Junior Newsletter 15 March 2019

Mrs Petryszak’s days on site will vary over the coming weeks in order to align with school activities and events:

• w/c 18 March: Monday/Wednesday/Thursday
• w/c 25 March: Monday/Wednesday/Thursday
• w/c 1 April: 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.

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 3N – 27 March

Year 4N – 3 April

Dates for the diary

• Mon 18 – Fri 22 March – Shakespeare Week
• Weds 20 March – Parents’ Evening (see below)
• Thurs 21 March – Parents’ Evening (see below)
• Sat 23 March – Year 5 and 6 Ski Trip departs
• Weds 27 March – 3N Class Assembly
• Sun 30 March – Year 5 and 6 Ski Trip returns
• Weds 3 April – 4N Class Assembly
• Fri 5 April – Last day of Spring Term
• Weds 24 April – INSET DAY (staff)
• Thurs 25 April – Summer Term starts

Parents’ Evenings:

• Weds 20 March – Nursery: 4pm – 6pm
• Weds 20 March –  Reception to Year 6: 6pm – 8pm
• Thurs 21 March – Nursery to Year 6: 4pm – 6pm

Cancelled Clubs

There will be no teacher-led clubs on Wednesday 20 March and Thursday 21 March.

Sports

Netball Match Reports v Bilton Grange

A Team
This week the A team played against Bilton Grange. Unfortunately we lost 23 – 7. Despite losing I am proud of everyone who participated because all the players tried their very best and learnt a lot from the experience.
Gemma – Captain

B Team
The B team played against Bilton Grange and despite losing 19 -1 we tried really hard and persevered until the end even though it was wet and windy. This week I felt that we were much stronger at passing and getting into space. Well done team!
Phoebe – Captain

C Team
We played against a very strong Bilton Grange team on Wednesday. The final score was 14 -3 to Bilton Grange. Overall, we played really hard and improved our passing and getting into space as the match went on. I was awarded player of the match. Well done, team!
Lola – Captain

D Team
On Wednesday the D team also played a match against Bilton Grange. This was our first match playing together as a team and I think we worked really well together and tried our very best. Despite losing (and the rainy weather) we all learnt lots and are looking forward to our next match. Player of the Match was me!
Emily – Captain

Photos on Flickr

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

(or click on the link for your daughters’ year group).

Nursery

Kipper Room
This week in Kipper Room the girls have enjoyed visiting the Garden Centre where we saw a range of colourful flowers. They have enjoyed playing in the hall on the apparatus were they practised their balancing, climbing and jumping skills. We have also visited the library and listened to a story about growing.

Elmer Room
This week in Elmer Room the girls have enjoyed playing in the sensory garden where they were able to explore their surroundings using their senses. They had the opportunity to do some digging in the mud area, smell the different herbs, look at the vegetables growing, make a cake with the sand and lots more. They have also had fun doing lots of different exercises then talking about the different effects it had on our bodies. The girls have had fun acting out the plant life cycle when playing in the garden using different props to support our play.

Pre-School
This week we have explored lots of different Science experiments. The girls listened to ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ story then investigated the texture of skin on different fruits, their smell and their taste. They then explored making prints using the different fruits. We had great excitement when we made a ring of skittles which when we added water to turned into a rainbow and making rain flow through the shaving foam clouds. Along with our Science activities we have made gorilla masks, coloured goats and played with green play dough for our letter sound ‘g’. The girls are all getting very proficient at thinking of objects beginning with our phonic sound. For Red Nose Day we decorated biscuits into a face with a red nose.

Next week your daughter may experience the following activities:

• Our sound of the week is ‘o’
• We are joining with Junior School to have a Shakespeare Week
• We will be looking at some of the plays and especially ‘The Fairy Song’ poem from ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’

For the Nursery – 18/19 flickr album, please click here.

For Forest School flickr album, please click here.

Reception

This week we have been continuing thinking about halving and drawing the other half. From a photograph of each girls face cut in half, they tried to draw the missing half of the face. For Science Week Mrs Hodgetts-Tate from Senior School came to deliver a lesson based on ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and the food journey.

On Friday morning we visited the school kitchen as part of our ‘People Who Help Us’ topic. The girls very much enjoyed their behind-the-scenes tour and learnt a lot about cooking on a large scale!

For Reception – 18/19 flickr album, please click here.

For Forest School flickr album, please click here.

Year 1

This week Year 1 girls have impressed us all with their amazing Class Assembly, which included information about the layers of the sea, a recount of our trip to Sea Life Birmingham and some brilliant performance poetry. The girls have shown how much they care about the threat of plastic pollution to sea life and I hope that they can enthuse us all to take better care of our oceans.

As part of Science Week, we investigated reflective materials with Mrs Hodgetts-Tate, from the Senior School and undertaken lots of science-related activities across the curriculum. It seems that we have highly enthusiastic scientists in class.

For Year 1 – 18/19 flickr album, please click here.

For Forest School flickr album, please click here.

Year 2

This week in Year 2 we have been learning how to measure in Maths. We have measured each other, our hands and our feet as well as different objects in the classroom. In our English lessons we have been researching facts about all things Australian because we are creating a class Australian alphabet book as part of our non-fiction writing. In art we finished painting and decorating our didgeridoos with Aboriginal inspired designs and at Forest School this week we practised throwing real boomerangs on the sports field! On top of all of that it was British Science Week too and on Wednesday we had Mrs Hodgetts-Tate come and visit us to deliver us a very special Science lesson all about reflection.

‘I loved our Science lesson this week and looking at reflective materials.’  Avleen

‘I have enjoyed measuring different objects in our Maths work.’ Ellie

‘I have liked using the iPads to research facts for our alphabet book.’ Sophie

‘My favourite part of this week was making bow and arrows at Forest School and throwing the boomerangs on the field.’ Zoe

‘I liked painting my didgeridoo.’ Harini

‘I enjoyed measuring our hands and feet in Maths.’ Ishani

For Year 2 – 18/19 flickr album, please click here.

For Forest School flickr album, please click here.

Year 3

Science Week has been exciting and we spent an interesting day on Tuesday immersing ourselves in science-related activities to the the theme of ‘Journeys’.

‘I liked going on the nature walk, finding and collecting things we saw and then writing a poem about it. In the afternoon we had to put liquids on a slope to find out which was the stickiest. We had an exciting day!’  Mollie

‘This week I enjoyed learning our dance for the Dance Extravaganza.’ Safiya

Please find all photos for Beaumanor and joint activities with Year 4 in the Flickr folder called Year 3 and 4 2018-2019.

For Year 3 – 18/19 flickr album, please click here.

For Year 3 & 4 flickr album, please click here.

Year 4

‘My highlight of the week was when we did the Science Day to find out which liquid was the stickiest out of water, olive oil, glue or washing up liquid’. Eloise

‘My highlight of the week was the nature walk even though it was raining. I liked making our own poem and reading it out’. Odelia

Please find all photos for Beaumanor and joint activities with Year 3 in the Flickr folder called Year 3 and 4 2018-2019.

For Year 4 – 18/19 flickr album, please click here.

For Year 3 & 4 flickr album, please click here.

Year 5

‘On Thursday we made rockets for Science week with Mrs Hodgetts-Tate. We put some special water (which was water and vinegar mixed up) and a tablet into our rockets, and put them on the floor. We shook them and they fizzed, and then flew into the air and exploded and all the liquid came out of it.’ Millie

‘I have enjoyed planning and writing my UFO Diary because it was really relaxing and we are going to keep going on it the whole week. In my diary I am an alien and I have just got a new spaceship and it’s got a sandwich maker!’ Anna

‘My highlight of the week was making mini rockets. We decorated it, cut it out and then folded it and stuck it on the white small tube. After that, we put a tablet in the tube and poured vinegar into it as well. We put the lid on and it shot up in the air.’ Chanan

‘I enjoyed making maze games in Computing. I also enjoyed converting improper fractions into mixed numbers.’ Tobi

For Year 5 – 18/19 flickr album, please click here.

For the Y5 Macmillan Coffee Morning flickr album, please click here.

For Year 5 Hobbies Morning flickr album, please click here.

For the Y5 Grafham Water Residential flickr album, please click here.

For Y5 Bletchley Park flickr album, please click here.

Year 6

This week we have taken part in a good mixture of different lessons. We have discussed the main characters and how they have changed in ‘Shadow of the Minotaur,’ researched the physical and human geographical features of the Dordogne region in France, investigated the journey of electricity and found out fascinating facts about neurons as well as creating burglar alarms to stop Mrs Fordham from stealing our chocolate! Overall, it has been a fun and busy week!

Science
‘As part of British Science Week we have been looking at the journey electricity makes from source to home as well as the electrical signals found in our bodies! We also had fun creating saftey switches as well as alarms to stop Mrs Fordham from stealing our chocolate. After many tries we finally got our alarm to work using a pressure switch made from card and paperclips! We also enjoyed creating info-graphic posters full of information and diagrams about renewable and non-renewable sources used to generate electricity in Britain as well as constructing our own neurons using pipe cleaners as well as one creative idea using edible goodies!’ Charlotte E-S, Deeya and Felicity

Geography
‘In Geography we have been learning about the Dordogne region in France. We have been set the challenge to find out about both the physical and human geographical features of this region as well as their culture and how it is similar and different to our own.’ Abigail

English – Shadow of the Minotaur
‘In ‘Shadow of the Minotaur’ Phoenix and Laura have faced the Graeae and are about to face the snake haired Gorgons, Stheno, Euryale and the only mortal sister Medussa! Is this real or is it just a game?’ Phoebe

For Year 6 – 18/19 flickr album, please click here

GAP Club

This week in GAP Club the girls have made puppets using different media. The girls then had fun making shows with their puppets using the puppet theatre. Some of the older girls have started to make recyclable beads, ready to make a bracelet. 2 girls have shared their highlight of the week:

‘Making the holding hands puppet and singing the song.’ Asmi, Year 1

‘Putting the music on.’ Maisha, Nursery

For GAP Club – 18/19 flickr album, please click here.

Science Week

This year for British Science week the theme was journeys, a brilliant broard theme for all to get involved in and enjoy.  The week started with an assembly in the Senior School led by Mrs Hodgetts-Tate, which described her journey from Nursery to teaching at the High School today. Lots of very cute baby pictures featured, alongside the message that your journey will take many twists and turns and that change in your journey is ok.

All through the week, both in Senior and Junior School, there have been lots of Science lessons in addition to the normal Science curriculum. In Nursery, girls read the Hungry Caterpillar book with Mrs Waters, and then painted with fruit and vegetables the journey that the caterpillar took from caterpillar to beautiful butterfly. Reception also read the Hungry Caterpillar, and used their maths skills to safely chop fruit in halves to then make their painted journey from caterpillar to Butterfly. Mrs H-T had a great time making her fruit stamp journey with the girls.

Year 1 and 2 girls learned about the story of Bart and Biff, who couldn’t be seen on their way home from school so had to make themselves some reflective t-shirts. Mr Rickman even got involved making his very own t-shirt for Bart! The girls thoroughly enjoyed this activity and got to take their t-shirts home with them too.

Year 3 and 4 students got to experiment with the journey of liquids and they, along with Mrs Dadge, Mrs Taylor and Mrs H-T had a great time planning their practical, making a prediction and timing the gloopiness of the different liquids.

Year 5 studied rockets and lunar rovers. The students, along with Mrs Shaw, Mrs Brandon-Jones and Mrs H-T were based in the Junior School science lab and made alkaseltzer rockets and little mars landers.  The girls had a blast with the alkaseltzer rockets and learned all about the importance of effervescence in the journey to the moon. The Lunar landers the girls made were fantastic and I am sure NASA will be getting in touch soon to see their plans!

Year 6 studied the journey of electricity and electrical circuits made from salt dough, and made little portable burgular alarms to stop Mrs Fordham stealing their chocolate!  The girls also made a fantastic display on the journey of electrical signals through the brain and modelled neurons, my favourite one being the one made from sweets!

We rounded off the week in Senior School with a guest appearance in assembly from Dmitri Mendeleev riding his bike around the assembly hall.  Maybe the link was tenuous, but the image is memorable.

We have had an excellent week of extra Science and fantastic opportunities for the students at Northampton High School to start or continue their STEM journey. I would like to thank everyone involved, especially Mr Turney, Mrs Hayden and Mrs Burgess-Wilson my technician team who have helped me get everything ready for this very busy week.

To view a host of photos from Science Week, please click here

Mrs Hodgetts-Tate (aka Mendeleev)
Head of Science