Nothampton High School
Junior News
Junior News

Junior Newsletter 11 January 2019

Dear Parents and girls,

After seven days of school, it feels a little late to be sending seasonal wishes, but a single click of the weekly calendar reminds me that it isn’t, so ‘Happy New Year’ to all and all the best for 2019!

Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming five new students to the school: one in Year 1, two in Year 4 and two in Year 5. It was a gentle start for them – and for all – as we eased ourselves back into the new term and transitioned from holiday to work mode. This week was different, however, as energy levels soared and we threw ourselves wholeheartedly into the new term. The school was buzzing, lessons were dynamic and the girls were excitedly joining in with some of the twenty-four clubs on offer.

Year 6 were looking to the future today as some sat scholarship examinations for the Senior School and all joined in a fun-packed afternoon of transition activities with external candidates seeking to join them in Upper 3 (Year 7). It was a chance to meet new friends and to consider the opportunities that await them in the Senior School. Our younger students have been looking forwards, too, with the pre-school girls now having dedicated classroom time for two hours of each day. Reception girls have started to eat in the main Dining Room at lunchtime, joining the older students as they fill their trays (and their tummies!) and learn to clear up after themselves.

Key Stage 1 girls are focusing on Australia this term, and this explains the sight that beheld me last week as I caught Miss Scott-Evans in what looked like a blue fez and cape but which, in fact, turned out to be her ‘air steward uniform’. “We’ve just been to Australia” she declared, before putting her hand in the air, turning on her heel and striding down the corridor with a delighted-looking Year 2 class in tow.

Year 1 took a different route to the antipodes on Tuesday, ambling halfway around the world in order to study the history of the indigenous peoples at Forest School. Using charcoal, chalk, clay and soil as their materials and sticks and fingers as their tools, they painted trees, logs and stones, mixing materials and experimenting with dilution to create different colours and consistencies. Frustrations with the limited colour palette eventually came to the fore, with demands for ‘purple’ (which put us in mind of autumn berries) and ‘gold’ (answers on a postcard, please…). Mrs Waters stood firm, stating that they could have any colour that they liked so long as they could find and make it! She did eventually concede on the canvas, though, allowing the girls to swap from bark to paper in order to create a more permanent memento of their fun-packed and educational afternoon.

There will be many other literal and metaphorical journeys this term, with the former including the Year 3/4 residential to Beaumanor Hall and the Year 5 trip to Bletchley Park. More on these in the coming weeks, but for now I wish you a happy and relaxing weekend.

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 14 January: Monday/Thursday/Friday
  • w/c 21 January: Monday/Thursday/Friday
  • w/c 28 January: Monday/Thursday/Friday
  • 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 the last two weeks:

Beavers
Lydia D – achieved a variety of badges

Hockey
Eloise K – tournament

Hockey Newcastle Sports Tour
Isla H – Player of the Tournament

Karate
Gabriella M – orange belt

Piano
Vheneka C – came 2nd in concert

Rhythmic Gymnastics
Anya R – certificate for Hardest Worker

Scouts/Cubs
Fern A – stargazing badge

Singing
Maisie B – sang in a cruise ship talent show

Swimming
Emily G – stage 4
Poppy M – 20 lengths without stopping
Verity S – 1km

Tae-Kwondo
Dharmini K – came 2nd in competition blue stripe belt

Tennis
Verity S – tournament

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 5H – 30 January

Year 5N – 6 February

Year 2N – 13 February

Year 6N – 27 February

Reception – 6 March

Year 1N – 13 March

Year 4N – 20 March

Year 3N – 27 March

Dates for the diary

Monday 21 January to Friday 25 January – Open Week

Thursday 24 January – Year 5 Bletchley Park

Parents' Evenings

Wednesday 20 March

  • Nursery: 4pm – 6pm
  • Reception to Year 6: 6pm – 8pm

Thursday 21 March

  • Nursery to Year 6: 4pm – 6pm

GAP Club

Weekly bookings
Booking forms are available from the pillar by the main entrance. Please complete and return to Reception or email your request to junioradmin@nhs.gdst.net.

Termly bookings
Termly bookings for girls in Reception to Year 6 may be made via Firefly before or during the first week of term. Alternatively, you may use the booking forms located by the main entrance or email, as above.

Sport

Under 11 Sports Tour 2018 – Newcastle

On Friday 30 November, twenty students from Years 5 and 6 travelled to Newcastle for the annual GDST Under 11 Sports Tour. This year would see Newcastle hosting and ourselves and Wimbledon High School travelling to compete in a weekend packed full of sport.

Our journey wasn’t a straightforward forward one to say the least. We left at 11.00 am, waving our parents goodbye and hoping to arrive in Newcastle at a casual 4.00pm. However, this wasn’t the case! The M1 was shut, traffic a plenty and we ended up arriving at Newcastle High after 6.00 pm. A massive 7 hours on the coach! The girls were excellent, extremely patient and were still in great spirits when we arrived. The girls were met by their host families who whisked them away for a fun packed evening of pizza, films and beach visits.

On Saturday morning the girls arrived with their host families to the primary school in Newcastle. The girls were super excited to tell me and Miss Hurst all the fun things they did the night before and introduce us to their new friends from Newcastle.

The morning started with the Netball tournament. The weather wasn’t great – raining and quite cold – but this wouldn’t stop us having lots of fun. Both teams played extremely well, showed great team spirit and scored some fantastic goals. After the first round of games we waited eagerly for the results to see who both teams would be playing next. Unbelievably, we were going to be playing each other! NHS A verses NHS B in the semi-final of the plate. This was going to be tight game with all to play for. After a tight couple of minutes, Eryn from the A-team managed to score a cracking goal. The B-team played extremely well but the A-team managed to win 6-3. This saw the A-team through to the final of the plate against Newcastle. All the NHS girls were out to support the A-team girls in the pouring rain. After a nail-biting, very wet game the NHS were triumphant, winning the plate against the home side!

After a busy morning the girls had a well-deserved lunch and sat socialising with the Newcastle and Wimbledon High School girls. Next we were off to the swimming gala for the afternoon session. Despite an exhausting morning playing lots of netball, the girls were keen to start the swimming.

The swimming started with a warm up of all girls selected to swim. We had four girls in the A competition, Eryn, Ella, Manha and Gemma and in the B team competition, Roja, Felicity, Charlotte L and Abigail. The rest of the NHS girls had their supporters’ chants well-rehearsed. All the girls swam very well and were an absolute credit to the school; the supporters were ace too! The event finished with a FUN swim which everyone thoroughly enjoyed after a day full of sport.

The girls then left the gala with host families who had planned a private screening to watch ‘The Grinch’ at the cinema. I was very jealous!

On the Sunday morning the girls were dropped off at the Secondary School for the hockey competition. The weather was crisp and lovely and, most importantly, not raining! Both the A-team and B-team played a round robin of games. All girls thoroughly enjoyed the competition and both played extremely well.

Lastly, before we started our long journey home there was the prize giving. Each school had to nominate a player of the weekend for each of the three sports. The Netball trophy was awarded to Anna, Hockey to Isla and Swimming to Felicity. Well done to all three for amazing effort and performance!

It was now time to catch the bus back to Northampton, for a well-deserved snooze! I would like to this opportunity to say how proud I am of all the girls! The Newcastle host families couldn’t speak more highly of them and spoke gushingly about what a credit they were to their parents and the school. Well done to all! Next year we look forward to hosting the event ourselves here in Northampton!

Mrs Williamson
Deputy Director of Sport

Photos on Flickr

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

Our week

Nursery

Preschool Room
The girls have settled very well into their new room and are quickly learning the routines.

This week we have been thinking about the phonic sound ‘s’, the book ‘One Mole Digging a Hole’ and our new topic ‘the farm and animals’. The girls have enjoyed lots of activities related to the ‘s’ sound, making slithery snakes out of play dough, using sparkly paint to paint a ‘s’ and especially playing the Cookie Jar Game. We have also made observational paintings of the animals in the story.

Next week your daughter may experience the following activities:

  • Using positional language to place farm animals
  • Finding out information about farms and farm animals using factual books and the internet
  • Our sound of the week is ‘d’

Kipper Room
In Kipper Room this week the girls have had fun developing their physical skills through a range of activities including playing on bikes, playing with the balls and hoops, dancing to music and playing on the climbing equipment. They have also been developing their number knowledge through counting rhymes and everyday play, an example of this is counting the bricks into the bucket.

Elmer Room
In Elmer Room this week the girls have had fun continuing our theme learning about farm animals through a range of different activities: playing a matching game where they learnt about farm animals and their young; developing their imagination through playing with the farm and improving their mathematical knowledge by putting the correct amount of farm animals on the number flash cards.

Reminders
Please may we remind parents that breakfast finishes at 8.30 am so if you would like your daughter to have breakfast please make sure she is here by 8.25 am at the latest, so we can then pack away in time to start the day’s activities.

Please could you check your child’s belongings for any clothes that may not be hers.  Also, please make sure your child’s belongings are named.

Reception

This week we have been thinking about the material ‘fabric’ and after going on a fabric hunt, the girls made dance sticks using strips of different fabrics. They have looked carefully at teddy bears and drawn and painted in lots of detail.

We have started to look at the different money coins and have made some price tags. We have been paying for items in our toy shop using 1p coins. In our writing we took individual action photographs to inspire ideas for ‘Look at me I am….’

Our number work has been on addition and the number 11.

Year 1

We kicked off our Australia topic with a highly exciting role-play trip to the land ‘Down Under’ last week. It was such a fun day beginning with the making of passports, boarding passes and suitcases. Later, we boarded a life-like plane in the hall, watched a safety video and pretended to take off while watching a cockpit video on the large screen.

We pretended to offer snacks and drinks plus we even suggested the girls had a nap on the plane. After watching a cockpit video of a plane landing, the girls had their passports checked and headed to a carousel of Australia-themed activities which included tasting vegemite and lamingtons, making boomerangs, a small-world Outback scene full of Australian animals, making flags, watching videos and exploring books about Australia. T

his activity has inspired some incredible writing from the girls and we will refer to Australia as a theme through all of our learning this term. Pictures will be available on Flickr soon.

Year 2

What a super first week back we have had in Year 2. We started the new term with our topic WOW Day which took us on a flight all the way to Australia! Once we’d arrived there was lots for us to do including decorating a boomerang and tasting some Vegemite and lamington cakes. Since then we have been exploring stories from the Aborigines and their Dreamtime. We have created storyboards and performed some drama pieces too.

“I have enjoyed learning about Australia because it’s a new country and I don’t know lots about it.” Harriet

“I enjoyed tasting the different food” Jessica

“I liked going on our adventure on the plane.”  Sophie

“I have liked reading the Dreamtime story about the koala’s tail.”  Avleen

Year 3

“I enjoyed making the blossom tree collages this week. I think they will look pretty on the wall.”  Lydia

“I enjoyed English when we described the pebbles and tried to imagine ourselves on the beach. The pebble was pretty and I wanted to keep it!”  Kristen

Year 4

“I really liked the rounding to the nearest 10 in Maths.”  Lily

“My highlight this week was in Maths when we were rounding the number to the nearest 10.”  Fern

Year 5

“I liked doing the times tables test this week because I was looking forward to seeing if I had improved since the start of the year. I have!”  Indi

“I loved learning about chemical changes in Science and seeing what can dissolve in water. I found out that it is easier to dissolve something in hot water because of the energy in the water… the particles spread out and there is more space for the solid particles to dissolve in.”  Schechinah

“In Maths this week we were doing multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000. It was a little bit confusing at first but then I got the hang of it and was going through the questions really quickly. It made me feel happy because I don’t think I’ve ever done that much Maths!” Lilybella

“This week in English we were learning about The Highwayman poem. First we read through the poem and then we discussed it. I thought the poem was very descriptive and creative.”  Lucy

“In Music we made up our own song on any instrument we wanted. My group had two guitars, a ukulele and a piano. It was fun and I really enjoyed it.”  Rose

Year 6

“Despite being very cold we all played really hard in Netball during team selection and are looking forward to improving our skills this term.”  Abigail

“In Geography we have started our Young Geographers topic and we have learnt all about lines of longitude and lines of latitude as well as how to calculate time zones across the world!”  Tara

“In Drama Club we had fun mirroring each other in pairs and then in larger groups. The group pieces were extremely effective and we discussed how this technique could be used in a production.”  Charlotte E

GAP Club

We have had a busy start to GAP Club this year and have welcomed lots of new friends.
Two girls have shared their highlight from this week:

“Colouring and having a colouring competition with Evie, Fern, Daisy-May and Miss Page.“ Anna, Year 5

“Playing with the princess dolls.” Avani, Reception

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