Headmaster's Welcome
Headmaster's News - 20th January 2017
Jan 20, 2017
20 January 2017
Dear Parents
Thank you 4S for an excellent assembly this morning based on the story of Beowulf. The children have been studying Anglo Saxons in history and performing this historic tale has really helped them to understand the period that they have been studying.
I really enjoyed your performance and your ability to act and speak clearly was excellent. You kept us enthralled right up to the end with the dramatic death of the dragon! You certainly caught the attention of the audience and gave the younger age groups something to look forward to when they come to study the Anglo Saxons in the future.
A big thank you to 4S and to Mr Sheppeck for organising this assembly.
A Children’s Author visits Highfield
On 17th January 2017, Eamonn Reilly, a fascinating, funny author, came to visit our school. Altogether, he has written 20 children’s books, three play scripts and one adult book. Books have been written by him for 17 years! However, before he became an author, he was a Year 3 school teacher.
First of all, he introduced a book called ‘Rashnu’. He made this funny by telling the girls that if they saw him, they would be in love with him. Another book called ‘Harriet the Horrible’ was a witty story about a girl who was horrible to boys. When she found out that a boy was bullying one of her friends, she sprinkled itching powder into his PE bag!
Eamonn really brought his stories to life and we can’t wait to read more of them. He returned to school on Thursday to sign copies of his books for us. We think that Eamonn Reilly has written a fantastic selection of books!
by Malaika and Faheema (6H)
He certainly brought his stories to life with vivid descriptions of his horrible potion which he pretended to wipe on Mr Drake, much to the children’s delight! He read extracts from ‘The Children’s Lottery’ and his ‘British Spy School’. It was an excellent start to a Tuesday morning and it left the children with lots of ideas and inspiration for their next piece of creative writing. I am looking forward to reading their next written creations to see the impact that Mr Reilly’s assembly has had on the children.
Out and About with 2F
I watched a Year 2 lesson on Thursday which was a persuasive piece of writing on the advantages and disadvantages of keeping animals in zoos linked to their Geography topic. After watching a short video, they planned out the work as a class, brainstorming the points on a whiteboard. Aadi said that they would be looked after with food and water. Diya said a disadvantage would be that the animals would have no privacy and were always being watched. Isa followed up by saying that the animals were not allowed to do what they want because the zoo keeper in the film wasn’t allowing the pandas to do certain activities. Lola said that the film on Edinburgh Zoo showed that they split animals up that were not getting on with each other. Suleman said that in the wild, lions have to be in packs to protect themselves and hunt. The children were also worried about animals losing the ability to hunt in zoos, however, they appreciated that the zoos helped to preserve endangered species and help animals that were not well. The children all came up with excellent points for both sides of the argument and when they voted for what was best for the animals, the vote was split with Isabelle finding it hard to vote because she agreed with points on both sides. The passion and interest the discussion created was definitely going to lead to a very interesting piece of writing. Thank you Year 2, I look forward to seeing your finished written work.
Netball v Westholme
On Tuesday, the A and B netball teams played matches v Westholme School. The A team started playing well as a team right from the whistle and scored some very early goals from Olivia E, Aaliyah and Holly. This speed carried on in the first half with fast mid-court play. A couple of mistakes with distance enabled Westholme to score. In the second half, the girls took on the information regarding distance and the final score was 18-1 to Highfield. The B team showed the same speed with goals being scored by Grace T and Madeleine. The girls showed excellent speed around the court and quickly took back line and side line passes. An excellent game played by both teams - well done!
Netball v Bridgewater
Well done to all the girls who played in the netball matches v Bridgewater on Wednesday. The girls showed excellent fast movement up the court with accurate passing. The centre passes were executed effectively and resulted in goals being scored. The results were a
13-6 loss to the maroon team and a 4-3 win for the blue team.
Rugby v Stonyhurst
On Wednesday, a team travelled to St. Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst to play in their first rugby match of the season. St Mary’s Hall started strongly and even though they were short of a few of their key players, they defended well, attacked at pace and scored a few early tries, proving why they had been unbeaten all season. Highfield fought back, passing the ball quickly and releasing Alfie and Thomas into space to score tries. The longer the game went on, the more Highfield started to compete in all areas, scoring a number of well-worked tries after the ball had travelled through a number of pairs of hands. However, SMH surged ahead again and with some poor tackles and the clock ticking down Alfie managed to score a last gasp try to level the game 9-9. This was an excellent performance against a very good side. I would like to congratulate the team for their effort and commitment.
National ISA Swimming Finals at the Olympic Pool, London
Good luck to Oliver, James, Zahara, Sophie and their supporters who are travelling down to the Olympic Pool to swim in the ISA National Finals on Saturday. Enjoy the experience! We will all be thinking about you tomorrow with our fingers crossed.
HPPTA News
Firstly I would like to say welcome back and Happy New Year. Furthermore, many thanks to Claire Jones for being a fantastic chair of the PTA for so many years and to Pamela Kay and Fehmina Dasu for organising some great events as vice chairs. They will be missed but I am sure that we will see them at many of our events.
The PTA shop will be open on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 8:20-8:30am. Obviously, if we can open at other times we will and if you would like to volunteer to open the shop at a different time, we would be most grateful.
On a different note, if you have any unwanted Christmas presents, we would be more than happy to receive them. Please leave any donations in the school office.
We would love to see some new faces in the PTA and would appreciate your time and fundraising ideas. If you would like to join, please email highfieldpta@outlook.com
Hopefully see you soon.
Student Councillors
1D: Manavi 1W: Eliza 2F: Nadia 2M: Sam
3M: Bomi 4H: Aamina 4S: Sasha 5D: Lilland 5M: Gabrielle 6H: Isabel 6J: Hayyan
Merit Awards
RD: Eloise 1D: Luca 1W: Aaron 2F: Macaulay 2M: Danial
3M: Lucas 4H: Eryk 4S: The Whole Class 5D: Ahmed 5M: Bebe 6H: Faheema 6J: Aqil
Monitors of the week: Aaliyah, Katie, Olivia D
Thought for the Week
Be somebody who makes everybody feel like somebody. Anon.
Yours sincerely
J M Duke
Headmaster
