The Sugar Plum Fairy visits NHP
The children in the Lower School enjoyed a visit from the Sugar Plum Fairy on Monday. They watched quite entranced as she danced a ballet solo up on her pointe shoes. Then, she taught them a dance from The Land of Sweets, which they performed with great confidence. Wonderful dancing, Lower School!
Read MoreChristmas Book Drive for Oxford Gardens Primary
In true NHP style, our parents came out in full force to support our annual Christmas Book Drive as part of the NHP Foundation’s Radius Programme. This year, we were collecting books for the children at Oxford Gardens Primary School. Thanks to the generosity of our parents, each one of their 302 pupils from Nursery to Year 6 received an age-appropriate, wrapped book, in time for Christmas. And to top it all off, Santa made a special stop-off at the school to hand the books out to the children, with the help of three very important NHP Pupil Leadership Team elves: Ludo, Shiden and Louis.
A special thank you to NHP parent Jo Benians for once again so successfully leading the drive for the second year in a row, certainly no small feat. And for the support from our Heads of the PA, Susie Comish and Lauren Jarrett, NHP Librarian Arabella Chase and Head of the Foundation, Kirsty Murdoch.
Read MoreSpreading Literary Christmas Cheer!
Inspired by the holiday-themed towns in Tim Burton’s ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’, 7KP have been writing richly descriptive pieces of work on the theme of ‘Christmas Town’. Their stories were written to interest and delight Year 3 pupils, and on Tuesday they had the opportunity to share their stories with 3K and 3E. They had a rapt audience, and Year 3 asked some very insightful questions. One pupil commented ‘I hope I can write like that when I’m in Year 7’! 7KP were fantastic role models throughout.
5JW have also created work for other year groups this week, rehearsing and recording an audio book version of Dr Suess’s ‘The Grinch Who Stole Christmas’ for pupils in the Lower School. They have been learning about the work of Foley artists, and made some of their own effects to accompany the recording. Many a brave understudy was called upon on our recording day: pupils were thinking flexibly and read unseen passages with bravery and panache. Lower School pupils and teachers have enjoyed listening to 5JW’s expressive poetry in their classes this week; it has certainly spread some Christmas cheer.
Read MoreNHP Christmas Fair!
On Saturday, our wonderful Parents’ Association transformed NHP into a Winter Wonderland for our first Christmas fair since the pandemic! All items from the stalls and activities went directly to the NHP Foundation, raising a huge £9,070.
The organising team of Evie B, Lisette VP, Clodagh B, Lauren J, Susie C, Elizabeth C, Delphine R, Deborah B, Mariya J, Jilly P and Taryn B were completely amazing and worked like Santa’s own elves to weave magic and possibly a little mayhem around the JCB – it was indeed a spectacular event.
Huge thanks from everyone at NHP for the PA’s hard work in the lead up to the actual event, and on the day itself, to make it such a great success and thanks too, to our very own Mr Gee, Gaggi and Mr Thomas for all the support they gave last weekend.
Year 3’s Whipsnade Zoo Trip
Our Year 3s had a blast today at Whipsnade Zoo. They discovered more about how to conserve the habitat of their favourite animals and the importance of environmental awareness.
NHCCC debut performance!
The Notting Hill Children’s Community Choir (NHCCC), the NHP Foundation’s choir, made their debut public performance on Sunday 27th November at the Music House for Children Carols by Candlelight concert at Bush Hall. It was a fantastically festive evening full of carols, Christmas cheer and a special appearance from Santa himself. The choir, made up of 7 local primary schools (including NHP), were an absolute highlight of the show, demonstrating how hard they have worked over the past term with an incredible performance full of fun and enthusiasm to a packed audience.
Watch a video of their performance
Photo credits: Doris Heinrich
Read MoreTommy’s Carol Concert
Our senior choir were amazing at Tommy’s Carol Concert on Tuesday night! They performed two pieces Jubilate Deo by Jay Althouse and Cantamos by James Desjardins. They sang beautifully, from the heart, with passion and joy and big smiles on their faces. It was impossible not to be utterly charmed by them!
The concert was filled with fun activities for the children, from decorating Christmas trees to popping bubbles from Santa’s elves. Whilst having all this fun they also helped raise £21,000 for Tommy’s, funds will go towards vital research making a huge difference to babies who have a tough start in life. We can’t tell you how proud we were to see the choir singing their hearts out and not only delighting the audience but clearly having huge fun on stage. The children particularly enjoyed the little baby who crawled towards them before they sang. He was clearly having a great adventure exploring the church and our children appreciate adventures!
Congratulations to Senior Choir and to the wonderful Tommy’s Team led by Marina Fogle and Laura Montgomery who looked after us so well and provided us with a magical night!
Read MoreYear 3’s Pantomime
On Wednesday, we kicked off our in-house Christmas performances in style with Y3’s Pantoland – a mash-up of different pantos and eclectic music choices. The children rapped and danced with rhythm to ‘Ice, Ice Baby’ – from memory, a first at NHP – and sang Christmas hits from years gone by with style and panache.
Audience participation was actively encouraged and good fun was had by all. Thank you to Paige and the Huzzah Drama team for writing and co-ordinating it all, to Mrs Chambers and Alvaro for their marvellous musical accompaniments and to our incredible Year 3 team, Gaggi and the gappies for all their hard work behind the scenes to make it such a great success.
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