Nothampton High School
Junior News
Junior News

Junior Newsletter 1 February 2019

Dear Parents and girls,

Those of you who attended the Online Safety Workshop on Monday morning will agree that it was an excellent start to the week. A fact-packed presentation from an NSPCC representative and an O2 ‘Guru’ gave parents plenty to think about and was followed by the opportunity to ask questions on the subject of keeping our children safe online.

Follow-up material – including a document ‘Staying Safe Online across the Ages’ – is available for all parents on the Online Safety area of firefly. Additional information can be found on the NSPCC site or via the O2/NSPCC collaboration pages, where parents can learn about the option of having their child’s electronic devices checked by an expert free of charge.

Parents are encouraged to discuss the matters raised with their daughters, as they feel appropriate. However, students will also explore the area during Safer Internet Day on Tuesday 5 February. This event brings together over a thousand schools and organisations who have committed ‘to inspire a national conversation about using technology responsibly, respectfully, critically and creatively’, and the theme this year is ‘Together for a better internet’. In Junior School, girls will attend either a KS1 or a KS2 assembly on the subject and also spend time on further activities in their classrooms.

The ‘NSPCC and safety’ theme continued into Monday afternoon, with two excellent and sensitively-delivered assemblies on the organisation’s ‘Speak out. Stay safe.‘ programme. Girls received information about how to keep themselves safe from harm and how to get help if they have any worries. Year 5 and 6 had a follow-up workshop with the NSPCC on Tuesday, during which they were given the opportunity to discuss different scenarios and to ask questions. Over the coming days all girls will be involved in the ‘Buddy’s Meaningful Maths’ sponsored event and the cake sale on 8 February, about which more below. All proceeds from these events will go directly to the NSPCC.

Returning to the digital – or, rather, the pre-digital, but via the ‘father of the modern computing’, Alan Turing – 5H entertained and educated us with their excellent assembly on Bletchley Park on Wednesday. Following their recent visit there, they were able to tell us of their experiences, the history of the Enigma code and the lives of the codebreakers. Parallels with modern life came via the Online Safety Room and information on the security of personal data. There were lessons to be learned, too, they said, on the importance of teamwork, resilience and learning from our mistakes – something that is core to life at NHS, too.

As I type the snow is falling and it’s a winter wonderland outside. The girls are excited and there is understandable angst from some of the commuter parents, but once Friday is over I hope that you have the opportunity to enjoy the winter weather together. Have fun and wrap up warm!

Caroline Petryszak
Interim Head of Junior School

 

Mrs Petryszak's availability

Mrs Petryszak’s days on site will vary this half-term in order to align with school activities and events:

  • w/c 4 February: Monday/Thursday
  • w/c 11 February: 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 last week:

Dance Latin
Tara E – Cha Cha Cha and Jive Grade 1 Highly Commended

Tennis
Verity S – won 2 matches in tournament

Swimming
Fern A – 1000m
Emily S – Gala came 3rd backstroke and breast stroke, 4th in front crawl

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 5N – 6 February

Year 2N – 13 February

Year 6N – 27 February

Reception – 6 March

Year 1N – 13 March

Year 3N – 27 March

Year 4N – 3 April    (THIS DATE IS NEW FOR 4N CLASS ASSEMBLY)

Dates for the diary

Friday 8 February – Year 3 Cupcake Sale in the Community Room

Friday 8 February – FoNHS Pamper Evening

Monday 11 February – 4N Hardingstone Walk

Monday 18 to Friday 22 February – HALF TERM

PARENTS’ EVENINGS:

Wednesday 20 March – Nursery: 4pm – 6pm

Wednesday 20 March –  Reception to Year 6: 6pm – 8pm

Thursday 21 March – Nursery to Year 6: 4pm – 6pm

Clubs

The Book Club is only for Years 5 and 6.

Clubs that are cancelled:

  • Year 3 Computing Club on Monday 4 February
  • Science Club on Wednesday 6 February
  • Year 3 Computing Club on Monday 4 March
  • Year 4, 5 and 6 Reading Club on Monday 4 March

Year 3 Cupcake and Cookies Sale for NSPCC

On Friday 8 February Year 3 will be running a Cupcake and Cookies sale at break time for Reception to Year 6 to raise money for the NSPCC. The girls may bring in money to buy the cakes or cookies, which will be 20p – 50p each. Any donations of cupcake and cookies would be greatly received. Please bring them into school on Thursday or Friday morning next week.

Sports

Netball A team v The Grove Independent School

Well done to everyone who played in this week’s match against The Grove Independent School. We won 8 – 2 and everyone made a great effort!

Gemma S – Captain

Netball B team v The Grove Independent School

On Wednesday we played The Grove Independent School and won 7 – 2. We are really proud of all the team for working so hard and look forward to this continuing throughout the rest of the season!

Isobel S – Captain and Roja L

Photos on Flickr

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

Our week

Nursery

Kipper Room

This week in Kipper Room we have been transporting water, concentrating on tipping and pouring and learning how to use pipettes. As a follow-up activity we used jelly to transport and experiment further.

On Thursday we wrapped up for a winter walk in the sunshine. The girls enjoyed crunching the iced grass and especially the frozen puddles.

We have also been making handprints and counting how many fingers we have.

Elmer Room

In Elmer Room during our PE class the girls have had fun developing their physical skills through participating in an obstacle course where they could balance on a beam, jump in the hoops, pull themselves up on the bench and jump and land appropriately off the movement table. They have also had fun showing an understanding of different prepositions such as on ‘on top’, ‘under’ and ‘behind’. They loved practising their cutting skills using scissors when making a cow face. They have enjoyed learning more about farm animals during a variety of activities.

Pre-School

Our sound of the week has been ‘i’.  We have been thinking about lots of different objects beginning with our sound; insects, iguana, instruments and Isabella!  The girls showed very good pencil control skills, following lines on insects; they also decorated an iguana. On Thursday we thought about sheep as part of our topic. There was great excitement when we went into the pre-school room, as there was a spinning wheel in the book corner. We talked about it and then we felt some fleece. The girls saw the wheel working and had a go treading to make the wheel turn. This week we have listened to sounds in the listening box and sung about ‘ Three Small Pets’ in singing phonics.

Next week we are having a provocation week where your daughter will experience different activities in pre-school to heighten her imagination and thinking skills.

Reception

The story of the ‘Three Little Pigs’ has been the inspiration for some cross-curricular work this week. The girls have enjoyed re-telling the story and sequencing it. They have been building houses out of various different materials, making models and singing songs.

We have also been thinking about metal: we have made some ‘metal monster’ pictures and had a go at using the metal detectors to find buried treasure!

Year 1

This week girls in Year 1 have linked learning in Science and English to find out facts about Australian animals for a class book. We have used stories, information texts, videos and internet research to gather information. We are also headed off on an Australian Animal Safari to find different species of animals from the land down under. We will then be sorting animals into species groups and finding out what makes them similar and different.

I am delighted to see some of the prep activities coming into school. Please do share your efforts either as a picture or the real article.

This week all the girls have enjoyed playing in the role-play area which is evolving into an airport.

Year 2

We went on an animal safari in our Science lesson this week! We searched for Australian animals and tried to match them to the written descriptions we had. We learned about the different categories animals can be grouped into; mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians and birds. We had a go at grouping the different animals accordingly.

“I loved the animal safari – there were so many animals hiding in our classroom!”  Jessica

“I really wanted to know which category a possum would be in – Miss Scott-Evans had to check online!”  Avleen

Year 3

“I liked writing our stories in English, where we shrank to the size of a pepper pot and had to overcome a problem. I also enjoyed science where we made a moving arm to look at how our muscles work in pairs opposite each other”.  Ellie

“I have enjoyed DT where we were estimating the price of sandwich fillings and designing our own sandwiches to make next week”.  Kristen

The estimating of prices for the sandwich fillings was a very interesting exercise and showed that the girls are very unsure about the cost of things. I am a little concerned that some families must have a very large food bill each week, as estimates for a loaf of bread were as much as £20-£50! The girls were quite surprised at the actual cost.

Year 4

“My highlight of the week was DT because I now have a new skill if I want to make a pop-up”.  Georgia

“I liked PE because we made up dance routines. My group’s name was ‘Clowns’”.  Beatrice

Year 5

“I enjoyed looking on the internet and writing facts about Brazil.”  Caitlin

“My favourite part of the week was cross country because we had to run 1 mile (2 laps of the field). It was quite hard but it was really fun. It was Year 5 and 6 together”.  Izzy

“I enjoyed learning about ‘How the Whale got his Throat’ and learning new words that I haven’t heard before like ‘sagacity’. It was written by Rudyard Kipling and I liked learning about someone else’s life when we were doing our fact file and researching.”  Schechinah

“This week we were practising for our Bletchley Park assembly and it went really well. My favourite bit was when the news reports were on because we got to know what the codebreakers did to help in the war, but there were actually no news reports because it was a secret!”  Moriah

Year 6

This week Year 6 have had a very productive week once again. We have been learning about the fascinating world of biomes in Geography, carrying out an investigation in Science using our shadow theatres, reading and plotting co-ordinates in the 4 quadrants, writing newspaper reports in English and have also been introduced to our Year 6 play, ‘Mystery at Magpie Manor’ and had an informative visit from the NSPCC advising us on how to stay safe.

Charlotte E-H and Arna K

“I have really enjoyed learning about the conventions of newspaper writing. Writing a report on Humpty Dumpty and his ‘eggcellent’ splat was great fun!”  Charlotte E-H

“The playground has been buzzing as we have started to rehearse for auditions for the play, ‘Mystery at Magpie Manor’. We are all very excited!”  Imogen

“In Geography, we watched an inspiring video on biomes and I am looking forward to learning more next week!”  Ella

“I really enjoyed finding out about how the size and sharpness of a shadow is affected by how far the puppet in my shadow theatre was away from the light source.”  Gemma

“The NSPCC came to visit us this week to deliver an assembly and workshop. These were really interesting and informative and we all learnt a lot more about how to keep safe in a fun way.’  Lola

“Learning the songs for our play, ‘Mystery at Magpie Manor’ has been great fun and we cannot wait to perform them to you after the Easter holidays!”  Arna

GAP Club

The girls in the younger room have continued exploring painting activities this week.  Water colours and magic water colours have been particularly popular.  The older girls have enjoyed icing biscuits and making a wintry Gap Club sign:

Two Nursery girls have shared their highlight of the week:

“My water thing”.  Harriet

“Singing Twinkle Twinkle”.  Didi

Other News

Science Technician wanted!

We wish to recruit a part-time Science Technician (Biology specialism) to join our team from February 2019. Northampton High School has an excellent Science Faculty with large numbers of students studying A Level Sciences in well-equipped laboratories. We seek to appoint a laboratory technician who has the knowledge and skills to provide technical support for Biology, up to A Level standard.

Please find full details, along with how to apply, https://www.northamptonhigh.co.uk/about/our-team/join-our-team/.

Mrs Gates
HR Officer

Fashion Show in aid of Zanzibar 2019

On Wednesday 13 February, the Global Action Zanzibar group will be holding an event in the Senior Hall from 7.00pm. There will be a fashion show with the girls modelling clothes from the company SOS. Brands sold on the night include ASOS, M&S, New Look, Miss Selfridge, Next, Topshop, Boden and many more. These will be sold at a discounted price of up to 75%. There will also be a tombola and refreshment stalls to make a fun and enjoyable evening.

Going to Zanzibar will be a life-changing experience. We will have the opportunity to take part in conservation projects, working closely with wildlife such as native turtles, butterflies and other endangered species. We will also be working with the local community, in schools to help teach English as well as spending time in an orphanage. This will be a rewarding and eye-opening experience.

Tickets are £5 sold before the event and £7 on the door on the night. Please buy tickets at the school reception or buy online at https://www.trybooking.co.uk/IKK.

Mrs Carr
Science Teacher

The Northampton High School has created a fundraising fashion show advertisement, with a list of the junior students favourite brands.

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