Last week Miss Marani welcomed two new colonies of honey bees delivered at crack of dawn from the New Forest. A special thank you to Kirsty Wright (mother of Wilf Yr8 and Bhodi Yr3) for the generous gift and to Simon of https://www.thenoblebee.com for showing us how to transfer them from their travelling ‘Nuc’ box to our hives.
The beekeeping club, and friends, has since been up to the JCB Roof terrace to check on the bees and we were very excited to spot the queen in the hive. She appears to be laying a lot of eggs and we hope that soon our colonies will grow and they will start to make enough honey for us to taste too!
Helpful hint when handling bees: Always remain calm and move slowly and gently when opening and closing a hive.
On the first day of the trip, our Year 7s demonstrated their resilience to make it to the summit of Moel Siabod in the glorious sunshine. The weather was roasting (as the photos demonstrate!) and the children had to persevere and push themselves to conquer the mountain which resulted in smiles all round!
On return to our base, we decided a dip in the lake was called for and highly deserved after their hard work. This was a fun and refreshing treat to celebrate the end of their walk and cool them down for their evening activity of orienteering.
Later on, half the group went to gorge scramble and the other half took part in paddle sports and wall climbing.
On Wednesday, we had another action packed day in sunny North Wales. Groups 1 and 2 got stuck into a full day of gorge scrambling, exploring local rivers and caves by getting waist deep in freezing water! They then completed the low ropes course in the afternoon developing their team work and communication through a series of fun group challenges.
Groups 3 and 4 spent the entire morning paddle boarding on the lake in glorious conditions followed by an afternoon climbing some incredibly challenging rock faces. The days excitement didn’t end there with both groups coming together to take part in an evening activity of abseiling before settling down to bed.
It was wonderful to see both groups impressing their instructors yesterday and receiving compliments on their positivity and willingness to give everything a go, even when feeling pretty exhausted after our mountain climb the day before!
Year 5 had a blast at the Forest of Dean this week. The children did a range of activities, from kayaking, learning about entomology through insect hunting in the woods, tree climbing, and much more.
Our team of Year 8 boys had a wonderful time representing NHP at the Victor Verborum inter-schools competition hosted by King’s House school in Richmond – a Latin vocabulary contest! The standard of competition was very high indeed – although our team didn’t win, it was a very exciting and thought-provoking event, and we are already looking forward to next year.
Ludo in Year 8 has written up a brilliant description of the day:
On Wednesday, four Year 8s – Majd, Cem, Wilf OC and I – us went to King’s House School for an inter-school Latin vocab competition. There were seven teams of four, from schools all across London, and we converged in the hall. There were 5 rounds. In the first round each person was picked individually to translate one Latin word into English. The second and the third rounds were buzzer rounds. In the second, we were asked to give words in certain cases, and persons, and in the third round, we had to find a word derivated from a Latin word. The fourth round was based around associating words together, based on case, number, or word type. This one was online. The last round was a round on Quizlet Live, and so we had to answer multiple choice questions on Latin words. This was split into two parts; in the first, we were in teams, so we were all given the same question, but only one of us had the answer, and the second, individual, so we all had to answer questions on our own. We had lunch after that. In the end, we came second-to-last. It was a bit disappointing, but we had a lot of fun, and the other teams were really good.
Tuesday evening marked our inaugural NHP Open Evening: hopefully the first of many in years to come! All three buildings came alive after hours and parents had the opportunity to explore the school (with a glass of wine!), chat to the teachers about life at NHP and get a taster for what their children experience every day.
A huge thank you to the children who acted as tour guides, our fabulous wandering musicians and the excellent Year 8 lab technicians. And, of course, a huge thank you to the staff who gave up their evening and spent time preparing their rooms and subject areas so that the parents could get such a stimulating, entertaining and authentic NHP experience.
Going on bikesDelicious smore making‘Hanging’ out in a treeEnjoying the sun and nature
The children had the greatest time at the weekend, with activities such as running wild in the forests of Sussex, building dens, competing in orienteering challenges and leadership games, getting competitive with tag archery and enjoying the glorious sunshine!
Creating pledges to the environmentNHP climate panelCreating trees with fallen leavesPlanting cress seedsBasic lunch to raise moneyGetting an ‘I walked to school’ stamp
This week (9th – 12th May), NHP have been celebrating our inaugural Climate Week. There has been an incredible array of activities for the children to get involved with and to spark discussion about our climate and our environment, what needs to change and what they can do to make this change in their lives, small or big, to support our environment. The whole week, the children were encouraged to walk, scoot, cycle or take public transport to work, receiving a hand stamp for each day they were able to commit to doing this. A great effort by all. Over the course of the week, the children were also asked to bring in a leaf on their walk to school, that had fallen from the tree, and add it to a tree template in their classrooms. The branches of the trees began to fill up with leaves thanks to the children all committing to walking to school and reducing pollution, in turn, saving our trees. Over the course of the week, our staff continued to refer to their tree template as a visual representation of how the children are actively helping to save the planet by making small adjustments to their everyday habits.
The week started out on Tuesday with a welcome video from our pupil leadership team outlining what was coming up, a cress seed planting activity for our lower school children, where they learned about growing your own vegetables and how to look after your growing plant, and a basic lunch where all of our pupils had a reduced lunch menu of pasta, tomato sauce, peas and sweetcorn to save on food costs to donate to the K&C Foodbank, raising discussion around food poverty within our local borough and the issues around food waste.
Thursday saw us welcome an inspiring panel of speakers, organised by a group of mothers from the NHP community who are part of the group Mothers CAN (Climate Acton Network). Our Upper School heard from panellists: Thomasina Miers, OBE – a chef and writer discussing sustainable food and agriculture, Anca Giurgiu – the Senior Climate Change and Sustainability Manager at Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea discussing local initiatives, Tayshan Hayden-Smith – Founder of non-profit Grow2Know discussing re-imagining our urban spaces, Ines Uwiteto – a Wealth Manager at Tribe discussing social impact investment and Laura Vildrequin Roso – Founder of Kids O’clock discussing sustainable fashion and the need for re-circulating children’s second-hand clothes. The panel was chaired by Jake Hayman, a leading social sector consultant and a driving force for social change who previously led a philanthropy workshop at NHP. Our pupils were very lucky to hear these leading specialists in their fields talk about the impact they are working towards to tackle climate and environmental issues within their industries and to ask some brilliant questions and share their concerns around climate change with the panel.
Friday was the turn of the middle school. They had the opportunity to build their own bug hotels, with materials they have foraged during the week. Insects and other minibeasts need safe spaces to shelter, hide from predators and raise their young. All of the children were so excited to build their own 5 star hotels to welcome their bug guests. The completed bug hotels will be featuring around the school site so keep an eye out!
Throughout the week, the children were asked to write their pledge as to what action they will take to help the environment. They tied these up around the playgrounds as a reminder of their commitment.
A big thank you this week to NHP parents Mrs Montgomery, Mrs von Abercron, Miss Connell, Ms Franco and Mrs Rafii from Mothers CAN for all of their support and dedication to NHP’s first Climate Week and being part of helping us to introduce ongoing change throughout the whole school year. And to our NHP staff, pupils and parents for getting so involved to make the week such a success.
What fun we had this week celebrating the joys of mythology! In a series of events embracing a cross-curricular approach to Latin and English, pupils in the JCB learned how to craft stories, wield mythological tropes, and channel their creative energies into writing. A huge thank you to visiting author, Philip Womack, whose energy, passion, and expertise lit bright creative fires in so many pupils. We were impressed with pupils’ enthusiasm and appetite to learn; the resulting stories are proving a joy to read. Finalists from each class will be sent to Philip, who will select a winner and runner up in each class. We’re looking forward to celebrating their wonderful work. For now, I will hand over to Sarita, Francisco, and Georgia (Year 5) to tell you more…
Myth Day was a blast! Everyone was dressed up as different myths: Medusa, Persephone (like me!), Hades, and many more. There was one very exciting part of the day. An author called Philip Womack, who writes exciting books about Greek mythology, visited us. He told us that had written his first book when he was (drumroll)… eight! It made me think ‘Wow, maybe I should write a book!’. Later that day we had a creative writing session when we wrote a thirteenth task for Hercules. Mine was about testing his heart. I loved it. It was so much fun and I never wanted it to end!
– Georgia
You will not believe what happened yesterday. We had a whole day of myths! We dressed up as different characters from myths to make the day extra fun. There were costumes from every type of myth you can imagine. At the start of the day, an author named Philip Womack told us how to structure a myth effectively, then we wrote our own stories. It was myth-tastic!
– Francisco
This week, the JCB had their first ever Myth Day! It all started with an assembly, when an author, Philip Womack, arrived at the school. Of course, everyone was excited. An author has a lot of valuable tips to share. He talked about how to write brilliant stories and about what he had written in his career. In the Year 5 workshop, we wrote about Hercules accepting a thirteenth task. In my story, Hercules sadly died. I had to do it. No-one can defeat Axolotls! I dressed up as the Aztec God Xolotl, who disguised himself as the salamander (axolotl) to avoid being sacrificed. I didn’t just learn about mythological people on Myth Day, but mythological creatures, too. I got home and was still thinking about all the incredible things we got to do on Myth Day.
In anticipation of the King’s Coronation on Monday, NHP has been regally decked out (including a life sized King Charles on the OB gate this morning!). As always, our incredible Kitchen team put together a delicious themed menu ranging from mushroom wellington with salt and vinegar potatoes to coronation chicken and salmon en croute (all washed down with an alcohol free Pimms, of course).
King Charles welcoming the Lower School at the gate!Read More