From the Moon to Mars!

On Wednesday, 27th October, Avondale Park Primary School and NHP experienced a STEM workshop presented by Imperial College London, in partnership with Oundle School. Charting the early history of space exploration through to modern day space tourism, the two shows educated and entertained in equal measure. Excited and awed, Year 5 and 6 from our partnership school Avondale Park Primary ‘s and NHP’s Year 4-8 pupils and parents enjoyed an hour of live demonstrations of rockets, fireballs and the wonders of space travel! An incredible opportunity that inspired the pupils from both schools to learn about opportunities in the world of STEM.

Harvest at NHP

This year’s Harvest at NHP was a week-long celebration that was all about community, in partnership with the K&C Foodbank. The whole school have been generously donating items for the Foodbank and we look forward to delivering these to be made into parcels to support those in our local area most in need. We were visited by Reverend Paul Wood who spoke to our OB pupils in an assembly all about what Harvest is. On Wednesday, 4th October, the whole school had a ‘basic’ lunch, a pared back menu made up predominantly of items that can be found on the Foodbank shopping list. Our kitchen staff collaborated to come up with a menu that was nutritious and saved an incredible £345.59 in food costs, which we will be donating to the Foodbank. The celebrations were topped off with a Year 5 visit to the Foodbank, who warmly welcomed us to learn all about the importance of why the Foodbank exists, who they serve and how they do this. We all learned a lot and the children had the opportunity to help out by making up food parcels.

Ellie, Year 5: The trip to the food bank was good because it is important to be aware of people who can’t afford enough food because of the cost of living crisis. Being more aware of it and supporting food banks is making a big difference to the people who go there.

Woojae, Year 5: This food bank trip was important because it taught us about how grateful we should be for our food and how important food banks are.

National Poetry Day Celebrations

Across the school this week poetry has rung out: softly, confidently, from comfy carpets, in front of rapt audiences, from beings small and tall. National Poetry Day encourages people all over the country to make, experience, and share poetry. This week we focused keenly on sharing: on finding common ground and communal enjoyment through language. In the past month, all pupils at NHP have been busy learning a poem by heart. Children in the Upper School visited the OB this week to meet with a Lower School class. Each class performed a poetry recital for the other, sharing not just a poem, but words of respect and encouragement too. Our visits culminated with Upper School children reading poetry books to lower school children, an activity loved by all. Our week was crowned by a visit from Colville Primary School, with whom we were excited to share a morning of poetry recitals. We gathered together in mixed year groups, spotting friends from opposite schools and giving sunny greetings to unfamiliar faces. Quite separately over the past month, pupils at Colville and NHP have been perfecting the same poems to share and perform together. What a joyful spectacle it was to see them collaborate in performance, speaking as one voice through their poems and entertaining us all so thoroughly with their spirited recitals. Brave trios and duos from Year 3, 4, and 5 performed for us too, and their peers praised their confidence and sensitive interpretation. Thank you so much to staff and pupils at Colville Primary School at NHP for making this year’s National Poetry Day one to remember.

Bloodhound Land Speed Record!

On 21 September, our Year 7 pupils enjoyed a brilliant half day STEM workshop at one of our partnership schools: St Charles RC Primary School. Our pupils joined forces with their Year 6 on the Bloodhound Land Speed Record workshop. The workshop was an exciting opportunity to learn about jobs in STEM and to experience using engineering skills. In teams, they were challenged to design and build the most effective air-powered rocket cars that would run as quickly as possible over a set distance. They then moved outside to the playground to test their cars and see who could achieve the fastest time, to huge cheers as each car was propelled with force! The pupils had to work closely in their teams throughout, and it was lovely to see children from both schools collaborate effectively and put their decision-making skills to good use.