JUNIOR SCHOOL

Preston Montford trip

Beyond the challenges of adapting to the pandemic, the Junior School has continued to teach with passion and ambition, ensuring that the academic curriculum is diverse, inclusive, and challenges pupils’ thinking.

Junior School staff have reflected and built on the outcomes of remote teaching to enhance pupils progress and School experience. Investment has been made in IT and Surface laptops for both IT suites and one to one classroom devices have been provided for all pupils. This has had a significant impact on the quality and effectiveness of not only our Computer Science teaching, but the increased use of technology in lessons enhanced the learning experience and provided opportunities to create content, share and present knowledge and ideas in a variety of exciting ways.

ENGINEERING, DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

Our Learning Hub is now fully operational, with dedicated IT suites for First School and Lower School pupils. New hardware has been introduced into the computing curriculum enabling pupils to use crumble boards and programme microbit robots using python code. New software including Pear Deck, Sumdog Maths and Grammar have also been introduced. We have also been very excited to use our new Green screen. It has been an exciting addition and has been used in innovative ways in lessons and assemblies.

A range of creative STEAM projects were introduced during remote teaching. Reception built Aladdin’s lamp, Year 2 made flying machines and in the Lower School pupils made natural art sculpture projects inspired by artist Andy Goldsworthy. A group of Year 10 students led a mini F1 club for our Year 5 & 6 students, supporting them to produce their own model car during this exciting activity. Intellectual interests have been fostered through ‘off screen days’ and mixer days. Examples include a Subject Passions Day in which pupils chose challenges in subjects they were most interested in. The day was set up with a tour around the nonfiction shelves in the new library. In Science, the challenge was to create a balloon rocket, make a model of a famous landmark using recycled materials and identify a series of different twigs. In Music, they made a musical instrument based on a series of percussion instruments they had been learning about. During Black History month each class researched and created posters and powerpoints with information about a Black icon. At the end of the week the students presented their research. These initiatives encourage the pupils to reflect on the different subjects they learn and consider their intellectual interests. Providing an element of choice encourages girls to take risks, become more independent and curious. This develops their academic confidence and creativity. We are always looking for ways to stretch and challenge all pupils in different ways and have created a wide variety of challenging initiatives this year, both online and in person. We were delighted at the enthusiasm and commitment the students have shown. Some highlights included:

■ Primary Maths Challenge - All Year 5 & 6 took part and received 4 golds, 10 silvers, 16 bronze and 9 highly commended. ■ 47 girls sat the Junior Maths

Challenge (aimed at Year 8 students) receiving 6 golds with 1 qualifying for the Olympiad and 5 qualifying for Kangaroo. 9 silver and 10 bronze medals were awarded.

These are the best scores to date.

■ All 96 Year 3 & 4 pupils sat the

First Maths Challenge 47 were awarded gold, 32 silver and 16 bronze medals.

■ Herts Maths Challenge our teams scored 156 (average overall score 121) ■ Re-mapping our lives - a Royal

Geographical Society competition ■ Year 6 Challenge Day with archery, fencing, problem solving and climbing.

Herts Maths Challenge Singing outside

Archery

PASTORAL CARE

We continued to follow the ‘MindYour5’ programme, which encourages Healthy Practice, Activity, Positive Thinking, Positive Emotions and Your Interactions. ‘Inside Out Day’ inspired lessons on the themes of Kindness, Gratitude and Resilience and included acting out different emotions in Drama, writing a gratitude letter and performing emotion poems.

Well-being groups were established on our return to School in February 2021. These took place weekly to support the students as they returned to School and transition. We created a well-being corner including sensory resources providing a quiet calm area for pupils. Linked to #FastFashionFreeFebruary, creative well-being club was created, students upcycled materials to design and made their own bags. It was a wonderful opportunity to chat, work together, help each other, and relax. To support the PSHE curriculum, Year 5 welcomed Jo Morris from Confident Kids to deliver a workshop exploring friendship and kindness concepts and Year 4 participated in a talk from Heads Up Kids about ‘Big Emotions’. As part of our PSHE Programme, Dr Kathy Weston presented an evidence-based virtual talk for parents on ‘Parenting in a Pandemic’. Topics included: dealing with uncertainty, denial of social activity, screen dependency, motivation to learn, staying mentally healthy, reducing anxiety, and managing family conflict and stress. Dr Weston returned later in the year to speak with 250 parents from across the School about issues arising from the ‘Everyone’s Invited’ agenda, and the importance of having conversations at home to promote self-esteem and appropriate behaviour at an early age.

Daily Exercise

JUNIOR SCHOOL

Zoo Trip

VISITS

Students have enjoyed a wide selection of virtual visits, including a tour around The London Transport Museum, searching for modern and historical forms of transport and a virtual celebration on India Day. This unique celebration featured Bollywood dancing and visits to some of India’s finest landmarks by the power of virtual reality. Year 5 met virtually with the education team from the Houses of Parliament, who guided them through an introduction to how the UK Parliament works and what MPs do. They gained new knowledge, including what a constituency is, what the role of the Speaker is and how new laws are made.

Year 4 had a fantastic virtual Young Shakespeare workshop. They retold the story of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by stepping into the characters’ shoes and acting out parts of the play.

Following the easing of restrictions, we could resume many of our planned residential trips, which are a highlight of the summer term. Year 5 and Year 6 enjoyed trips to Preston Montford Field Studies Centre in Shropshire, and Year 4 took part in a two-day Bushcraft Trip to Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire. The trip included a night of camping in ancient woodlands on the estate.

Bread making Black History Month

DRAMA AND MUSIC

We have continued to offer all students a broad range of performance and musical opportunities despite tight Covid-19 restrictions. Every year group has embraced different ways of working together to create a most wonderful collection of productions.

Year 3 performed Finding Magic and Magic Everywhere, which were filmed and shared digitally. On filming days, the girls also took part in art, English, Maths and PSHE activities on the themes of the films. The First School production, Frances Mary Poppins was a joyful collaboration between all the First School year groups and Year 1 gave a special assembly of acting and singing in The Enormous Crocodile. Year 4’s production Another Look brought to life the story of a girl who learns that there is another way to look at fairy tales and mend a friendship. As a fabulous end to their Junior School careers, the Year 6 valedictory production took the form of short films based on the book The Secret Garden and explored the transformative power of friendship and nature. Music-making adapted to the changing challenges faced over the year to offer an incredibly vibrant programme in a safe environment. A new form of class choir was created, and the Chamber Choir continued to rehearse in bubbles, and when the sun was shining, everyone enjoyed the beautiful singing outdoors. Students took part in a fantastic variety of remote music-making projects. Canons Choir recorded the brand-new opera songs of The Beauty of Light with professional mezzo-soprano Ellie Edmonds as part of an English Touring Opera project. Years 5 and 6 took part in a virtual opera workshop with English Touring Company, led by two professional opera singers. The students learnt about the background of opera, watched the singers perform, and learnt a famous aria V’adoro pupille, from the opera Guilio Cesare by Handel.

The Enormous Crocodile

Canons Choir performed at the Barnardo’s National Children’s Choir Competition at the Royal Festival Hall in March. Two of their songs have been selected for the Music for Youth virtual 50th celebration ‘The Future is Now’, which will take place in December 2021.

JUNIOR SCHOOL

CHARITY

Junior School has continued their fantastic efforts fundraising for different charities as part of Canonaid. Activities have included Harvest Festival with donations for the Harrow Food Bank and Sufra NW London from the Lower School. Sufra NW London sent a thank you message to School saying that over 300kg of food donated by NLCS contributed to almost 20,000 parcels of food.

Red Card Mufti Day

Students raised £1,156.82 for The Wave Project, a children’s mental health charity. For a small donation, students entered a competition to design a surfboard to reflect why the Wave Project started and illustrate the benefits of surfing lessons. During remote learning, Lower School students were asked to explain what charity meant to them, and they used a new programme called Flipgrid to record their responses. There was a thoughtful and varied range that showed empathy, kindness, creativity and generosity.

During the Summer term, The Junior School supported a charity called SolarAid. which provides access to clean, safe and affordable solar light to communities in rural Africa. Fundraising events included a ‘sunshine colours’ Mufti Day, a quiz and a blindfolded competition. £948 was raised enabling the charity to purchase 237 solar lights.

JUNIOR SCHOOL

SPORTS

Lower School were inspired by Sir Captain Tom Moore’s 100 Laps Challenge to create their own physical challenges ranging from learning a new skill to completing 100 minutes of dance each week to increasing their plank time to 12,000 steps a day. At the end of the month, girls reflected on their efforts and how it felt working towards a goal. Many decided that they wanted to carry on beyond the month.

Students participated in the London Mini-Marathon Challenge as part of their daily morning exercise, with several completing many more miles than the required 2.6 miles. A few girls enjoyed it so much that they went home and ran it again with family members.

Rainbow Sports Day During the lockdown, First School worked on movement and skills, including creative dance based on stories. Lower School lessons were introduced to yoga and mindfulness whilst developing their core fitness and flexibility. Girls participated in HITT sessions and dance fitness routines. During off-screen day, pupils enjoyed choreographing dance routines or the ‘Spring into Spring’ fitness challenge. During PE Focus Week, students enjoyed wearing their PE kit, a themed sports mufti and their colour-team t-shirts. PE and sport featured in every subject by either a theme or topic and by incorporating exercise into the lessons. There were activity breaks where lessons stopped, and girls got active as well as morning exercise challenges. There were also additional larger-scale events and activities such as crazy golf, an inflatable obstacle course and skipping tutorials and fitness boot camps. Year 3, 4, 5 & 6 also took part in the Lower School Swimming Gala to round off the week.

We created Sports Weekend Play Days for the Lower School that included netball, tennis and rounders. More than 50 students attended these extra sessions, and it was wonderful to see them enjoying the outside together once again.

As a final event for Year 6, pupils enjoyed an activity day run by qualified instructors from The Outdoor Education Company. They spent the day scaling the climbing wall, practising skills on the archery range and fencing and team construction challenges indoors.

Learning Hub

NEW LIBRARY

To celebrate the opening of the new library, Lower School pupils had their photograph taken holding a school library book that they have enjoyed. Each student created a special named bookplate which they stuck into the book, so for years to come, there will be a book somewhere in the library with their name inside!

New library