Snow report ⛷️
The GDST Junior Ski Tour - a joint venture with our sister schools in Norwich, Northwood and Kensington - is now in its fifth successful year and continues to offers girls in Years k5 and 6 opportunities to learn to ski for the first time, or develop their technique - all whilst making new friends.
This year, we flew to Milan for five days of ski lessons on the beautiful slopes of Aprica in Lombardy. All of the girls have impressed the instructors with their commitment to work hard and improvement. Evenings have seen après-ski activities including a disco, talent show, awards and ice-breaker games. Huge thanks go to Mrs Fowler, Miss Abbott, Miss Morley and Miss Wall for leading the tour and for taking such great care of the girls.
EASY AS PIE? 🥧
Mr Elkington says, "Definitely not!"
Oh my! Over twenty girls from Years 1 to 6 (including some overseas entrants from the Italian pistes!) entered this year's Pi Day competition.
I am delighted to announce that the winner of the NGHS Juniors Pi Day Trophy - having memorised a whopping 208 digits - is Elsie from Year 6. Well done to runners up Ruqaya and Maya M too, as well as Minty from Year 1 who as well as being our youngest ever entrant, very nearly beat last year's winner! This was a great opportunity for girls to showcase RESILIENCE and their revision skills, recalling as many digits of Pi as possible. Well done to everyone who took part, including Mr Robertson - our oldest ever contestant!
British Science Week 2025 🥼
Mrs Garton
What a busy start to the week we had! Monday's whole-school science morning had a theme of 'change and adapt', which provided girls with great opportunities to collaborate in their school houses, suppoted by excellent role modelling from our oldest pupils.
In the Hall, Mr Elkington, Elsie and Harriet delivered a deep sea yoga discovery experience. This was a relaxing and enjoyable session - an educational game that combined physical movement whilst learning about marine life adaptations.
In Upnah Gym, Mr Ashdown hosted a session on adapting games for different needs; this provided opportunities to consider how games can be changed to include disabled children. The girls learnt about the effects of limited vision and other impairments, and designed games that promoted accessibility for all.
Visits to the Senior School Biology Department and Junior School Library were also very well received. These sessions involved meeting giant African snails, a hamster and a bearded dragon, and there were also close encounters with stick insects. Well done to everyone who took part in the observational drawing and research activities, and thank you to the Year 6 pupils who were so efficient at measuring everyone for our height survey - the results of which were announced by our Assembly Team on Friday.
Later in the week, Year 6 conducted science investigations to see how air resistance is affected by the surface area and shape of moving objects. This involved creating a FAIR TEST, making parachutes and varying their canopy sizes to see how this changed the speed of descent. Having used stopwatches to record their results, the girls' conclusions were unanimous - always choose the biggest parachute, unless you want to plummet!
POSTER COMPETITION UPDATE
(Open to all year groups)
It's been lovely seeing so many entries for the annual British Science Week poster competition, and from such a wide range of age groups! Well done to those girls whose entries stood out for their creativity in approach, content and clarity, and engagement.
Ariya Johal, Nursery
Penelope Takhar, Reception
Emily Dewar, Year 3
Si-Rae Jiang, Year 5
SPECIAL CATEGORY COMPETITION UPDATE
(Open to Years 3-6)
Well done to Jasmine from Year 5 who has come up with an idea to improve indoor air quality!
We loved the super clear diagram and carefully worded explanations, and the clever idea of positioning the device close to a door.
Jasmine also featured in Friday's SCIENCE WEEK assembly, when she and Mr Cox updated everyone on the recent GDST Science Conference. They shared photos of our Year 5 delegates' practical tasks at London's Royal Institution, including a DNA extraction in the L'Oréal Laboratory and a physics workshop on crash tests. The NGHS Juniors winning car withstood the impact so well that its chocolate egg passenger remained un-cracked and in one piece!
Reinforcing the car's passenger compartment with cardboard and belting in its passenger with Sellotape.
Post-crash, the judge asked Jasmine and her team if they'd strengthened their modified car with concrete!
It's okay to be knotty!
Miss Whitehead
Wow, 6B and 6C - you really impressed me with your CREATIVITY and RESILIENCE in this week's Outdoor Learning lesson. I challenged you to apply what you're learnt recently about upcycling materials and the art of tying knots, and your homemade swings and 'zip wires' were an absolute triumph!
Coming soon to Year 5 ...
Mrs Crawshaw, Mr Cox, Mrs Astill, Miss Abbott
Every NGHS Juniors study visit and field trip is carefully curated to maximise learning opportunities, building on what girls experience in school and providing them with memorable opportunities to consolidate their learning, widen their friendship groups and develop the resilience to spend one or two nights away from home.
We are very much looking forward to hosting June's Year 5 three-day visit to the Whitby area, which will have a packed program linked tightly to the girls' current and future topics:
Exploring settings from books by Bram Stoker, Robert Swindells and Holly Webb - all of which will be studied in the Summer Term (English).
Learning how communities seek to protect themselves from the ravages of the sea (human geography).
Investigating rockpool habitats and coastal erosion (physical geography).
OS map reading along the Cleveland Way between Boggle Hole and Robin Hood's Bay (geography and outdoor learning).
Recapping what life was like during the war years of 1939-1945 at Eden Camp (history).
Below: The three texts which Year 5 will study in class or at home during the Summer Term, all of which have connections with Whitby
PLEASE HELP US TO HELP OTHERS!
We're collecting 5p pieces for the RNLI, which we'll present to the Whitby Lifeboat Station on our field trip in mid-June. If you have any spare 5p pieces, please will you consider helping us to fill our red welly and collection jars? Thank you!
The Year 5 girls
Success in the saddle 🐎
Congratulations to Tilly from 6C who - along with her sister Natasha (Y10) and Izzy (Y8) - recently rode the County Prelim Dressage qualifiers for NSEA Hickstead, finishing with a team FIRST, giving the NGHS team another County Championship title and a chance at the national championships in May. Well ridden, girls!
