Christmas at NHP
Although we did not have a Christmas Fair this year, we certainly had Christmas Fun – Santa, Reindeer, Crafts and Snow!
Read MoreArundel Fundraiser Day!
Today was NHP’s Arundel Fundraiser day, where pupils and staff dressed up as their favourite animals to raise money for the WWF. Here is what our Arundel House Captain, Caspian, has to say about the day:
Read MoreToday was Arundel’s house fundraiser day for the WWF. I chose this charity because I care a lot for animals, and I want to help make a change to all the cruelty that is going on towards them. I personally have 3 snakes, two rabbits and a dog so I love animals. Nature is also the same colour (Green!) as Arundel so that was a pro. Overall we made a whopping £1,258.64! I would like to say a massive thank you to all the parents and children that were kind enough to donate and dress up to support the WWF.
Caspian S – Arundel House Captain
Philanthropy Workshops at NHP
This week, we were delighted to welcome visiting speaker Jake Hayman, a leading entrepreneur and consultant in the world of philanthropy, to host ‘Exploring Philanthropy’ workshops at NHP for our Year 5 to 8’s. During the sessions, he explored and challenged the pupils’ ideas of both fairness and unfairness within every day society, the definition and understanding of kindness to overcome unfairness, and the role of charity in making a better world. The interactive workshops ended with the pupils breaking out into small groups and coming up with their own charity based on one of three topics: climate change, homelessness and disparity of wealth. There were some great ideas and a lot of thought went into the impact their charity would have and the various factors that would facilitate this.
“The philanthropy workshop was an extremely interesting experience. The best part was creating our own charities. We really got a lot of information for how charities work and their goals. Everyone here in the Upper School were also very vocal in the talk about equality and fairness.” Thomas, Head Pupil, Year 8
This was a fantastic opportunity that tied in with the launch of our House fundraising days over the coming year, to encourage the pupils to really think about the charities their House chooses to support and why, as well as talking about the school’s own charity, the NHP Foundation, and the work we do around bursaries and Radius community partnerships. A big thank you also to NHP parent, Laura Montgomery, for her help in organising such a fantastic opportunity for our pupils.
Read MoreWindrush Thinking Day
The 22nd June was designated as Windrush Day by the government in 2018 and chosen as our summer thinking day for 2022. Therefore, NHP as a leading ‘Thinking school’ created an adventurous learning journey for all the children, with some exciting external visitors around this topic.
Curriculum:
Across the school children were taking time to explore Windrush for varies different angles. For example: In an English workshop, led by our new Head of English, Mrs Skeoch, the Year 7 and 8 pupils looked at two poems: ‘Englan’ Voice’ by James Berry and ‘The British’ by Benjamin Zephaniah and considered ‘Who owns language?’ and, in fact, whether it can be owned. They discovered that language, by its very nature, develops and changes over time and words are borrowed from many different places over time. They then crafted poems inspired by Berry and Zephaniah on the theme of a ‘Recipe for London’. Whilst in Reception, the children were exploring Caribbean art and created the most wonderful pictures using their ‘green hats’.
Puzzle Company:
The children in Reception to Year 3 were treated to some brilliant brain-busting puzzles in today’s Happy Puzzle Company workshops. From balancing penguins on icebergs, completing fiendish puzzles to tantalising tangrams, the children’s flexible thinking skills were put to the test! We were very impressed by their collaboration and careful trial-and-error problem solving.
Philosophy Foundation:
The Philosophy Foundation paid a little visit to the Middle School this week. Each class discussed a topic such as identity, belonging and difference. The children were introduced to each topic through stories. All of the children were fantastic, demonstrating habits such as Thinking Flexibly and Collaborating, as well as their Thinking Hats, Green for Creativity and Blue for Thinking, to demonstrate their wonderful idea.
Sharky and George:
Today Year 7 and 8 had an entertaining and challenging session with Sharky and George as part of Windrush thinking day. Starting with some team building games, they were divided into two groups to see who could use clues and problem-solving skills to unlock padlocks and work through more fiendish puzzles to finally open the safe and get the crystal at the end. It was a close-run competition, involving lateral thinking, collaboration and perseverance and they managed it in very good time! Fun was had by all. We learnt they had run a similar session with Goldman Sachs earlier in the week and they weren’t expecting the NHP students to crack it so quickly! They are going to come back next year with a harder game as they underestimated what great thinkers we are!
Food:
The wonderful kitchen team, created a delicious Caribbean themed lunch for all the school today, filled with scrumptious flavours and hot spice! Thank you to the PA team for putting up the flags and making the school look extra special today.
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