The 22nd June was designated as Windrush Day by the government in 2018 and chosen as our summer thinking day for 2022. Therefore, NHP as a leading ‘Thinking school’ created an adventurous learning journey for all the children, with some exciting external visitors around this topic.
Curriculum:
Across the school children were taking time to explore Windrush for varies different angles. For example: In an English workshop, led by our new Head of English, Mrs Skeoch, the Year 7 and 8 pupils looked at two poems: ‘Englan’ Voice’ by James Berry and ‘The British’ by Benjamin Zephaniah and considered ‘Who owns language?’ and, in fact, whether it can be owned. They discovered that language, by its very nature, develops and changes over time and words are borrowed from many different places over time. They then crafted poems inspired by Berry and Zephaniah on the theme of a ‘Recipe for London’. Whilst in Reception, the children were exploring Caribbean art and created the most wonderful pictures using their ‘green hats’.
Puzzle Company:
The children in Reception to Year 3 were treated to some brilliant brain-busting puzzles in today’s Happy Puzzle Company workshops. From balancing penguins on icebergs, completing fiendish puzzles to tantalising tangrams, the children’s flexible thinking skills were put to the test! We were very impressed by their collaboration and careful trial-and-error problem solving.
Philosophy Foundation:
The Philosophy Foundation paid a little visit to the Middle School this week. Each class discussed a topic such as identity, belonging and difference. The children were introduced to each topic through stories. All of the children were fantastic, demonstrating habits such as Thinking Flexibly and Collaborating, as well as their Thinking Hats, Green for Creativity and Blue for Thinking, to demonstrate their wonderful idea.
Sharky and George:
Today Year 7 and 8 had an entertaining and challenging session with Sharky and George as part of Windrush thinking day. Starting with some team building games, they were divided into two groups to see who could use clues and problem-solving skills to unlock padlocks and work through more fiendish puzzles to finally open the safe and get the crystal at the end. It was a close-run competition, involving lateral thinking, collaboration and perseverance and they managed it in very good time! Fun was had by all. We learnt they had run a similar session with Goldman Sachs earlier in the week and they weren’t expecting the NHP students to crack it so quickly! They are going to come back next year with a harder game as they underestimated what great thinkers we are!
Food:
The wonderful kitchen team, created a delicious Caribbean themed lunch for all the school today, filled with scrumptious flavours and hot spice! Thank you to the PA team for putting up the flags and making the school look extra special today.
