European Languages Day An explosion of colour was seen in the Senior School when our Years 5 & 6, representing five different European countries, took part in a carousel of language and culture. Well done to 5S for collecting the most euros and to 6B for the best dressed table (Greece). Australian Visitors Coach our Year 5 and 6 Netball A wonderful afternoon of coaching and games was enjoyed by all girls in Years 5 and 6 when a talented team of Australian netballers arrived to play against our Senior Netball Team. The Cathedral School have enjoyed a UK Tour playing Netball against other schools and we certainly enjoyed hosting them on the last leg of their tour.
Building Learning Power & Our Recipe for Success Our Recipe for Success is now embedded into our School ethos and our language for learning. The six ingredients aim to ensure that girls focus explicitly on developing these attributes during learning at school and at home. We are still awaiting our newly designed certificates but the girls have been demonstrating the ingredients throughout the school day and receiving verbal recognition from teachers. Junior Chess Club Chess Club is now in full swing, with girls from Years 3 to 6 receiving weekly coaching on Thursdays and Fridays. Beginners will start in January. Attendance and commitment have been excellent - well done especially to those girls who have juggled two clubs at lunchtime! Our first match of the new season in the Nottingham East League was a resounding success. With particular thanks to Myesha Hussain (her first time playing for NGHS), congratulations are due to our A Team who won the match with 20.5 points, beating Round Hill and Old Basford on 16 and 10.5 points respectively - a decisive victory! Cross Country On Thursday 5 October, three teams of four, made up of Year 5 and 6, went to Colwick Park for a cross country event where they competed against 27 teams from other schools. Each participant ran approximately 1200m around a lake in the park, with four laps completing the race. The girls were exceptionally resilient and determined throughout, finishing 7th, 9th and 12th; we’re very proud of their achievement! Congratulations to: Noor AlQamachi, Amelia Brierley, Amélie Callaghan, Robin Edmonds, Dixie Glass, Isabella Higton, Priya Mann, Penelope Parsons, Nancy Penn, Loveen Singh, Amelia Thompson, Ella Varcoe. GDST Maths Quiz — Oxford University The Year 6 girls taking part in the GDST Maths Quiz at Oxford University showed all the ingredients of our Recipe throughout the day. They particularly enjoyed the code breaking work and learnt about many different kinds of codes – parents be warned! They were taught about ‘keys’ used for deciphering bank details. The afternoon quiz was a real challenge, but they all rose to the occasion and showed great teamwork. Well done, you were a delight to be with.
Harvest Harmony Thank you for the amazing response to our ‘Disco Soup’ campaign. The amount of donated vegetables for this cause was truly amazing. Every class enjoyed peeling and chopping the vegetables whilst ‘bopping’ to music and then delivering their efforts to our team of school chefs to turn into delicious soup for our charitable cause this year. In partnership with The Bakehouse, Sherwood we will be supporting the work of The Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Refugee Forum. The girls’ nonuniform donations, sales of soup and the soup itself will all be donated to this local cause. Update - £444 raised!
Windblowers Inter-House Music Competition On a Tuesday afternoon in October over forty girls from Years 5 and 6 competed in the first round in front of three judges. The standard of musicality was even higher this year and all girls performed to an excellent standard, making it exceptionally difficult for the judges to decide on the finalists. It is experiences such as these in school which really help the girls to build their learning power and develop key ingredients from our Recipe of Success, such as resilience and positivity. Year 5 Visit to The Lowry, Salford Our Year 5 girls acquitted themselves on Tuesday when they displayed beautiful manners, showed off their knowledge about the life and work of a major British artist, and participated enthusiastically in portraiture workshops. Seeing the works of LS Lowry at such close quarters really helped the girls to study his painting techniques and colour palette in detail, and it was fabulous to see them applying what they learnt about facial proportions in their own Lowry-esque pictures. Well done, Year 5 - and a huge ‘thank you’ to Mrs Maxwell and Dr Bisset for giving up a whole day to help out!
Year 5 - Back to the Fifties What a busy week! In History and English, Year 5 are learning about the changing roles and opportunities for women since the end of the Second World War. There was 1950s Day - a chance for the girls to create vintage style adverts, demonstrating their knowledge of technological progress and often capturing the irony and sexism implicit in the concept of the ‘perfect housewife’. They then enjoyed an afternoon tea dance, complete with cucumber sandwiches and 50s style table manners! The icing on the cake was some super writing, showing in-depth understanding of the resilience, positivity and fairness required to combat gender stereotyping. Well done for being such good eggs, girls!
Visit from children ‘s author, Ali Sparkes Girls from Years 3 to 6 enjoyed an inspiring and often hilarious talk by the prize-winning author, Ali Sparkes. The ‘Space’ provided the perfect backdrop for Ali’s presentation, which included lots of audience participation, learning what inspired her to write creatively from an early age and a chance for our girls to ask probing questions. Ali really enjoyed meeting the many NGHS girls who queued patiently to purchase one of her books or for an autograph. In the afternoon, Year 5 were treated to a 1950s masterclass - a perfect opportunity for them to find out about the real-life characters (e.g. Ali’s parents) and events underpinning the storyline of ‘Frozen in Time’. Well done on being such an appreciative audience, girls!
Year 4 visit to The Yorkshire Museum Girls from Year 4 participated in a range of exciting, hands-on Roman workshops with the curators at The Yorkshire Museum. This included learning about the ‘trebuchet’ (a fearsome catapult used by the Roman legions) and working in teams to create miniature working versions. Well done to those girls whose weapons managed to fire a projectile right across the workshop! There were also lots of opportunities to handle and interpret artefacts, try on replica centurion uniforms, play Roman games and march in battle formation. In all, it was a great day out and the curators were impressed with our girls’ subject knowledge and enthusiasm well done, Year 4!
Year 5 & 6 workshop and performance with the Young Shakespeare Company Nearly one hundred of our girls took part in a rip-roaring performance of MacBeth, working confidently and enthusiastically with the actors of the Young Shakespeare Company. Fabulous explanations from the troupe ensured that everyone understood the Shakespearean language, and the girls really enjoyed seeing (and in some cases, wearing) the costumes. It was great to see our Year 5s and 6s working collaboratively and uninhibited, supporting one another and raising the roof with their cheers, war cries and sound effects - fabulous work, girls!
Children In Need Children in Need is the BBC’s flagship UK charity. Since 1980, it has raised over £600 million for disabled children and young people, largely with the help of its annual telethon. This year’s ‘Pudsey Bear’ appeal has once again also been boosted by the efforts of our enthusiastic School Council representatives who did such a great job at whipping up support from their classmates for Friday’s fundraising. It was lovely to see girls from all year groups dressing up and participating in the activities, and our thanks go to those Year 5 parents and pupils who kindly baked and donated cakes to sell. Overall, the Junior School has raised an impressive £553.57 - well done, girls! Your money is going to a wonderful cause, helping young people who will be very grateful for your generosity.
Windblowers House Music Competition 2017 – better than ever ! This year’s finalists performed to an even higher standard in ‘The Space’ to an audience of parents, staff and visitors. The girls all demonstrated huge positivity and excellence throughout the evening and we’d like to congratulate all of the winners.
Year 6 trip to Harry Potter World Dragon Alley and the Forbidden Forest were just a couple of the film sets our Year 6 girls experienced on their trip to Harry Potter Studios. It was a magical experience which brought to life the scenes and characters we have been learning about in English. Our girls were also excited to learn about the world of special effects and acting: riding a broomstick in Quidditch, learning wand choreography and acting in front of cameras to show dementors were boarding the Hogwarts Express. A truly amazing day!
Year 5 Introduction to Yoga Year 5 enjoyed the first of three introductory yoga sessions in November. Whilst this fits well with their current Buddhism topic in RE, it also underlines our commitment to providing our girls with opportunities to explore ways of maintaining and improving their mental and physical wellbeing, whilst normalising the stresses and strains of everyday life. Our instructor, Chanel Hemley from Inspired Wellbeing, was very impressed with the girls’ concentration, dexterity and eagerness to learn - well done, Year 5!
Year 3 Victorian Music Hall Year 3 did an amazing job when they performed their Victorian Music Hall to the School followed by a performance in front of their parents in the evening in The Space. They worked so hard on their singing, dancing, comedy and magic, and we are very proud of them. The highlight was of course the amazing Can-Can!
christmas
Christmas at the Junior School is always incredible, and this year was no exception. So many wonderful concerts and performances, from charity busking, to church concerts, to the EYFS nativity ‘Whoops-a-Daisy-Angel’ and the Year 2 nativity ‘Children of the World’ and of course the Winter Lights concert. Always such a special way to end the year and wish everybody a very Happy Christmas.