NHP Easter Music Concert 2023
Our Easter Music Concert which took place on Wednesday evening this week was a very special event, highlighting, as it did, the depth and breadth of musical talent that we have here at NHP. The standard of music just seems to be getting better and better each year. Well done to our many choirs, ensembles and orchestras who performed with enthusiasm, passion, commitment and enjoyment which was evident for all to see and was much appreciated by everyone who attended.
Thanks must also go to our amazing in-house music team of Mrs Chambers, Mr Harlan and Mr Grappy as well as to our peripatetic teachers: Abby, Alvaro, Carlos, Javier, Jennifer, Karen, Liz, Meinir, Melissa, Michael, Saranne and Thomas – for all they do to support music throughout the year at NHP.
Read MoreUpper School Debate Evening
A hearty congratulations to all those involved in the Upper School Debate Evening this week. Pupils demonstrated great courage and confidence in their debates, with many masking waves of nerves with aplomb as they took their seats. Our NHP Habits were in full force: collaboration between teammates was supportive and spurred on competition; ideas were communicated with clarity and precision; our summary speakers in particular had to exercise great flexibility of thought, especially when faced with our audience’s witty and probing questions. We were entertained, challenged, and enlightened by all; well done! Thank you to parents for joining us and casting those all-important votes. A special thank you to the English department for their time, support, and good humour throughout, and to all members of staff who contributed time and expertise to the event.
Read MoreWorld Maths Day 2023
This week, NHP celebrated International World Maths Day in style! Each year group was allocated a specific task or topic to focus on:
Reception used tangrams to experiment with 2D shapes in different orientations and make pictures.
Year 1 took on The Caterpillar Challenge using knowledge of odd and even numbers, halving and subtraction. They investigated which starting numbers would create longer caterpillars.
Year 2 investigated the properties of odd and even numbers through exploration of ‘always, sometimes or never?’ questions. They applied their past knowledge of addition and multiplication to prove or disprove a range of mathematical statements.
Year 3 were given blank ‘100 squares’ and had to represent different numbers by colouring the exact number of squares. They explored the largest and smallest legible representations.
Year 4 learnt about tessellation with a focus on the work of Maurits Escher. The children created their own tessellating patterns, and investigated whether all quadrilaterals can be tessellated.
Year 5 learnt about the Fibonacci sequence, created Fibonacci spirals and discovered how these numbers can be seen in nature.
Year 6 explored the golden ratio and created their own maps showing the direction, bearings and distance between various points.
Year 7 consolidated on their knowledge of Speed, Distance and Time. They calculated the average speed of their paper aeroplanes.
Year 8 investigated permutations and combinations using factorials. They also looked at some advanced Fibonacci questions.
The winners of this year’s Upper School World Maths Day Quiz were: Ingrid, Arlo and Milo W from Year 7. Congratulations to our champions!
I would like to thank all of the children for their enthusiasm and the fantastic work they produced, and to the teachers for delivering the sessions so passionately!
Mr Lee
Read MoreLansdowne Charity Day
Today, Lansdowne House held their fundraiser in support of the charity Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). GOSH work with multi-disciplinary teams of healthcare professionals and scientists to improve the lives of children with rare or complex diseases. House Captain Hadrian and his team planned the challenge to guess the number of sweets in the jar and ran a collection on the gates to raise funds for this incredible charity.
A big thank you to everyone for giving so generously and helping to raise over £970! Final donations are still coming in – we look forward to sharing with you the grand total next week.
Year 6 Charity Walk
Last Friday, our Year 6 pupils made the big trek along the River Thames, starting at Richmond Bridge and finishing at Putney Bridge (a distance of nearly 15km!) to raise money for the NHP Foundation. The children set up their own JustGiving fundraising pages in the run up to the charity walk. A heartfelt thank you to the family and friends of Year 6 for supporting the children to raise £4034.53 through sponsorship and keeping them going. Well done to Year 6 for their phenomenal fundraising efforts and for rising to the challenge.
All of the money raised will be going towards helping the work of the Notting Hill Prep Foundation, the school’s charitable arm, in support of Radius and NHP bursaries. Radius is our community partnership programme which works with local charities and primary schools to provide financial support and share resources to enhance the lives of local primary school aged children. Recently, this has seen us support projects such as: the Harrow Club junior programme, a basic lunch to raise funds for the Kensington and Chelsea Foodbank, a book drive with Oxford Gardens Primary School and the K&C Foundation’s Winter Crisis Appeal for local families. Our ambition for bursaries is to grow our programme to increase access to the life-changing opportunities provided by an NHP education. We currently support 7 pupils on means-tested bursaries and hope to increase this to 15 by 2030. Our bursaries cover not only fees, but also educational trips, enrichment, activities and incidentals that ensure all our pupils are completely integrated members in the life of the school.
Year 3 Author Visit
The Year 3s were entranced by their Monday author visit. Andy Jones came bouncing into the JCB to talk about his latest book ‘ Bob vs The Selfie Zombie’. Andy spoke about his fascinating path into the writing world and how his two children inspired him to move from writing books for adults to writing for children. Andy’s two obsessions as a Year 3 child were Time Travel and Zombies, and he used this passion for creating this book. He mentioned some beautiful ideas to encourage Year 3 to write their books. Andy then transported all the children and teachers to the future!
If any of the children would like a copy of the book, you can buy them here.
Read MoreHoli Festival 2023
To celebrate Holi, our pupils were visited by ISKCON London. They had the opportunity to learn about the origins of Holi through presentations, music, face paint and dancing! Our catering team also laid on an incredible Holi feast.
Take One Picture
NHP are, once again, joining the National Gallery to celebrate, explore, discuss and create around their chosen picture. This year the painting selected for schools is Henri Rousseau’s Surprise!
On Wednesday, the children started their Take One Picture adventure.
First, the children listened to a soundscape and were asked to write down everything that came to mind when listening to create the atmosphere.
Then, they were shown snippets of the image taken out of context and challenged to work out what they thought the picture was of.
Finally, they were asked to guess the picture’s title when it was revealed in its entirety.
Mr Ashmole, Miss Chute and Miss Nichols then led each building through a giant Philosophy for Children (P4C) lesson around the painting to generate some thoughtful ‘big questions’. We will then use these questions to create future discussions and, most importantly, art sessions leading to another wonderful NHP art exhibition in the summer term.
Some wonderful philosophers emerged in each session – Well done, NHP!
Read MoreWorld Book Day 2023
A glorious array of mysterious characters walked through the halls of NHP on Thursday. From a host of Sherlocks, Matildas, Detective Dogs, and everything in between, NHP was a riot of imagination. Thank you to all the parents, staff and pupils for embracing the dressing-up opportunity.
NHP were thrilled to host not just one but two authors today for World Book Day. Nadine Kadaan spoke to the OB and JCB children about her beautiful books. As a talented author and illustrator, Nadine told the children about how to create a picture book and the inspiration behind her stories. She also imparted her knowledge of how to draw eyes for different emotions!
Mitch Johnson then enthralled the PGB with his high-octane fizzy drink adventure and fascinating facts about the empire of a well-known sugary drink. The older children hopefully walked away with a greater understanding of how sneaky advertising companies are and the impact plastic has on the world.
Thank you to Susie Comish, Lauren Jarrett, Jo Benians and all the lovely volunteers for decorating the diners.
Read MoreYear 6 Trip to Bletchley Park
As part of their Post 11+ Cryptography week, Year 6 spent Wednesday at Bletchley Park visiting the historic site of Operation Ultra and taking part in some hands-on codebreaking at The National Museum of Computing – enjoying the perfect mix of maths, computing and history!
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