5 December 2025
5 December 2025
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In it to win it!
In it to win it!
Mrs Fowler
Lyla, Nursery
Isobel, Year 6
The GDST annual Christmas Card Competition is always eagerly anticipated by our school community. This year was no exception, with many girls of all ages entering their creative designs. Every submission was showcased in our ‘assembly art gallery’ on Wednesday morning, when I announced a winning design for each year group. Congratulations went to:
Lyla Wright - Nursery
Rosa Panto - Reception
Penelope-Rose Takhar - Year 1
Minty Palmer-Parkin - Year 2
Emily O’Donoghue - Year 3
Holly Westwell - Year 4
Daphne Coldrick & Imogen Robertson - Year 5
Charlotte Chen & Isobel Dewar - Year 6
I also had the pleasure of revealing that Lyla Wright and Isobel Dewar's entries made the shortlist for the final round of GDST winners across our family of 26 schools - well done, girls!
** BREAKING NEWS **
Lyla Wright's design has been selected as the GDST's NATIONAL WINNER for EYFS and Key Stage 1.
What an amazing achievement, Lyla - we hope you enjoy spending your well-earned book tokens!
Below: Just a few examples of this year's entries
Sports Report 🏊 🏑
Sports Report 🏊 🏑
Miss Abbott
Girls in Years 3 to 5 will by now have started working on their Fitness Advent Calendars (below left) to complete over the course of December, including during the Christmas break! Each day has a different exercise and once completed, the star can be coloured in along with the figures. We hope parents and siblings will join in with this endeavour to make it a family affair - feel free to email pictures to j.abbott@not.gdst.net, or post them on Instagram tagging @nghspedept. I look forward to seeing everyone's colourful calendars returned in the New Year, with house points awarded for the best efforts.
Year 6 have in turn created their own 12 Days of Christmas cumulative Advent challenge (below right) to complete outside of school, with exercises to suit their individual sports. They complete their first exercise on Day 1, their first and second on Day 2, and so on until Day 12 when they have to complete all twelve exercises - certainly a tall order, but for less than a fortnight! I look forward to seeing the completed sheets, hopefully shaded to look like a Christmas tree.
Years 3-5
Year 6
This Wednesday saw our U11 hockey and U10 netball teams play our sister school, Sheffield Girls'. RESILIENCE and POSITIVITY were showcased as the girls gave their all and battled hard to produce positive results. Alas, our hockey players succumbed to a 0-3 defeat, whilst our netballers lost 1-6. Better luck next time, NGHS Juniors - you learnt lots about match play and will be ready to face Sheffield again in the new year!
Our sporting week was rounded off with the Year 5-6 inter-House swimming gala. Some excellent work resulted in LUXTON being crowned champions, and several school records being broken. Well done also to Gabi Hayes who beat Mr Scarborough into second position when he challenged Year 6 Leander Club swimmers to a 50m freestyle!
Above and right: LUXTON won by a country mile!
** NEW RECORDS 2025 **
Year 5 25m backstroke - Emily Walsh (Luxton) 22:03
Years 5-6 50m front crawl - Gabi Hayes (Skeel) 36:34
Years 5-6 50m breaststroke - Hattie Buxey (Luxton) 52:28
MUSICAL NOTES 🎵
MUSICAL NOTES 🎵
Mr Rolfe
As we head into the festive season, I am delighted to remind you of the plans for our most wonderful night of the year - the NGHS Juniors annual Winter Lights Concert for Years 3-6, which will take place in The SPACE next week!
Wednesday 10th December
Doors open 5pm
Curtains up 5.30pm
Pupil dress code: Smart and the colour code is strictly all black with red and/or silver accessories (no hoodies, trainers or jeans please)
Expected finish time: 7.15pm
All Year 3-6 pupils are expected to attend; girls should bring their evening outfits to school in the morning, unless they are going home at 3.40pm to change. Instruments and music should also be in school on Wednesday.
Above: This cherished annual celebration is a showcase for exceptional musicianship
In addition to the lead-up to Christmas, our diary is fast filling up for 2026 - so I encourage families to note some important dates for the Spring Term! Upcoming events include a brand-new opportunity for our Music Ambassadors and Ukuladies to shine and extend their performance repertoires:
As always, we are very grateful for the steadfast support of our girls' families; their encouragement enables us to continue striving for excellence, innovating and championing exciting opportunities for young musicians and singers.
News from Central Casting! ❄️
News from Central Casting! ❄️
Mrs Fowler
After much hard work and commitment to auditions, girls from Year 6 have now been cast for roles for their final Junior School production in May - a stage version of Disney's Frozen. Our young actors now have an exciting journey ahead of them, navigating rehearsals and working as a team to create another stunning musical for our whole School community to enjoy in the Squire Performing Arts Centre. Year 5 will support the musical, in preparation for taking centre stage when their turn comes next year.
With Mrs McDowell as stage director and Mr Rolfe as musical director, 6B and 6W are in exceptional hands; they will certainly learn a lot during their performing arts lessons, putting into practice all of their previous learning.
Looking ahead, musical and dramatic productions continue in Senior School, where the girls will enjoy further opportunities to audition and commit to rehearsals - often with girls from different year groups. Such collaborative experiences create life-long memories, forge firm friendships and widen horizons.
Of course, students also learn to manage disappointment and develop resilience when they are not cast in the roles that they had hoped for - these are an important lessons for life, and we are proud of how our girls grow from these experiences and support each other along the way.
It's home time! 🛋️
It's home time! 🛋️
Miss Spray
Thank you to everyone who donated items for our upcycling project to rejuvenate Reception's 'home corner', the setting in which girls enjoy role play with the help of objects from everyday life. Interaction and cooperation in a realistic environment helps young children to develop skills and increase confidence in key areas such as dexterity, creativity, personal independence and empathy.
As you can see, the girls are already enjoying acting out their stories and experiences, widening their vocabulary and practising positive behaviours such as sharing and collaboration.
Keeping the home corner up-to-date and stimulating is an ongoing exercise, so please do email r.spray2@not.gdst.net if you have household objects or utensils that might be suitable.
Finding her Voice
Finding her Voice
Mrs Fowler
Finding her Voice shines a spotlight on the achievements of our girls beyond the classroom - moments where they’ve taken the skills, values and confidence nurtured at school and applied them in exciting, real-world ways, and then shared those high points with their classmates.
Three cheers for Kiya!
This week, we congratulate Kiya from 2C who started her cheerleading journey in September, and who recently took to the stage with her team mates ahead of their first competition. Kiya has since enjoyed sharing this experience with Mrs Crabtree and her class, describing her newly-acquired skills and demonstrating how RESILIENCE and POSITIVITY are vital in this hobby.
The spice of life 🔥
The spice of life 🔥
Mrs Crawshaw
Year 5 have recently been learning about the surge in exploration that took place during the Elizabethan Golden Age - largely due to improved navigation techniques, a desire to trade, and English ambitions to weaken Spain's growing empire. During the 1500s, the Tudor diet became much more varied with the arrival of the humble potato, tomatoes and green carrots, not to mention the increased availability of spices from Africa and Asia.
What better way to celebrate the joys of ginger and cinnamon, than making our own gingerbread? And we even recapped irreversible chemical changes from our recent Science lessons by baking our creations in Upnah Wood's outdoor oven!
Forensic reading 🔎
Forensic reading 🔎
Religious Education in Years 5 and 6
Mr Cox
Our eldest pupils have recently been casting a critical eye over elements of the Christian Bible which feature in children's classics and age old stories.
Year 5 - applying their knowledge of Venn diagrams to sort comparisons and contrasts - recently read the accounts of the Nativity story as retold in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke. This was a very interesting exercise, as they collaborated to become 'experts' in one version and then explained their findings to a partner who had studied another. Having articulated and recorded the similarities and differences, they were then able to identify other components from the modern day Nativity which appear in neither of these Gospels, such as camels for the magi and a donkey for Mary:
Above: Well done to Florence Best
Year 6 have also been exploring the Bible in RE lessons, however their studies have focused on the Old Testament books of Genesis: 1 and Genesis: 2 - the Creation Story and the placement of the first humans in the Garden of Eden. As well as providing an overview of the beliefs enshrined in Christian scripture, this has helped to deepen the girls' understanding of their set text in English lessons - The Magician's Nephew by CS Lewis. In these recent lessons, I am delighted to say that 6B and 6W have demonstrated a real knack for explaining the themes to be found in this introduction to The Chronicles of Narnia, as well as evidence of the author's own religious beliefs and childhood experiences:
Above: Well done to Emily Bloch
Above: Witnessing the creation of Narnia by Aslan
Below: Jadis, the embodiment of evil who supports the ideas of a master race and enslavement
Above: Forbidden fruit and temptation - Digory is warned by Aslan NOT to eat the apple
🍜 Nourishing Notts 🍽️
🍜 Nourishing Notts 🍽️
Amelia, Rachel, Zuva, Lucinda, Rosie, Faith, Ruslana, Vedanshi, Sameen, Ruby - Year 12
We are a group of Year 12 students - many of us Junior School alumnae - who have entered a GDST young enterprise competition. Our fledgling business, Nourishing Notts, sets out to create a cookbook of accessible and affordable recipes for families.
Please support us by entering our competition, which costs just 50p. We are looking for family-friendly recipes from all cultures that are nutritious, economical and simple to make. Winning submissions will feature in the book, with the option to have your photo and/or name alongside your recipe.
Profits will go to The Hope Centre, a local charity that supports vulnerable and disadvantaged people.
THANK YOU
Plan ahead and save £££
Plan ahead and save £££
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