Nothampton High School
Junior News

Junior News 28 June 2019

Dear parents and girls

This week I have been reading reports ahead of making them available to you. These end-of-year summaries are always a pleasure to read as the teachers describe the girls’ progress and accomplishments throughout the year and we collectively consider how much they have grown on every level. This year, however, we have introduced a ‘My highlights of the year’ section for Years 1 and above, giving the girls the opportunity to write their own summary. For all, the sentiments are peculiar to them, and for the upper years they are presented in their own words and totally unedited. Reading them has been an absolute privilege.

So what makes a good year for an NHS Junior School student? Many of their highlights included sporting and performance opportunities, residentials, off-timetable days, charity events and the extracurricular, but there was much on the ‘regular’ curriculum, too. This occasionally related to personal hurdles overcome, but most often to times when they were challenged to use their knowledge and skills in an unconventional way and to move outside of the ‘individual subjects’ mentality. Not surprisingly, this is where the love of learning really comes, and where memories are made.

Certainly, there were opportunities to form new memories this week as each year group was involved in at least one extracurricular activity. Nursery, for example, had a wonderful sports afternoon with a series of activities including ‘donkey’ and wheelbarrow races and an obstacle course – and Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 had an equally successful sports day earlier in the week. For both events the effort, enthusiasm and engagement of the girls was very evident and it was good to see so many parents and relatives observing and enjoying the activities. Year 6 enjoyed the Nursery event, too, and I thank them for their help in running this.

Year 6 also deserve thanks for their extremely successful Allotment Fayre this week. This charity event saw girls and teachers dressing up as farmers, fruit or vegetables in order to raise money for Re:Store, a charity that supports the vulnerable within our local community. There was a wide variety of stalls, including potato bowling, a mocktail bar, ‘plant your own seed’, pick-and-mix fresh fruit and ‘guess the name of the teddy’ and girls from Year 1 had the opportunity to visit and to give generously (via parents!) to this worthy cause. Next week, Year 6 will present Re:Store with a cheque to help them to buy new equipment and pay for the rent of their allotments for next year. Thanks to all for your support and particularly to the girls for their creativity and outstanding commitment.

5H were on an outdoor theme in their assembly on Wednesday, too. That theme being ‘rivers and water’, as experienced on their recent trip to Everden. Cleverly, they interspersed information about their trip with performance poetry, speaking beautifully and particularly impressing us with the poems that they had written themselves. The assembly ended with a thoughtful pair of poems by Polly Peters, reminding us about the water differences between Malawi and the UK, before a highly-entertaining rendition of a new song to our school repertoire entitled ‘Wet Play’. Well done to all!

An absolute highlight of the week for all was the NMPAT teachers’ brass recitals. The two events, for Reception – Year 2 and Year 3 – Year 6 were highly entertaining and interactive, getting everyone on their feet and some playing the hose pipes(!). Many will, I hope, be inspired to start or to continue to learn a musical instrument as a result of this, and others will have been greatly inspired to create having attended the Arts Festival on Thursday evening. This event showcases the school’s extensive array of performing and creative arts and Junior School put on a wonderful display of fine art and craft. Do please take the opportunity to view this in the Community Room if you have not already done so.

This weekend promises to be glorious, so I very much hope that you have the opportunity to get outdoors and enjoy it.

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 1 July: Monday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday
  • w/c 8 July: Monday/Tuesday/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 assembly, girls are invited to share their achievements in activities outside of school. They are listed below for this week:

Horse Riding
Anna H – 1st in showing her horse named ‘Fly’
Eleanor H – 1st in jumping & highest placed member

LAMDA
Eliza A – Distinction

Cheerleading
Charlotte E-H – 1st place in competition

Running
Imogen C – Race for Life 5K run

Swimming
Fatima A – Certificate

Taekwondo
Kyla L – Yellow/Green belt

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 the Summer Term:

Year 5N – 3 July

Year 6 – 11 July evening Valedictory Event

Dates for Diary

Mon 1 July – LAMDA exams

Mon 1 July – 3.30pm Maths Parents’ Workshop

Tues 2 July – Gym and Dance Extravaganza

Weds 3 July – Years 6 and 3 Allotments

Fri 5 July – Welcome Day

Weds 10 July – Reception trip to West Lodge Farm

Weds 10 July – KS1 trip to Castle Ashby Gardens

Thurs 11 July – Year 6 Valedictory Event 6.00pm-8.00pm

Fri 12 July – END OF TERM (12 noon)

Cancelled Clubs

Monday 1 July – Year 3 to 6 Patchwork Club

Monday 1 July – Year 2 to 4 Lego Club

Monday 1 July – Year 5 and 6 Spanish Club

Tuesday 2 July – all Sports Clubs

Tuesday 2 July – Recorder Club and Board Games Club

w/c Monday 8 July – All teacher-led clubs and Sports Clubs in the last week of term

Charity

Thank you for all of your generous donations.

We are delighted to have raised a total of £262.40 for our charity!

Swap Shop

Swap Shop will be open next Friday (Friday 5 July)  between the hours of 8.00am-10.00am in the Junior School Community Room.

This is an ideal opportunity to buy uniform ready for when the girls return in September. Please remember to bring in payment. We accept cash, cheque or mobile banking.

If you have items of clothing you wish Swap Shop to sell on your behalf, please bring them into school from Monday 1 July up until the morning of Thursday 4 July. Please ensure that you have checked the clothing for defects, the clothes are freshly washed and each item has a Swap Shop label attached. Labels can be collected from the office.

Clothing that it is not in a saleable condition or do not have labels attached will be returned.

If you have any questions, please speak to one of Swap Shop team or email Leky at lekywarner@hotmail.com

Thank you and see you there!

Nursery

Kipper Room

In Kipper Room this week the girls have enjoyed a walk in the school grounds exploring the wild flower area and Forest School. The girls have experienced tipping and pouring, in the water and sand trays, experimenting what happens when they mix sand and water together, along with sticking activities using numbers.

Elmer Room

This week in Elmer Room the girls have enjoyed creating beautiful butterflies using the technique of marble painting. They have had fun playing in the water tray and pushing and pulling the syringes to learn about the quantities of empty and full. We have also been welcoming some new friends ready for Pre-school.

Pre-School

This week we have been thinking about different cultures and families. The girls have enjoyed looking at the large map, finding out where different countries are and tasting different snacks. We have had Chin Chin, Plantain crisps, Flings, Biszkopty, Biltong, bread sticks with chocolate dipping sauce, pain au chocolate and Mahamsi. Thank you very much to the parents who have supplied our different snacks.  The girls loved the experience. We have also been learning how to say hello in different languages and listening to stories. We especially enjoyed Handa’s Suprise.

Next week your daughter may experience the following activities:

  • Our sound of the week is ‘j’
  • Provocation week giving the girls items to provoke their imagination
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General Information

Thank you to all the parents who attended our sports afternoon. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the weather was kind to us.

Reception

This week turned out to be another highly packed week in Reception with activities including Sports Afternoon, a brass recital, learning about spiders and a dressing up day – just to name a few.

The girls were delighted on Monday morning to see their new classroom in the Junior School. The previous week they had made lists of everything we needed to pack (including the caterpillars!) and we played a treasure hunt game to check everything had arrived. It had! We were very pleased to see how quickly the girls settled into their new environment and got straight into work.

Butterfly update

We are pleased to report our final butterfly emerged from its cocoon and we have released it into our garden.

Thank you for joining us at our Sports Afternoon. The girls all did extremely well, had a really enjoyable time and were keen to show you the skills they have been developing in their PE sessions over the year.

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Year 1

This week we have begun learning about money and I have been really impressed with how well the whole class has managed with the mini challenges set out.

We have played shops, counted coins, matched coins to values, played bingo with coins and played money dominoes. Our sunflower growing competition is also well underway as the shoots rise up and we are recording weekly growth in a diary in Science.

The girls have also learned about letter writing using the book ‘The Day the Crayons Quit,’ and they will be penning lots of letters of their own next week.

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Year 2

This week we have been exploring temperature in Maths and learning how to read a thermometer. In English we have finished writing our fantasy stories and we have started to revisit instruction writing. In Science we planted some bean plants and have started our bean plant diary and in DT we have designed some fruit salads ready to make next week!

“We have enjoyed using the thermometers and seeing how hot and cold the water was.” Sophie, Ishani, Avleen and Dejonai.

“I enjoyed designing my fruit salad.” Ellie

“I liked writing my story in English.” Harriet

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Year 3

“We have learnt about volcanoes and earthquakes in Humanities. An earthquake has a Richter scale and if it was near 0 there is nothing to feel but if it was up to 10 then it would be very serious! I have found this topic fascinating.” Vivienne 

“I liked watching the brass quartet recital and at one point some of us got to perform playing a hose pipe with a mouthpiece, while the others clapped. Year 6 prepared an Allotment Fayre and we got to try some games and buy things to raise money for the charity, Restore. I really enjoyed both of these activities.” Rithika 

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Year 4

“I liked learning about chunking for division in Maths because it challenged me to try harder.” Natalie

“My highlight of the week was the Year 6 Allotment Day because it was really fun to try all the challenges.” Lois

“The best bit of my week was the Year 6 fayre because I liked the activities such as potato bowling.” Beatrice

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Year 5

“This week I enjoyed doing our Class Assembly because it was quite funny practising all the poems. A few times I messed up – I was meant to say ‘canon balls’ but I said ‘cannibals’ instead which made everyone laugh!” Amy

“On Wednesday I really enjoyed listening to the brass band from NMPAT. They told us the instruments they were playing which were trumpet, tuba, trombone and French horn. They let us join in too! We put our little finger in between our lips and then took it out and blew. Then people were chosen to blow through a hose… we had a mouth piece on one end of the hose and a funnel on the other end, and we blew through it and made a sound. They played lots of songs, but my favourite was the ‘Star Wars’ theme tune.” Indi

“On Monday afternoon we presented our Mayan projects. They were about where they lived, Gods and ceremonies and the best of all, chocolate. It was fun watching everybody’s PowerPoints.” Dharmini

“On Wednesday we went to the Year 6 allotment fayre. We bought fruit cups, juice mocktails and cupcakes and played potato bowling, ‘Guess How Many Seeds are in the Jar’ and other guessing games. It was fun and I can’t wait to find out the name of the Teddy.”  Holly

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Year 6

“This week Year 6 have had great fun preparing for their Allotment Fayre, organising and running events for Nursery Sports Day and listening to NMPAT’s brass family.”  Felicity and Tara – House Captain and Vice-House Captain

“We have raised £262.40 for the charity Re:Store. We had great fund designing many different stalls including pin the face on the tomato and a fruit salad pick and mix. Thank you to everyone who came to support this brilliant local charity.” Abigail

“This week we have created some intriguing animal poems using lots of interesting poetic devices. My poem is about a white rhino and I have used lots of emotive language to help convey how sad it is that they are becoming extinct.” Gege

“On Wednesday, we enjoyed an amazing performance from NMPAT’s brass quartet. We learnt how each instrument worked, participated in many well known songs and listened to some ionic theme tunes including the signature tune from Star Wars.” Deeya

“Year 6 really enjoyed the challenge of designing a range of activities for the girls in Nursery to enjoy on their Sports Day. These activities included score-a-goal, obstacle course, donkey race, egg and spoon race and many more. We then got to eat delicious cookies, ice cream and strawberries! It was a wonderful afternoon and Mrs Waters and Miss Hilary were very pleased with our efforts.” Fee

 

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GAP Club

This week in GAP Club we have had lots of fun with our friends exploring the toys inside and out.

“I’ve enjoyed playing in the big sandpit as I haven’t been in there since Reception.” Roja  – Year 6.

“Playing with Happy Land. “ Lily – Nursery

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Arts Invitational 2019

We were delighted be be able to welcome so many friends and family members into school yesterday evening to take in our Arts Invitational; an event featuring students of all ages to celebrate the Arts at Northampton High School.

It was fantastic to be able to showcase the amazing work of our students of all ages, ranging from the amazing observational drawings by Reception, to the spectacular A Level pieces created by our 6.2 students. Guests were left in awe at the outstanding talent on display.

Alongside the many exhibitions, it was a showcase of our students’ many talents, in the form of MFL poetry recitals, Sophia Symeou’s LAMDA performance, Jessica Greenough’s ballet recital and Lucy Ward’s EPQ Photographic Exhibition. A live performance of Radio Drama was also on offer to entertain guests, and homemade cream teas courtesy of Miss Knight and her students were available to provide refreshment alongside the drinks and canapés served by Mrs McCue and her team.

The Senior Theatre was the venue for our Piano Recital, and then Vocal Masterclass with renowned Soprano, Alison Roddy; students took to the stage to give breathtaking performances, proving to be a fitting way to close the curtain on a marvellous occasion celebrating the Arts.

We still have one more feature event next Tuesday as part of our Arts Festival – our Gym and Dance Extravaganza – and we hope to see you there, bringing the Festival to a close with what promises to be an unforgettable event.

Mr Nash
Marketing & Communications Officer

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Early May Bank Holiday 2020

Please kindly note that, in line with the change to the national Bank Holiday pattern in May 2020 in order to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day, we will observe the early May Bank Holiday on Friday 8 May rather than on Monday 4 May, as originally advertised.

Monday 4 May will be a normal school day and school will be closed on Friday 8 May.  Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any queries about the change.

Dr Stringer 
Headmistress

Term Dates

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