Junior School

A team of STEAM Ambassadors and Subject Leaders devised a STEAM day for Year 5 based on the physics of pulleys and levers. The design brief followed Wallace and Gromit’s ‘The Wrong Trousers’, and the pupils were tasked with designing a home invention. Their finished designs were filmed and presented using Adobe Spark. STEAM activities have been a regular feature of the Clive Curiosity Lab, with challenges that included building an ice palace for Elsa from the Disney film Frozen.

First School Mixer Days featured STEAM challenges, such as creating the best insulating coat for an ice cube on Polar Mixer Day and making a carriage during Jubilee Mixer Day. At a STEAM careers fair organised for Year 6, students worked with professionals from within STEAM industries and tried out a variety of experiments.

A Lower School STEAM project was the focus used to celebrate our ‘shared heritage’ and consisted of a map of the school showing all the important places which are part of our shared culture. Pupils made different elements from the base map to the buildings, landmarks and people. Techniques inspired by different artists (e.g. Giacometti, Lowry, Mychael Barratt, Mark Bradford and Julie Mehretu) and a range of materials were used to construct this collaborative piece.

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVITY

This year’s Black History Month included a drama presentation by ‘The Bigfoot’ Theatre Company on the theme of ‘Proud to Be’. The students then researched an aspect of their own heritage, which they presented to their peers. Other events included a theatrical presentation about the Notting Hill Carnival, an assembly on artist Alma Thomas’s work, cooking Caribbean cuisine, and reading about black history and culture.

Celebrating differences was the focus of Neurodiversity Week, and assemblies have provided the opportunity further to reinforce the sense of inclusivity within the School. These have included a moving assembly about Down’s Syndrome, kindness and mutual respect, and belonging to a community. In addition, diverse sports icons, updated book corners and new displays and lessons have featured topics such as diversity in the performance industry and sports.

TECHNOLOGY

We have integrated the use of iPads and all students now have an iPad for use at school. As a result, students have learnt how to use technology safely and become more digitally literate, collaborative, independent, and creative in exploring different ways to demonstrate their learning. This has created students with an ambidextrous skill set which will prepare them well for the future.

A wide range of exciting projects have been introduced, including: • Reception designed and made their own virtual sea creatures using AR maker. • First School students used Shadow Puppet

Edu to film their own Spanish fashion show. • Lower School students used ‘Chatterpix’ to make an ‘ear talk’ about its features. This technique was also used in Geography and

History to make countries and historical figures talk about themselves. • Students learnt to create e-books on Apple

Pages and presented on Keynote using screen recording. • Following their trip to Preston Montford, Year 5 students collated their experiences into

Adobe Page Websites and published their work Preston Montford Project (adobe.com)

Following the installation of a green screen, various projects have taken place, including a shared heritage project called ‘Follow Me to my Special Place’ and video entries for the Young Geographer of the Year competition. The use of audio recording equipment has also enabled girls to make their own podcasts.

PASTORAL CARE

At the start of the year, pastoral days were held to ensure that all the students settled back happily into School and their new classes. This helped pupils to adapt to new routines, get to know their form teachers and develop a ‘class identity’ before academic lessons began.

We held a variety of pastoral activities and initiatives for different year groups, including: • A team-building day for Year 5 girls as they settled into their new forms. • The School Counsellors and Pastoral Liaison

Manager led transition sessions in the Summer

Term for Year 6, moving into the Senior School. • For the first time, the Year 6 students had a workshop entitled ‘The Big Leavers Talk’ provided by the RAP project. • Year 3 Hot Chocolate parties with the Head of

Junior School. • Friendship Fridays in Year 4. • ‘Let’s Leap’ ran sessions about well-being, collaboration and taking risks for all year groups. • A new Mental Health and Wellbeing week promoted ‘Mind Your 5’, the self-care programme, and a new Kindness week with associated activities promoted a culture of courtesy and consideration. • CORAM life workshops were provided to pupils in Years 2, 3 and 6 on topics such as

Physical and Mental Health and for Year 6 on

‘Meet the Brain’ and decision making.

The School’s membership of ‘Tooled Up Education’ with its extensive resource library was launched in September to all parents across the School by Dr Kathy Weston. A full programme of webinars on topics such as sleep, and anxiety was presented by researchers and experts in each field as part of Mental Health and Wellbeing week.

Junior School

EXTRA-CURRICULAR AND ACADEMIC ENRICHMENT

A full extracurricular programme was reestablished in the Autumn, with some 60 clubs available each week. These vary across various disciplines, including languages, sports, STEAM, well-being, art and literature. It is lovely to see so many students enjoying these activities.

A special two-week Book Festival on the theme of ‘Books are FUNny’ took place to celebrate the new Junior School library in the Learning Hub. This included author visits, creative activities, and the publication of new book lists, including a list of ‘50 books to read before you leave the Junior School’. First School girls created their own characters for their dress-up day, and the festival culminated in a Book Oscars ceremony with an official opening ceremony.

A Club Passport was launched to encourage pupils to develop a wide range of extracurricular interests. The students enjoyed using these passports as they could reflect on their choices and engage in clubs from different disciplines, supporting them to develop wide-ranging skills and interests.

THE CURIOSITY CLUB

Twenty-eight students participated in The Curiosity Club, which encourages individual student research, supported by a series of guided research activities in which pupils presented in various ways. This club is an ideal way of developing curiosity, research skills and pupils’ interests beyond the curriculum. We look forward to involving students from the Senior School to support and guide the younger students with their presentation skills.

MINI-MUN

Model United Nations Society is hugely popular amongst our Senior School students. Following the success of our inaugural Senior School NLCSMUN conference, we wanted to introduce the activity to students further down the School. Most schools only offer MUN to older students as it is a challenging and complex simulation of United Nations Conferences, but we felt sure that NLCS Year 5s would throw themselves into a conference with great enthusiasm and take on the challenge with poise, and we were proved right. The Mini NLCSMUN conference was a true reflection of the community spirit which is in the DNA of all North Londoners. Following this successful event, and led by our Senior School students, we hosted the first-ever Mini–NLCSMUN conference inviting Year 5 students from Bute House, Pembridge Hall, and St Christopher’s School for a thrilling day of debate and delegation.

TRIPS

It has been fantastic to resume our programme of external trips and visits this year. These have included a day at the Wallace Collection for Reception, Legoland adventures for Year 1, and Year 2 learnt about the Great Fire of London during a history walk through the city in which they followed the path of the fire.

Our residential trips, a highlight of the Summer term, saw Year 4 take part in a two-day bushcraft trip in Oxfordshire, Year 5 visit Preston Montford Field Studies Centre in Shropshire and Year 6 embrace outdoor challenges in their visit to Norfolk.

EXTRA-CURRICULAR HIGHLIGHTS:

• Our team reached the Finals of Herts Maths

Challenge: 2 teams made it through to the final 27 out of 265 teams. • Four local schools attended the first NLCS Singing

Festival held in person in the Performing Arts Centre. • We held our annual Netball tournament, welcoming 21 teams from local schools on a bright February

Saturday morning.

• The dance squad attended the Great Big Dance Off 3rd place in the regional competition. • In an online National Reading Championship Quiz the

NLCS team were the top-scoring primary school. • The Canons Choir won the children’s choir category at the North London Festival of Music and placed first in the overall choir prize. The choir was also a finalist in the Music for Youth Competition with a performance at Birmingham Symphony Hall.

CHARITY

Students raised money for Just One Tree, a charity supporting countries severely affected by mass deforestation. We were pleased to welcome the founder, Amanda Bronkhorst, to an assembly to talk about the charity’s work. Junior School joined other children and schools across the world and participated in Just One Tree day wearing something green or dressing up as a tree and donating £1. This fundraising event, along with Canonaid collections, raised £760. £1 plants one tree, and with further fundraising events planned, the Junior School is well on its way to planting its target of 1,000 trees.

Other activities included a collection for Teddy Trust for refugees organised by a Year 4 pupil, and alongside Canonaid in the senior School, money was raised for the Emergency Disasters Appeal to support Ukrainian Refugees from an Easter Holiday Reading Challenge organised by a Year 11 student.

Junior School

In Drama, the focus has been on building up live performance skills. This included risktaking in improvisation, creating atmosphere on stage, interpreting and directing scripted work, naturalism in performance, ensemble work and responsiveness to other actors. Over the Year, parents and staff were treated to outstanding performances, including the Year 3 play ‘The Invisible Things’, Year 4s ‘Five Children and It’ and the First School production, Adventures in Neverland. Year 6 performed ‘Finding Zara’ an immersive adventure, as their last performance in the Junior School, performing in familiar spaces in the school overlayed with the fictional world of the play. All students have enjoyed and embraced a broad range of performance and musical opportunities creating an outstanding collection of productions.

The ‘Breakfast Busking’ scheme has become more popular and continues to be over-subscribed with girls wanting to perform to their peers. Whole school singing together, Year group choirs, Canons Choir, NLCS Young Singers, Orchestra and 10 music ensembles have all resumed following the restrictions. The Performing Arts Centre was filled with melodies from a variety of musicals as the girls entertained with instruments and voices in both the Winter Concert and the Lower School Summer Concert. The Canons Choir enjoyed a spectacular year winning the children’s choir category at the North London Festival of Music placing first in the overall choir prize. The choir was also invited to perform at the Music for Youth National Festival at the Birmingham Symphony Hall, an outstanding achievement. Four Canons Choir members have now gained a place at the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, one of the top UK youth choirs. It has been wonderful to see all our Junior School girls participating in fun and competitive sports over the year. They have embraced the challenge, sportsmanship and competition with enthusiasm and abundant energy. Activities have included swimming, dance, gymnastics, football, lacrosse, netball and athletics, to name but a few.

Year 5 and 6 Athletics teams excelled on both the track and field, winning numerous competitive events. Students as young as Year 3 have been developing their netball skills, and having missed out on an entire season last year, Year 5 and 6 netball squads have worked hard on developing their skills, tactical awareness and understanding of the rules.

We were finalists in the London Schools Swimming championships and had cricket successes for all our Lower School teams. A group of five Year 6’s competed at the ISGA National 2-piece competition and emerged victorious. Alongside their overall team win, one student placed 2nd, and four finished in the top 15 competitors.

We were delighted to welcome many parents to our Lower Schools and Rainbow Sports Days. In the glorious sunshine, girls competed in their colour teams and demonstrated their athletic prowess in the different events to an excellent standard, and it was a wonderful end to a busy and vibrant year at NLCS.