will remember, and that you will come and join the celebrations with us.

If you wish to know any further information about the event please contact Mr Nathan, Director of Music.

Mrs German
Music Teacher

Students visit BBC Radio Northampton

On Tuesday 19 March, a group of A Level students were offered the chance to visit the BBC Radio Northampton studios after contacting Tom Percival, one of the station’s breakfast reporters.

Some of us had met Tom when we were interviewed for radio about the Sixth Form #Now’sTheTime conference, which took place at the end of last term. We were able to go on a comprehensive tour of the studios and met various other reporters; we also discussed other interesting roles within the BBC with one of their digital apprentices, Kirsty.

We all thoroughly enjoyed our experience at BBC Radio Northampton. Not only was the tour fascinating, but we were also given the opportunity to use some of the equipment to record a news broadcast. This was of particular interest to Poppy, as she hopes to secure a career in broadcast journalism; we were given an insight into the daily lives of the BBC production team.

We would like to thank Mr Viesel for supporting the trip, as well as Tom for giving up his time to show us around.

Olivia and Poppy
6.1 students 

High School Sport

We have had a busy week in the faculty preparing for the Sports Awards Evening next Tuesday and we are looking forward to seeing you there.

The Swimming teams enjoyed a close fought Gala on Tuesday at Oundle in their unusual length pool of 50 yards. The U13 team continued with their preparation for the Gresham’s Festival this weekend with a training match on Wednesday against Bilton Grange and we hope that they enjoy a great weekend.

Mrs Hackett
Director of Sport

Cross Country

On 23 March, we travelled to Loughborough to take part in the National Cross Country Championships.

Sadly, due to the teams positioning on the line, Ruby didn’t get off to a great start. She preserved though, and knew she had little time to make up ground. She pushed herself past a further 60+ runners, and through sheer determination, ran an amazing last 1000m, finishing 115th.

Another fantastic result from Ruby making her 4th for the County. An outstanding achievement.

Mrs Littlewood
PE Teacher

Charlotte and Lilli compete at 'The 12 Counties' Tennis Event

Last weekend, students Charlotte and Lilli represented Northamptonshire in ‘The 12 Counties’ Tennis tournament in Corby.

During the event, the girls faced off against Nottinghamshire, Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, with Charlotte playing number 1 and Lilli Number 4. Both girls picked up a very credible 2 wins out of their 3 matches, with the team winning 4-0 against Notts, 4-0 against Beds and drawing against Bucks.

Northants won their Round Robin by virtue of winning one more match than Buckinghamshire and thus will be promoted to the division above next year. This was a very strong performance by all the team and the first time for many years they have finished top in what is a well competed County event. Well done Charlotte and Lilli!

Mr Nash
Marketing and Communications Officer

Creative Arts Spotlight

This week’s Creative Arts Spotlight falls onto Amelia Wong with her beautiful and delicate painting, with collaged and hand-drawn butterflies.

Amelia has mastered some refined brushwork using watercolours. Fantastic work!

Mrs Beacroft
Head of Creative Arts

Book Review

Rain Town by Andy Donaldson

Sidney Rain is an ordinary man with an ordinary job in an ordinary town. Except for the fact that sometimes at night he dresses up as a superhero and heads out living his fantasy. But he’s putting on weight, about to lose his job and he’s generally not feeling particularly super at all.

Stanley Rain is Sidney’s 12 year old son. He’s an ordinary boy with ordinary friends at an ordinary school. But that school is being taken over by a local entrepreneur and is changing for the worst. And Stanley is not going to let that happen without a fight.

When a mysterious theft takes place, Stanley and his friends will need to turn detective to help save their school. And after being fired at work by his new boss, Sidney will need his friends to help save his soul.

Andy Donaldson is a Secondary school teacher, who, tired of telling stories to the children in his classroom for over twenty years, finally decided to write a book of his own. Rain Town is his debut children’s book.

Miss Buxton
School Librarian

Parent Survey

It is over two years since we last carried out a comprehensive survey of our parents (on that occasion via Mungo Dunnett Associates) to gauge your views about all aspects of school life.

Since then, you have been asked to give your opinions about a number of specific issues, notably homework and mobile phones. We have been pleased by the level of response to these surveys and your answers have informed our thinking and planning in these key areas.

I hope that you will now welcome the opportunity to provide more wide-ranging feedback to us by completing the Parent Survey 2019. The survey will take no more than 5 minutes to complete. In order to respond to the survey, please click here and answer the 12 questions provided.

We will close the survey on Friday 5 April 2019 in order to provide ample time to analyse the results and act on any significant findings before the start of the new academic year.

Thank you to those who have already given feedback, and thank you in anticipation for any further responses.

Dr Stringer
Headmistress

Save the Date: Open Day Friday 3 May

Open Days

Northampton High welcomes German Exchange Students

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