In The Picture - June_July 2021

In the

• Junior and Senior School Edition •

June/July Issue 2021

FAREWELL FOR NOW, YEAR 13!

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Where girls learn without limits

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Amicitia In Aeternum: “Friendship Forever” On Friday 18th June we wished our Class of 2021 goodbye and good luck for the next stage of their educational journey.

Although this year has been anything but usual, we were so pleased that the Year 13 girls were able to enjoy their day of traditional leaving celebrations comprising quizzes, award ceremonies, gifts and rounders, complete with a fish and chip lunch.

We are so proud of all members of the Year Group and what they have achieved in these circumstances.

Unbreakable friendships and unwavering resilience have seen them through these challenging times. We look forward to seeing them all again on Results Day in August.

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Phenomenal result for Freya: highest mark in the world!

We are absolutely thrilled that Year 13 pupil, Freya Young, has been credited with obtaining the highest mark in the world for the Cambridge International AS Level in Information Technology.

Freya’s excellent academic abilities were already known to all at NHSG after she was selected for a Reece Award when she joined us in Year 12.

We spoke with Freya to see how she was feeling after this momentous achievement. She

who has shown that hard work really does pay dividends. We wish her the best of luck with “Mr Tippett phoned me to tell me the good news, I felt so her future and hope she can shocked and surprised that I got realise her ambition to study Engineering at The Dyson the highest mark! I thought the exam was hard but I felt Institute in September. prepared for it as I had been revising heavily and we had just completed a mock before the exam. My advice for anyone taking the exam in future is to test yourself with as many past practical and theory papers as possible.” said:

Huge congratulations to Freya,

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Celebrating Year 11

On 17th June, we enjoyed a wonderful day celebrating the achievements of Year 11 on their final day in school before the summer break.

The girls spent the morning reflecting on school memories, taking part in a host of traditional activities such as ‘Guess The Staff Member’ baby photo quiz and an energetic game of dodgeball fuelled by some tasty treats.

At lunchtime, the girls were thrilled to have a visit from Parm-O-Rama, connoisseurs of cheesy fried chicken, which they ate outdoors in the brilliant sunshine.

We are so proud of how the girls in Year 11 have conducted themselves despite the restrictions during this important school year. We are hopeful

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that their journey through Sixth Form will be significantly smoother!

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A colourful week across NHSG

Between 21st and 25th June, NHSG celebrated Diversity Week (DW) across the whole school. School Diversity Week, led by the organisation Just Like Us is an annual celebration of LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans) equality in education, celebrated by thousands of primary schools, secondary schools and colleges across the UK. At NHSG we broadened the theme to include other types of diversity.

At Junior School, this kicked off with ‘Express Your Individuality Day’ where girls were invited to dress in their own clothes to express their personality.

Exciting activities for the rest of the week at Junior School were planned by our Year 5 Diversity Committee and these included World Culture Day (more on this in the next article) and Diversity Dance Day where girls learned the choreography for a Bollywood routine with Miss Richardson. In Year 2, girls

explored vocabulary such as “differences”, “similarities” and “unique” and, in PSHE, embedded learning on diversity with ideas about stereotypes and answering questions that began with “Is it OK to..?”.

Junior School rounded off the programme of events with a paper chain-making activity on Friday afternoon which saw girls joining together decorated paper links to celebrate their individuality and connectedness.

Here are some quotes from some of the girls about how much they enjoyed the week: ‘I have loved learning about Japan as that’s where my Mummy and Daddy are from’.

Chika, Reception ‘I loved wearing my sari to school and talking to the older girls about the Indian wedding I attended’ Anya, Reception

‘I learnt that putting yourself into someone else’s shoes is important so you can really think about how people feel.’

Year 4 pupil ‘I loved Diversity Week as it made me feel special and it made me feel grateful for being different. It was a lovely and very fun experience.’

Year 4 pupil At Senior School, members of our Sixth Form Pupil Leadership Team began DW by delivering an insightful assembly on neurodiversity, emphasising the viewpoint that variation across the human population can be attributed to brain differences.

Highlights at Senior School included a follow-up talk for all girls from Davina Nylander, a previous Head Girl of NHSG who talked to girls last year about growing up as a black girl in Newcastle. Girls also took part in a Great Rainbow

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Bake Off, a diversity logo competition, a rainbow themed non-uniform day complete with rainbow lunch! Girls also created a giant flag made up of hand-shaped messages of support for the LGBT+ community.

Congratulations to the winners of the logo competition, as follows: 1st – Angela Lu, Year 10 2nd – Evie Seghal, Year 12 3rd – Hibba Ahmed, Year 7 It was wonderful to witness girls across all Year Groups embracing these inclusive activities whole-heartedly. We hope that they ended the week feeling uplifted and firm in the knowledge that each and every girl is a valued part of our school.

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Senior School Diversity Logo Competition

Angela Lu, Year 10 1st Place

Evie Sehgal, Year 12 2nd Place

Hibba Ahmed, Year 7 3rd Place

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Girls raise critical funds with Cancer Run On Monday 28th June, girls in Nursery to Year 10 took part in the Children’s Cancer Run with the challenge of raising £500 for Children’s Cancer North. In previous years we have travelled to Gosforth Park to take part in a collective event, but this year the charity encouraged schools to organise their own event in their respective school grounds.

The routes were marked, the bunting was hung and the sun shone brightly (a little too brightly for some!) on the girls taking part. The cheers of encouragement from the pupils awaiting their turn were audible far and wide. Girls at Junior School completed an impressive 2-5 laps of Chapman House Grounds and girls at Senior School ran for a total of 30 minutes.

Thanks to the girls efforts’ and the generosity of their families we have been able to raise a staggering £1306. It is worth noting that over 101 children were diagnosed with cancer last year so the funds raised have gone to an extremely important cause.

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A series of super Sports Days We were pleased that we were able to go ahead with Sports Days for all Year Groups this term, albeit on seperate occasions and, unfortunately, without families watching from the sidelines. Year 9 took part in the first Sports Day on Monday 7th June, followed by Year 10 on Tuesday 8th June, Year 12 on 9th June, Year 8 on 10th June and Year 7 on 11th June.

Year 5 enjoyed their Sports Day on the Senior School astro-field on Thursday 1st July with Year 6 at the same location the following day. The sun was largely kind to us during these athletic events, with the exception of Sports Day for Early Years and Key Stages 1 and 2 on Monday 5th July which was interspered with some tropical showers! Of course, the younger girls did not let the inclement weather put them off, they used it as motivation to run faster!

Pupils competed in a variety of events representing their houses; a mixture of track and field events in addition to a host of traditional Sports Day activities such as sack races and the egg and spoon. As expected, all of the events were filled with fun, laughter and a healthy level of competition between Houses. There were so many impressive performances on an individual level but Mauretania took the crown for Senior School and Team B for Junior School.

Huge thank you to the P.E. team for facilitating this series of successful events.

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Year 4 talk culture As part of Diversity Week, girls were invited to talk about a culture they knew or were particularly familiar with.

In Year 4, Niharika seized the opportunity to talk about being a Hindu. Scarlett told us about traditions in the Lake District, the birthplace of her Dad and Grandma, such as fell walking.

Maisie and Imogen talked to us about the culture in Scottish families and showed us their ancestral tartans. Daisy wore her mother’s gold crucifix and discussed her beliefs as a Christian. Darcy shared stories about aboriginal culture because she has relatives in Australia. The girls discovered alot about each other from these interesting and exciting talks. Here are some photographs of pupils in 4D with their fantastic presentations.

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STEM through the wardrobe!

It was a truly cross-curricular project involving Science, Technology, Maths and English.

Take a look at their finished frames on the next page and see if you recognise any scenes!

“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight, At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more, When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death, And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”

C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

This term, Year 4 have been reading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. The girls have thoroughly engaged with this amazing story and loved learning about the other-worldly characters. The famous novel has also been part of the inspiration behind their recent technology project using jinx frames.

Once the basics of jinx frame technology have been mastered you can build practically anything. Previous projects have seen Year 4 classes building a Roman chariot and even a Viking house.

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To begin, the girls drew some silhouettes of scenes onto tracing paper then set about making their jinx frame. After carefully measuring the wood, they sawed it carefully into the necessary lengths. Next, they used PVA glue with the added support of card square corners to construct a stable cuboid.

Once the cuboid was completed the girls added a semi-transparent screen to the outside of the frame then installed a simple circuit to illuminate what were now stunning story-telling lamps!

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Top poetry performances in Year 7

On Wednesday 16th June, a selection of Year 7 girls had the opportunity to perform a poem they had learned in English and subsequently, by memory, in front of their Year Group.

The anthology included: The Eagle by Alfred Lord Tennyson; This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams; Spellbound by Emily Bronte and Tyger Tyger

by William Blake.

Special guest judge Mrs Emmett had the difficult task of awarding certificates to the best speakers but she acknowledged that the act of committing the texts to memory was a challenge in itself, let alone reciting them in front of peers, so all the girls that took part did extremely well!

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Congratulations to the following girls: Top row L-R Zoe Cameron, Elizabeth Hetherington, Stephanie Byrne, Harper McManus, Olivia Charlton, Sala Patterson, Autumn Vaulkhard Bottom row L-R Miriam Ozalp, Evie Pearson, Molly Thomas, Izzy Jones, Leela McKinney

Maths Challenge Champions The UKMT Junior Mathematics Challenge is a fantastic chance for our Young Mathematicians to show their problem solving skills. The girls must complete a series of mathematical problems and use their logic to produce solutions. The questions are all very challenging and it’s a real achievement to get a certificate.

We were delighted that so many of our girls scored enough points for a certificate and are especially proud of Hannah Reichard in Year 7 who won a Gold Certificate as well as being the best in the school.

The winners were: Year 7 Gold Certificate and Best in School Hannah Reichard (pictured top left) Silver Certificate Aysha Bhatti Grace Nichols (top L-R) Bronze Certificate Francesca Dunn Isabelle Glasgow Jiayi He Sala Patterson Holly Rose Zeah Zaman

Year 8 Inari Bari-Jones Angela Lin Megan Mabbott Josephine Mallen Nabiha Sameer Amelie Scott

Silver Silver Silver Silver Silver Silver

Anya Tyson Charlotte Courtney Jessica Grayson Lucy Grey Aleena Hakim Alicia Hammond Charlotte Hardie Isobel Helsby Martha Hewitt Cassia Jaber Gurleen Kaur Ariadne Lilley Jasmine Osborn Alecia Pennock

Bronze Bronze Bronze Bronze Bronze Bronze Bronze Bronze Bronze Bronze Bronze Bronze Bronze Bronze

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Sweet sale for a special cause We would like to give a special mention to the following girls in Year 7 for dedicating their lunchtimes to raising money for Dementia UK: Izzy Jones, Brankie Wilkie-Smith, Lexie Sanderson, Issy Hart Shepherd and Holly Rose worked together to make sweet cones and sell them at a lunchtime stall, following the sad passing of Izzy’s grandfather to dementia.

Izzy said: “Overall it was a really fun experience and it has given us the confidence to do something like this again. I especially loved working with my friends and making people smile.”

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Year 7 Enterprise Day

On 29th June, Year 7 took part in the Inspirational Learning Group’s (TILG) Enterprise day.

TILG works with some of the UK’s biggest companies and universities to help young people develop entrepreneurial and transferable soft skills for the workplace.

Year 7 were invited to take part in the very exciting ‘Alton Towers Challenge’. This involved designing a new ride for the Alton Towers Resort, taking into account different aspects of the customer journey.

In teams, girls selected a project manager and created a mind map to examine current rides already in place at the theme park. It was during this process that they were able to identify gaps in the market and thus the novel features they should introduce for the new

rides. The girls also spent some time identifying the profile of a perfect customer, the ride concept and design, promotional activity and then collated their work into a presentation. The afternoon concluded with Year 7 standing up in their teams to deliver a two and a half minute sales pitch to the whole Year Group and judges.

A spectacularly imaginative variety of rides were brought to life through the girls’ work,

some of which claimed to reach death-defying speeds.

Frightening the customer became a recurring theme throughout the presentation task!

It’s safe to say that Year 7 put their creative license to good use and it made for an extremely enjoyable session for all involved. The staff from The Inspirational Learning Group were really impressed by the girls’ engagement and enthusiasm.

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Duke of Edinburgh’s Award back in action

Following a series of cancelled expeditions owing to the current Covid-climate, we were delighted that our D of E explorers were finally able to embark on their assessed walks for Bronze, Gold and Silver Awards. The girls have experienced a range of weather conditions across the various treks with Bronze girls benefitting from the best of the sunshine along their route near Hadrian’s Wall. They were well in need of their ice-creams from the tourist centre by the end of the day!

The girls completing their Silver award tackled the North Pennines with efficiency in pleasant temperatures whereas the Gold girls were somewhat drenched during their four day walk which covered the hilly area of Alwinton and the

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highest mountain in the Cheviots. The low cloud made it difficult to navigate high ground but they persevered gallantly!

Well done to everyone who took part and let’s hope camping can make a return for the next set of expeditions!

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Showjumping success for Poppy Huge congratulations to Poppy Deakin, Year 9, who was one of four to be selected to compete for Great Britain’s Youth Showjumping team in Wierden, Netherlands. Her team went on to win the Gold Medal. What a brilliant achievement.

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