Nothampton High School
Junior News

Junior News 29 November 2019

Dear Parents,

With Christmas trees now appearing across the school, costumes hanging in cloakrooms and the sound of singing echoing through the corridors, it is clear that the festive season is here at Northampton High Junior School. Information about upcoming performances has been distributed, and we look forward to seeing you at some of our seasonal events.

This week, Mrs Shaw’s Year 5 class shared their learning with us, talking through the historical significance of Thanksgiving and asking the pertinent question ‘What are you thankful for?’ This is something we have been reflecting on in classes, especially at this time of year, as we try to balance giving and receiving. Other learning this week has included using manipulatives to solve problems in Maths, writing biographies of famous people, as well as practising sawing and drilling skills in Forest School!

Our staff development session this week focused on writing and feedback, discussing the research of Ross Morrison McGill (@teachertoolkit) and looking more closely at the wide variety of writing opportunities our students are exposed to. It is so important that the girls see their teachers as life-long learners too.

As the nights are drawing in, please could I respectfully ask you to take extra care as you drive around, and park on, our school site. The car park and entrance/exits are busy places, and we must all take responsibility for the safety of our community.

Have a lovely weekend,
Chris

Chris Bailey
Head of Junior School

A message from Dr Stringer

Dear Parents and Guardians,

As you will know, following Cheryl’s letter earlier today, I have, after much careful consideration, decided to retire at the end of this academic year.  This means I will sadly not be returning to Northampton High School next September as I had originally planned.

I feel very fortunate to have had the pleasure and privilege of leading Northampton High over the past few years. I have enjoyed, above all, getting to know the students, staff and families in what is, for me, a very special school community.

Although I will be very sad to step away from my role, I know that the time is right for me to entrust the school to a new Head, so Northampton High can begin the next phase in its history. The school is thriving under the present dynamic leadership and there are exciting projects on the horizon, such as the Erasmus Plus Conference in April.

I am, as you know, only an hour away currently at Oxford High GDST, and plan to make sure I have opportunities to meet with the girls, staff and parents before my final departure in the summer.  Indeed, I am liaising with the Northampton team with the intention to spend some time in Hardingstone before Christmas.  I will look forward to seeing the school community very soon, and sharing in the festive preparations.

Wishing you a restful weekend.

With best wishes,

Dr Helen Stringer

Achievements

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

Tennis
Rose N – County tennis tournament

Hockey
Charlotte F – Under 13 County hockey festival

Kumon Maths
Tanya M – platinum award

Gymnastics
Emily F – level 4

Swimming
Asmi S – 10 weeks hard work

Theatre
Jemima S – good effort at baton twirling

Horse Riding
Cora S – rosette for learning to trot

Assemblies

Class Assemblies are held in the Junior School Hall at 8.35 am on a Wednesday. Parents are most welcome to enjoy refreshments from 8.00 am in the Community Room. Here are the dates for the Autumn Term and Spring Term.

1N – Wednesday 4 December

6N – Wednesday 15 January

6H – Wednesday 22 January

4N – Wednesday 29 January

5N – Wednesday 5 February

5H – Wednesday 26 February

2N – Wednesday 4 March

3N – Wednesday 11 March

Reception – Wednesday 18 March

1N – Wednesday 25 March

 

 

Dates for Diary

Tuesday 3 December – 2-3pm Nursery Nativity

Wednesday 4 December – 2-3pm Reception and KS1 play

Thursday 5 December – 9.15-10.15am Reception and KS1 play

Thursday 5 December – Christmas Celebration Disco for Rec to Year 6

Tuesday 10 December – Nursery Stay and Play

Tuesday 10 December – 7pm KS2 Christmas Celebration

No PE led clubs after Tuesday 10 December

Thursday 12 December – 7.30pm Carol Concert at All Saints Church

Friday 13 December – Christmas Jumper Day

Friday 13 December – Pre-School and Reception theatre trip

Tuesday 17 December – Christmas Parties – wear your party clothes!

Tuesday 17 December – 3.35pm TERM ENDS

Monday 6 January – INSET DAY

Tuesday 7 January – SPRING TERM STARTS

Looking ahead: Sports Day for KS2 and Senior School is Friday 5 June

FoNHS AGM

The FoNHS AGM was held on 5 November 2019, and the minutes of the meeting can be found on the link here.

Parents are warmly invited to participate in the Parent Forum meetings referred to in the minutes and organised by Mrs O’Doherty, Deputy Head Pastoral Care and Guidance.

The next Forum will be held early in the Spring Term and more details will be sent to all parents nearer the time. Parents are welcome to suggest topics for discussion or general information at Forum meetings.

Mrs Headley 
Director of Finance and Operations

Spring Term Clubs

The Spring Term clubs are now on Firefly.  Please complete the form on Firefly by Monday 9 December.

Sports

A message from the PE department to let you know that the last PE club will be on Tuesday 10 December.

 

 

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Nursery Kipper Room and Elmer Room

Kipper Room:

This week the girls in Kipper Room have been very busy doing lots of different activities such as drawing and making marks in colourful sand.  Whilst drawing, Anne said “look Miss King it’s a shower”. The girls have also been playing in shaving foam and enjoying filling up different containers with rice and pasta. They had fun making dinner. We have also been practising for our Christmas performance singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’: the girls are doing very well with this. We went to Forest School on Wednesday and the girls had lots of fun jumping in the very muddy puddles and running around the Forest School area. The girls have also been drawing lots of pictures on the interactive whiteboard and on paper to take home. We do regular group sessions to help the girls practise their singing and let them choose what song they would like to sing, to encourage turn-taking. Next week we are looking forward to our Christmas performance and hope you are too!

Elmer Room:

This week in Elmer Room we have continued to work hard on learning our Christmas performance, the girls have really enjoyed this and are starting to sing the songs throughout the day.

Our story of the week has been ‘Peace at Last’; the girls have joined in with the noises and have started to anticipate what comes next in the story. “In the car” said Lily.

At Forest School the puddles were in abundance and these were very popular with lots of splashing and jumping. “Splash,” said Jasmine, “Muddy puddles,” said Maya, “I want to jump,” said Grace.

We have continued looking at shapes and colours throughout the week with sticking, sorting and painting activities. We are looking forward to performing for you next week and will begin to start some Christmas activities.

Please can you check that your daughter’s belongings are named and they haven’t picked up someone’s things by mistake.  Thank you.

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Nursery Pre-School

Highlights:

We have been very busy rehearsing our Christmas performance: everyone is enjoying singing the songs. This week we have also been ‘making number 8 spiders’, counting out the correct number of legs and triangular fish. We also celebrated St. Andrew’s Day, making flags, eating shortbread for our snack and watching Scottish dancing and bagpipe playing on the Clever Touch board. The girls also listened carefully to the initial sound of the objects they placed in the Silly Soup.

What the girls have enjoyed:

“Playing with Peppa Pig.” ZIman.
“I love to play. l play with blocks.” Zara.
“I love to dance.” Joanne.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning:

  • Our sound is ‘p,’ our number is 9 and our colours are silver and gold.
  • Making a Pre-School large penguin display using a variety of different media.
  • Making stars.
  • Creating pizzas.
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Reception

Highlights:

Reception have been working hard to learn our special song and dance to show you at our performances of ‘Prickly Hay’ next week. They are really looking forward to trying on their costumes again. Please can you ensure the white tights we have requested are in school by Monday at the latest. Thank you.

This week we have continued to learn new letter sounds – v, w, and z – and practised writing these. Our story focus this week has been ‘This is the Bear and the Picnic Lunch.’ We drew the characters from the story and the girls were encouraged to add as much detail into their drawings and colour in carefully. We used the words ‘This is the…’ to construct sentences about the story. In Number work we have been learning about the number 10, the trapezium shape and using practical resources to investigate ‘1 less than’.

What the girls have said:

“The hoop game in P.E. I like running, we had to run into different hoops all the time.” Emily.
“Learning about ten. I liked making a one and a zero.” Grace.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning:

  • Looking forward to our performances of ‘Prickly Hay’.
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Year 1

Highlights:

This week, in Year 1, we have really focused on our Class Assembly and our Christmas performance. We have been doing lots of practising of our words, dances and songs and everyone is getting very excited. In our History lesson, we have thought about Isambard Brunel and his contributions to our railway during the Victorian times. In our DT lessons, the girls have started to create their Elf puppet and carefully follow their design. In Maths we have been continuing to think about shape and have moved from the 2D to 3D shape. In RE we have looked at different places of worship and where people from different religions might go to pray and reflect.

What the girls have said:

“I liked learning about different shapes in Maths.” Leah.
“I liked learning about Brunel in History.” Kinara.
“I liked practising our Class Assembly.” Amelia.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning:

  • Maths – we will be finishing ‘shape’ and moving on to ‘place value’ to 20.
  • English – Christmas play and assembly practise.
  • Art – decoupage pots.
  • RE – Hanukkah.
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Year 2

Highlights:

Our rehearsals for the Nativity are well under way now as we prepare for the big shows next week. The girls have done a great job learning their lines by heart and as we continue with our run-throughs, we are trying to perfect song words and stage timings too. We’re all very excited for you to see our performance! In Maths we have continued with money and this week we have been learning how to find different totals. We have played games, used our shop role play and money stamps too to help us complete our learning. In DT we have designed a Victorian pull string toy. We have pieced them together and now just need to add the final touch to allow them to work.

What the girls have said:

“I’ve enjoyed working on my front crawl in swimming.” Anna
“I liked learning about inventors.” Maya.
“I’ve liked making our elf puppet.”  Asmi.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning:

  • English – Nativity rehearsals/performances.
  • Maths – money.
  • RE – Hanukkah.
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Year 3

Highlights:

This week we have been working with money and finding change in Maths. In Science we have been learning about push and pull forces and looking at what they can do to an object.

What the girls have said:

“I enjoyed designing my Christmas card and finding out the winner of the competition.” Dejonai.
“I liked making our chocolate boxes out of card.” Ishani.
“I enjoyed working with the money in Maths.” Jessica.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning:

  • In Maths – we will be working on solving word problems by deciding which number operation we need to do.
  • In Science – we will be investigating magnets.
See all photos
See all photos

Year 4

Highlights:

In Maths this week we have been using fraction walls to identify equivalent fractions. In English we have worked on using imaginative language to write a story opening, build-up and dilemma. We have also worked in groups to create a job advert for a Roman soldier.

What the girls have said:

“I liked doing fractions this week because it was very tricky and there were lots of extension activities.” Phoebe.
“My highlight of the week was when we were writing our stories about Flavia Gemina.” Rithika.
“My favourite thing this week was making our stories about Flavia and her friends.” Alice.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning:

  • English – we will be completing our stories set in Roman times and redrafting a paragraph to improve our writing.
  • Maths – work will focus on introducing decimal fractions.
  • Computing – we will be using Purple Mash to create a short animation.
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See all photos

Year 5

Highlights:

This week in English we thought about our senses when describing a scene from The Firebird. In Maths we learnt how to convert from 12 to 24 hour clock and solved timetable problems. In Science, 5H worked hard to conduct their thermal insulation investigation; they ended up with a beautiful line graph showing their results and came to very sensible conclusions regarding the best material for a takeaway drinks cup.

What the girls have said:

“I really liked English this week. We have been doing descriptive writing about The Firebird using our senses.” Elizabeth.
“My favourite bit of the week was doing our Class Assembly on Thanksgiving, because it was really fun doing the acting. I also enjoyed saying about the turkey being pardoned by Donald Trump.” Isla.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning: 

  • English – traditional stories using a digital text: The Firebird (with a focus on the setting).
  • Science – properties of materials: we will be moving on to takeaway food containers for Bestival.
  • Maths – measures – length and perimeter.
  • History – Anglo Saxons.
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See all photos

Year 6

Week 10 – only 26 days to go!
Year 6 may already be counting down the days to Christmas but they haven’t mentioned the number of days left until the end of term yet, so that must be a positive sign they are having fun at school! They have had an extremely busy week with Christmas singing rehearsals, listening to Thanksgiving presentations, taking part in swimming matches and they have been challenged on a wide range of tasks in Maths, Science and English. This week, the Year 6 girls have also been responsible for organising and leading the rehearsal sessions for the House Christmas Poetry reading which is a real test of their leadership skills. Digital Leaders represented the Junior School at the Senior School Assembly on Monday and the School Magazine editors are gathering evidence to put into our brand new digital platform.

Many more exciting activities will take place in the next week as we build up towards the Christmas events, including decorating classrooms, dancing at the school disco on Thursday 5 December and all the students will be involved in the House Hockey competition on Wednesday. We look forward seeing some of you at the House Hockey and will let everyone else know how they got on.
Have a lovely weekend,
Karen Fordham and James Loveday

Student voices:
“In Humanities we learnt about four mystery objects and tried to find out what they were and what they symbolized. We also did a pop quiz on the world religions.”
“On Wednesday the people who go to Hockey Club did hockey training and we did drills and matches. I really enjoyed it.”
“In English we have been looking at poems. I liked personifying a thunder-storm and giving it human characteristics.”
“In Humanities we liked sharing our powerpoint presentations about world religions to the class. My group did Judaism and we brought some food for everyone.”
“In Enrichment we made paper snowflakes to decorate the main school dining hall for December and we made origami stars. It was fun and hard but we managed.”
“This week in English we did a poem but we had to guess what it was about. It was called “the Thought Fox”. It was about gradually getting an ‘Idea’. The Fox was coming out of the darkness but the Fox was ‘an Idea’.”
“In Maths we were learning about equivalent fractions and place values.”
“In English this week we have been learning about personification. We made a lot of really interesting sentences e.g. the villain stabbed the city with rage!”
“We dissected a lamb’s heart. It was unforgettable.”

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GAP Club

Highlights:

The girls have been very creative adding the finishing touches to our ‘Christmas Corner’ and making lots of Christmas creations. These have included split pin reindeers, reindeer antler headbands, giant stockings, a post box, Christmas character head bands, baubles and melting snowman biscuits.

What the girls have enjoyed:

“Making a Santa picture.” Amelia, Year 1.
“Listening to ‘Frozen 2’ and talking to Mrs Howell about seeing it at the cinema.” Caoimhe, Reception.
“Making the mask.” Maya, Reception.

Looking ahead to some of next week’s learning:

  • Christmas activities.

We now have a bell for the outside GAP Club door, please ring if there is no answer.

The new GAP Club booking forms for the Spring term will be available on Firefly from 9 December to the 10 January 2020.

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Term Dates

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