Nottingham High Junior School Head's Blog

We often have many impressive visitors into school on a regular basis and this week proved to be no exception!

Yesterday (Thursday) marked a first for me at the Junior School. Our Eco council have tried to attract wildlife into the School grounds with their eco–garden and nesting boxes. I have personally seen squirrels, magpies, pigeons and sparrows in abundance, but never a pheasant!

I took this picture of Felix, our neighbourhood pheasant, perched on the playground wall next to the tram stop. Let’s hope he copes well with the recent cold spell!

The cold spell has played havoc with our games sessions, rugby fixtures and cross country event at Wollaton Park (rescheduled for Monday 26^th March-tbc). Having said this, we have managed to keep our boys active, particularly as they have been working really hard during our assessment week.

Please do take the time to see how successful the Ceilidh taster session was last Friday with our Junior boys in the video below. The best bit is 7 mins 10 sec into the video-WELL WORTH A LOOK!

I was also delighted to have James come to see me with his wonderful artwork. James was inspired by the beautiful sunrise on his journey to NHJS the other morning and decided to paint it during his art lesson. Well done James-a fine example of aerial perspective!

Finally, before we celebrate the achievements of our boys, may I take this opportunity to wish you all a relaxing and enjoyable half term!

Achievement Assembly:

Reading Awards:

Well done to Josh and Ismail on receiving their 50 reading point certificates and Jack for his £10 book token – 400 reading points!

As our boys are avid readers, we have run out of bookmarks, so as a half term homework activity, the boys have been set the task of designing a new bookmark for the Junior School. Please see PlannerLive for further details. Good luck one and all!

Mathematics:

The following boys were presented with their mathematics certificates. Well done on learning your tables boys!

Bravo to William who received a certificate from his tennis club for extra effort. Keep up the hard work William!

Olympic Award:

Thomas was immense in the Year 3 Tag Rugby – joint top try scorer, never grumbled once despite the cold and feeling some injustices in decisions. A top, top attitude and never gave up even when everyone was cold and deflated in the final match. Congratulations Thomas!

Oliver, Matthew and Oliver all received their bronze awards for 300 housepoints and Adi received his silver award for 500 housepoints.

Student of the week:

Will for coping admirably throughout assessment week with his arm in plaster!

Sporting Results:

Our C & D chess teams have been in action last night in the Nottinghamshire B Team League.

Here are the results hot off the press:

1st Place NHJS D (15.5 points)

2nd Place NHJS C (14 points)

3rd Jesse Gray B (12 points)

4th Abbey Road (11 points)

5th Jesse Gray A (7.5 points)

Congratulations to all who took part. It was a very successful evening. Well done.

We were delighted to have Mr Fear, Senior School Headmaster present our awards and certificates during our achievement assembly this week.

Mr Fear announced the fantastic news at the end of proceedings that all of our Year 6 boys passed the Senior School entrance examination-congratulations boys!

Mr Fear also announced that the following seven boys had achieved academic scholarships: Sahrin, Sacheth, Ben, Oliver, Jithin, Hari and Bilal.

A special mention must of course go to all the teachers who helped our boys achieve exceptional results this year-thank you one and all.

The following boys received reading certificates and a book token:

Well done to the following boys in receiving their various mathematics certificates:

This week also marked the first batch of boys to achieve the coveted Golden Mathletics Certificates-well done boys. I’m sure Mr Fear was very impressed!

Oliver received the Olympic Award this week for being the Year 5 man of the tournament at Bradford:

The Student of the Week was Skye, for his authentic Spanish Armada diary:

Sporting Achievements:

Bradford Rugby Tournament:

Commiserations go to our boys who came away from the tournament empty handed, but nonetheless in good spirits!

Year 3-Played 4, drew 1 and lost 3

Year 4-Played 4, won 1, drew 1 and lost 2

Year 5-Played 4, lost 4

Year 6-Played 4, lost 4

Mrs Whittamore’s Report from the IAPS Swimming regional rounds held at Leicester:

On Wednesday 1^st February, I was proud to take four under 11 swimmers and five under 10 swimmers to the regional rounds of a national swimming competition for independent schools. This was held at Leicester Grammar school.

The boys were very excited about participating and even more so when it was announced that 4,500 swimmers take part in the national IAPS competition (not all at once!!)-that’s 300 schools which take part in 35 regional rounds up and down the country between January and March.

The boys knew it was all to swim for-similar to time trials for a huge competition. There were seven schools at the Leicester regional round-The Elms, Birkdale, Stamford, Brook, Foremarke, Fairfield and us, making for a super atmosphere.

The gala commenced with the Freestyle relay teams in which our u10s came second with a time of 1.14.82 and then the u11s came storming into first place with a time of 1.09.44. Next it was the individuals-

Name                                     Event                         Time                           Position in heat

The gala then finished with the Medley relays-our U10 team came 3^rd with a time of 1.34.23 and the U11s came 1^st with a super time of 1.24.54.

The boys have enjoyed a slightly shorter week with our Entrance Examinations for the Senior School (Year 7) on Saturday and Junior School (Year 3-6) on Monday. Nevertheless, we have managed to pack quite a lot into a relatively short period of time!

The following boys received reading certificates, book marks and a book token to reward their endeavours in the world of fiction and non-fiction:

Well done to the following boys in attaining their 12×12 certificates:

James received the Olympic Award this week for his creative
and enthusiastic approach in the recent ‘Movement to Music’ unit of work:

The Student of the Week was James, for an outstanding act of kindness:

Sporting Achievements:

Well done the  U9 & U11 Cross Country Teams who came first in each age range at the Highfields Autumn Cross-Country Meet!

Individual Results:

U9′s:

1st Sammy

5th Ben

6th Yousef

10th Oliver

15th Joshua

17th Harry

19th Alex

23rd Sam

U11 Individual Results

3rd Ralph Wills

5th Sebby Gould

7th Will

9th Theo

12th Ben

13th James

19th Max

20th James

And Finally…

As of 7:00AM (GMT) 20th January 2012, Bryony Balen became the youngest Britain to
ski to the Geographic South Pole from the Hercules Inlet! Overall Bryony and
the team have skied 1134.9km (705miles) over a period of 56 days. The journey
took her across the planets coldest continent, where temperatures reached as
low as -45°C (-49°F) and facing the daily struggle of high winds, white-outs,
sastrugi, and an almost permanent uphill climb!

In the last two days of the expedition the team trekked 67km, a
huge push to get there just a little sooner! Bryony slept after the long days (and nights)skiing, followed by a visit to the centre and the pole marker before heading back to
the Union Glacier Base (via aeroplane) at 4PM (GMT).

Naturally, she is ecstatic!

Congratulations Bryony and a big  thumbs up from all of our boys!

It was definitely a good decision to start our achievement assembly early this week as we had lots of boys up to the front to receive numerous awards!

Probably the most satisfying part was to see so many boys receiving their bronze certificates in attaining 300 housepoints thus far. Congratulations go to Ben (Ball’s House), who received his silver certificate for 500 housepoints.

Here are the photographs from the four Houses:

Ball’s House

Bronze Certificate Holders

Hardy’s House

Tonkin’s House

Trease’s House

Back into more familiar territory, here follows the review of today’s achievement assembly:

Student of the Week:

Dhruv who always has a positive outlook.

Eduardo for his excellent basketball skills.

The following boys received reading awards today:

Mathematics certificates were presented to the following boys:

Congratulations to Arjun, Will, Dan & Mr E who all received their ABSRM certificates.

(Mr E. is actually holding Skye’s certificate in his absence!)

Sporting Results

Wednesday 18th January-Swimming

Mrs Whittamore’s report:

On Wednesday 18^th January, 26 boys from Nottingham High Junior School travelled to Warwick Preparatory School for the first away fixture of the season. Boys had been selected from the Swimming Squad who meet every Tuesday and some (particularly Under 9s) were representing the school for the first time. The boys were restricted and could only swim in a maximum of two individual events and two relays. We knew the competition was going to be tough.

The gala commenced with the Freestyle relays and the u10s were the first team to get a win under their belts. Next came the individual events where each every boy swam superbly, many coming first and Ralph gained a personal best in 25m Butterfly with a time of 18.08.

Scores were announced half way through the gala: NHJS 96 Warwick 90, so everything to swim for! The gala finished off with Medley relays and a Canon relay which involved two swimmers from each age group in a 6x25m relay.  We knew it was going to be close; the final scores were: NHJS 177 Warwick 150-a superb win all round!

What was really noticeable was how strong the B and C team swimmers were-they were up there with the A team swimmers and made a huge difference to the scores-a fantastic team effort boys-well done!

Thankfully today’s Achievement Assembly proved that the boys had tried really hard to put our ‘can do’ theme into effect-despite the ominous date!

We had a lot to celebrate today, namely:

Student of the Week:

Rohan for being extremely kind and considerate.

Olympic Award:

Will for his contribution to all aspects of competitive sport at NHJS.

Mathematic Certificates were presented to the boys pictured below:

And finally, well done to the boys pictured below for their recent success in the ABRSM musical examinations:

Happy New Year!

The boys have made a terrific start to the new term and have settled well back into School.

It was a joy to see all of our boys safe and sound and to see how generous Father Christmas had been over the festive period. Having shown everyone Donovan’s new lightsabre I  showed a brief clip from the Empire Strikes Back to promote the concept of positive thinking!

As always , here is a brief resume of today’s achievement assembly:

Student of the Week:

Adam for being an excellent role model as Ball’s House Captain.

Ben for his contribution to cross country, namely training and turning up for every fixture, effort and loyalty.

The following boys received reading awards today:

Shivraj and Hassan were presented with mathematics certificates during our achievement assembly:

Congratulations to Gurvir and Sacheth on their selection for the U11 Nottinghamshire County Cricket Squad

This week, Mr Jones delivered the achievement assembly and gave out all the awards and certificates.

Student of the Week:

Hari for helping William learn his lines for the Year 4 play (Wind in the Willows) via Skype.

Student of the week

Olympic Award:

Harvey for scoring a hat-trick in each of the last two competitive matches.

Olympic Award

The following boys received reading certificates today:

The following boys were presented with various mathematics certificates during our achievement assembly:

Last week, Jithin, Will and Simon scored 100% in Mr Caldwell’s recent European Geography test of 51 countries and 51 capital cities and were presented with special certificates.

Sports Results from the previous week:

NHJS Autumn Term 2011 Friendly (as you can see by the smiles!) Chess Tournament:

Winner Ziyaad with 13 points, Second Aryan with 13 points and third Ben, with 12 points.

NHJS Autumn Term 2011 Problem Solving Tournament:

Winners Ben and PAtrick with 77 points with Sebby and Will in second place on 72 points.

Friday 2^nd December

U11A Football vs. Bentinck: Won 7-0

U11B Football vs.Salterford: Won 3-2

Student of the Week:

Ben for his exhilarating Winter House Story.

Ben

Olympic Award:

Kasim for his superb gymnastic display, being one of only five boys out of the Year 5 cohort, to score full marks in the recent assessment.

Kasim

The following boys received reading certificates today:

The following boys were presented with various mathematics certificates during our achievement assembly:

Last week, our Year 6 boys, along with some of Year 5’s took part in the Primary Math’s Challenge. The boys did exceptionally well and were presented with bronze, silver and gold certificates.

Bronze Certificates (16 & 17 out of 25)

Silver Certificates (18, 19 & 20 out of 25)

Gold Certificates (21 & 22 out of 25)

During this week, the boys were asked to create their own toy for the next Toy Story (4) movie. The winners from each form are pictured below:

Having created a new toy, the boys had to devise a story board, depicting the main parts from Toy Story 4. Well done to the boys pictured below:

Sports Results from the previous week:

Friday 25^th
November Football vs. The Elms

U11A: Won 3-3

U11B: Won 2-1

U10A: Lost 4-2

U10B: Won 2-1

U9: Lost 3-0

U8: Lost 1-0

Student of the Week:

George-for settling brilliantly into Year 5.

George

Olympic Award:

Dillon-for his performance during the Year 3 cross country trial

Dillon

The following boys were presented with various mathematics certificates during our achievement assembly:

 

And the following boys received reading certificates and book tokens:

Joseph, Reeshav, David & Joe

Sports Results from the previous week:

 

Friday 18th November-U11 Football vs. Bentinck: Drew 3-3

(Rematch Friday 2nd @ Valley Road, 2.30pm)

 

Monday 21st November-House Football: Winners Ball’s House

 

Wednesday 23rd November-U11 Football vs. Jesse Gray: Won 3-1

1st Round Robin NPS Chess Assoc. Autumn Term Competition

NHJS Chess A team

vs. NHJS B won 5.5-2.5

vs. Bramcote drew 4-4

vs. Round Hills won 7-1

vs. Fernwood won 6-2

1st place overall with 22.5 points

NHJS Chess B team

vs. NHJS A lost 2.5-5.5

vs. Fernwood lost 3.5-4.5

vs. Bramcote won 4.5-3.5

vs. Round Hills won 7-1

3rd place overall with 17.5 points

Today’s achievement assembly was a rather dotty affair as the Junior School boys all had to wear something spotty to support Children in Need-hence my tie! We managed to raise £190.30, but far more impressive was the overwhelming generosity of our boys, who brought in toys and games for The Arches Project.

The donated items pictured above will go to children from underpriviledged families in the local area at Christmas. To say a big THANK YOU to the boys, new playground equipment as well as ‘spotty cookies’ were given out at play time-YUM!

In terms of our achievement assembly, we had:

Student of the Week:

Thomas-for the extra research he put into his geography project based on volcanoes.

Olympic Award:

Harry-for his work in gymnastics and his superb preparations for the assessments next week.

Olympic award presented by Mr P Allison, HOD of PE & Games

Reading Awards:

Karam, Gabe & Neel