High lights Spring
Term
Speak Up Y6
The third annual Speak Up! Year 6 Grand Final took place on Monday 24 March, featuring the top orators from Wimbledon High Junior School and partner primary schools.
This year over 500 pupils took part from partner schools across the local area, with pupils and teachers from participating schools receiving training on the art of public speaking from Speakers Trust. Congratulations to Tahlia (St Mary’s Primary) who was crowned 2025 winner for her talk ‘My Hero with ADHD’, and Elizabeth (Wimbledon High Junior School) and Lara (Wimbledon Chase) who were runners-up.
Wimbledon
Over the past three years, Speak Up has reached over 1,300 children. Thank you to James Porter, Head of Upper Junior School English and our panel of judges (this year including our own alumna Felicity Baker) who always reassure and inspire our young orators.
Science Week / Space Day
British Science Week, from 7-16 March in the Juniors, saw upper and lower year groups working together on experiments, collaborative lessons and super fun science quizzes around the school.
An annual highlight, our exciting ‘Out of This World Space Day’ saw Year 5 learning how to train like astronauts and conducting experiments to determine the best materials for space suits and rockets, alongside fellow scientists from Granard Primary School.
World Book Day
And continuing on the theme of space, we are delighted to announce that WHS alumna Dr Sheila Kanani is winner of this year’s Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize! for her book ‘Can you get Rainbows in Space?’. This year Wimbledon High Junior School pupils from Y5 and 6 were again chosen to be on the judging panels for the prize. The girls chose ‘Can you get Rainbows in Space?’ as their winner, only finding out afterwards that Sheila used to go to school here!
Staff and pupils alike enjoyed World Book Day in glorious sunshine and a similarly glorious array of inventive costumes. Can you guess what Mrs Fryer is dressed as?
Authors Jessica Betts-Gray and Pari Thompson visited the Junior School and gave very inspiring talks. The girls were even able to get their books signed!
Futures
Y6 Enterprise
Year 6 have been taking part in the ‘Putting Young Minds to Work’ programme since January, learning all about business and how to develop their entrepreneurial skills. Working in groups, pupils decided on a product or service that they wanted to sell and worked out a budget and advertising strategy; before making the products themselves and selling them at the grand finalé Enterprise Fair on Monday 24 March! The money raised went towards purchasing a weather station for Wimbledon and Putney Common, which will be used for educational and scientific research.
Such experiences in Year 6 are a great grounding for the kind of skills practised as part of our Futures programme in Senior School, such as our recent Futures Fair which encouraged Y9-13 students to explore ‘Careers of the Future’ and quiz an array of parents and alumnae about their career paths. A huge thanks to all those Junior School parents who took part – we hope to see you again!
Partnerships
Wild Girls run free!
Year 2 took part in a special ‘Out of the Classroom and Into the Woods’ session, reuniting with their counterparts from Granard Primary School whom they first met up with in Year 1 on Wimbledon Common, where they spent a joyful time exploring nature. Reception will join Granard on the Common in the summer term for a Teddy Bears’ Picnic- an annual favourite!
Year 4 are excited to participate in a new partnership initiative with Holy Cross School in Argentina. They have been busy writing letters to their Year 4 counterparts. The goal is to receive letters in return and eventually have a TEAMS call with the school so that they can ask questions face-to-face.
Our THRIVE partnership brings Y6 pupils together with our sixth formers, as well as pupils from Granard, Greenwrythe, Sacred Heart and West Wimbledon Primary Schools for activities such as drama production, music, and debating. The THRIVE showcase, where the pupils explained or performed their projects to an audience of parents and teachers highlighted their creativity, teamwork, and confidence and brought to a close another inspiring term of collaboration.
Our sporting highlights in the Junior School this term include:
• U11 Gymnasts 4th at GDST Rally
• U11 GDST hockey winners
• Qualifying for Primary Fitness Games Finals
• IAPS swimming: Olivia (Y6) and Annelin (Y5) qualified for individual races at the national finals in the summer term – watch this space!
U11 hockey team - GDST Hockey Champions!
U11 IAPS Netball: Congratulations to the team for reaching the quarter finals of the cup competition.
Gym and Dance 2025 ‘A Night at the Oscars’
Year 4 recently performed ‘Dragon Days’ – an exciting tale of a town based at the bottom of a mountain, where a dragon lives! The girls had four days to rehearse before they performed to parents.
We worked really hard on our musical ‘Dragon Days’. We put it all together in just four days and were proud to perform it to the Junior school and our parents on the Friday.
We particularly enjoyed dressing up in our costumes, learning the dances, using props and learning about how to move around the stage. We loved that everyone had some lines to say and lots of the lines were very funny. The dragon costume was really amazing and it was exciting to be part of the show.
Year 4 pupil
Music
This term we saw Solo Recitals from Years 1 - 6, with fantastic performances on piano, violin, cello, oboe and more. It was lovely seeing the girls perform, some of them for the first time!
The term ended with Upper and Lower Juniors Ensembles Concerts, showcasing the breadth of work that pupils have been practising since Christmas - percussion, choir, brass and wind
Junior School Spring Ensembles
Lower Junior School Recital
Key Dates
Monday 28 April - Friday 2 May
Y5 Residential ‘Rhos y Gwalieu’, Wales and Y6 Residential to France
Tuesday 13 - Friday 16 May
Y4 Residential ‘Land and Wave’
Wednesday 14 - Friday 16 May
Y3 Residential ‘Henley Fort’
Monday 19 - Thursday 22 May Bring your parent to rehearsal week
Friday 23 May
Upper and Lower Juniors Sports Day
Thursday 12 June
Year 6 Production
Read all our Junior News here View our Calendar here
Friday 13 June
Year 6 Production
Friday 20 June
International Food Festival
Tuesday 24 June
Years 3, 4 and 5
Prize Giving
Wednesday 25 June
Years 1 and 2 Prize Giving
Thursday 26 June
Reception Graduation / Year 6 Leavers’ Ceremony
Friday 27 June Move Up Morning
