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Northgate Way | Northgate High School
A group of students from Northgate High School have just been awarded a grant of over £5000 for their environmental action projects. The team of Year 7 to 9 students, have been working alongside a project mentor, Alex Day, and Ben Earle from Gressenhall Community Hub, as part of the Green Influencer Scheme.
The scheme, with The Ernest Cook Trust, which funds Green Mentor posts across England, supports groups of young people in their environmental social action projects. It was borne out of a desire to help young people realise their potential to positively impact the environment through youth social action. Northgate’s Green Influencers have learnt about the world around them, new skills, gained experience and confidence. Their projects will help create lasting and meaningful connections with the natural environment.
They have taken part in sessions at school based on different aspects of the environment including trees – their history, how they can be used to look at climate patterns and why they are so important to the environment and conservation efforts. They also looked at they looked into what climate emergency is, what sustainable means to them, environmental issues in the local area and possible solutions. Another session saw students become designers and landscapers, thinking about environmental benefits of grassland, ponds, wildflower areas, forests and more and re-imagining the school grounds.
The Green Influencers have already started work on a wildflower area outside of school time. Creating an area to attract pollinators was right at the top of their wish list! They hope in time it will become, not only a quiet mindfulness area, but also an opportunity for learning across different curriculum subjects. They have some big plans for other areas of the school and after receiving a grant of over £5000 from the Ernest Cook Trust, these plans will be able to become a reality.
Later in the year, students will be taking a trip to the Gressenhall Community Hub, based at Gressenhall Rural Life Museum and Farm. They will be working alongside the tree officers at the tree nursery and hope to learn even more that can be put into practice at school.
Miss Theobald, who runs a number of eco initiatives at the school and has worked alongside the Green Influencers said, ‘It has been great to see the students grow in confidence over the sessions they have completed with our project mentors. They have learnt about the climate emergency, thought about issues closer to home, looked into the history of trees and put together a project plan. They have shown a real passion for the environment and in particular what they can do moving forwards on the school site. They can’t wait to make further progress on their projects and share what they have done with the community. We are delighted to have been awarded such a substantial grant and know this will really support the students’ projects.’
Mental Health Awareness Week runs from 9th – 15th May this year. We’re raising awareness of the impact of loneliness on our mental wellbeing and the practical steps we can take to address it. Miss Brown, our Emotional Wellbeing Support Officer, has collated some resources students and parents may find useful. You can find them all below:
We are pleased to share our May. In our bulletin this month there’s news about our recent celebration of Neurodiversity week, updates on our current recycling schemes and a recent competition some of our School Council members won.
We hope that you are able to take some time to have a look at all the goings on at Northgate from the last month and enjoy seeing what we’ve been up to. Please share with your friends and family via our Facebook and twitter pages.
Miss Theobald (School Council Coordinator) + Northgate School Council.
The Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden is world famous for its productions, not only opera but also ballet. Our Northgate and Dereham Sixth Form students have been to three different operas in recent years – ‘Tosca’, ‘Il Travatore’ and ‘Don Giovanni’. At the beginning of April, Miss Brooks and Miss Lynn took a trip with some students to see ‘La Traviata’ by Guiseppe Verdi.
Chris, Year 9, tells us about his experience:
‘We left school at 7:15am on a deluxe minibus. On our way through London, we saw several interesting landmarks, such as the London Eye and the Gherkin. The opera followed the tragic story of Alfredo Gremont and Violetta Valéry. We had seats situated at the very front and we could see the amazing orchestra and enjoyed watching them play, as well as the performance. It was an amazing production, and the sets were incredible! Afterwards we had an opportunity to walk around Covent Gardens and enjoyed exploring the many different market stalls. It was great to go on a trip with all my friends again, after all the covid restrictions. We returned back to school at 7:20pm after a lovely day.’
Nathan, Year 9, wrote a creative response after seeing the opera in the form of a letter to the cast and production team. He said:
‘On Friday 1st April 2022 I was lucky enough to go to the Schools Matinee of La Traviata at the Royal Opera House.
This is the first opera that I have ever been to and the first time that I have ever visited the Royal Opera House. I was lucky enough to be sitting on Row A of the Orchestra Stalls and the whole day was fascinating and really enjoyable. I have definitely become an opera fan.
In the past I have visited theatres many times to see musicals and pantomimes. The Royal Opera House experience was very different and very powerful.
I would like to thank the cast and production team for making this experience accessible to me. The Schools Matinee is a way that I could access an opera in a world class setting that I could not have otherwise experienced.
I think that Verdi would have been proud of this scheme. He probably never foresaw a time in the future when opera performances would be of the quality and cost that they are today. This scheme enables children to see and enjoy his work, performed by top singers and musicians. I think he would have been very proud of this. Also the filming of the performance to enable people to access it at cinemas. He would never have been able to imagine cinemas as they are today. He died in 1901 and cinema was very new, it had only started in 1895. I don’t think he could have imagined our cinemas, imax, online streaming and other technologies. It is only 169 years since Verdi composed La Traviata but it is a completely different world that is moving so fast. Technology that is common today such as mobile phones and the internet would have been unimaginable to him. But it is this technology that is enabling so many people to access his work. In another 150 years how will people enjoy for example Ed Sheeran?
The opera was incredibly powerful and the music so engaging; it was easy to follow the story.
The Opera House is a fabulous building and the musicians and performers were magnificent, but also the costumes and sets were amazing. Everything came together to combine into a once in a lifetime experience.’
A final creative response mentioned:
‘Overall, I personally enjoyed the full view of the orchestra from where I was sitting. I also got a better understanding of the organisation, placement of the instruments and musicians. The music layering of all the instruments combined to make a dramatic piece of music, invoking
different emotions. Educationally, I believe that this was a good trip for all the students as I think that it changes your perspective on how an opera is structured, works with the musicians and the opera singers. I also believe that the music also helps get a better understanding of the story-line and plot.
I believe that if any student gets the opportunity to go to the Royal Opera House, then they should take it, as it is a once-in-a-life-time opportunity for students. The building itself was breath-taking and the actual opera added to the wow factor of the opera house.’
Thank you to Miss Brooks for organising such an inspiring trip for our students.
Students at Northgate High School and Dereham Sixth Form College are delighted after winning a competition with Norfolk County Council, Norfolk Youth Parliament and Swap2Save.
The aim of the competition was to create a short video to highlight what the school and college are doing to reduce plastic. Members of Northgate’s School Council starred in the video, which was filmed by Sixth Formers just before Christmas.
The judges said, ‘It was a fantastic video that we all enjoyed watching. Your students did an amazing job not just taking part but also creating the video’. The school received a whole host of books based around the environment and climate change, which no doubt, will be popular additions to the library.
Eco Initiatives in place already within the school and college include recycling schemes, bottle free Friday, use of a plastic recycling machine, passing on top tips on social media and much more.
The school also continues to run a number of recycling schemes through Terracycle. Members of the community can drop off items at Northgate or in the collection boxes in the Nationwide Dereham branch or Morrisons store in Dereham. The recycling schemes include bread bags and bakery plastic, Pringles tubes, biscuit, cake bar and cracker wrappers, writing instruments and ground coffee/coffee bean pouches.
To date, over 590Kg of plastic waste has been recycled, raising over £680 for the School Council’s chosen charity, Cancer Research UK. Thank you to members of the Dereham Community who continue to support these schemes.
Miss Theobald, School Council Coordinator, said ‘we are incredibly proud of the students’ achievements. There are so many students and staff who are passionate about reducing plastic both at the school and college, but also at home and in the community. In creating the video, we hope to spread the message a little further and get even more to think about their impact and start to take action.’
Some of our Year 10s have had the opportunity to take part in a series of events called ‘Maths Unlocked’ by the University of East Anglia.
The first session involved UEA lecturer Dr Witty and PhD student Michael O’Brien. They presented problems through the ages. The first problem posed was the Bridges of Königsberg. The problem asks if the seven bridges of the city of Königsberg, formerly in Germany but now known as Kaliningrad and part of Russia, over the river Preger can all be crossed in a single trip without doubling back, with the additional requirement that the trip ends in the same place it began. Our students got straight to work on their mini whiteboards trying to solve the problem, but without success. It turns out that it is not possible. Students had the opportunity to look at and area of Maths called graph theory, which is not often studied at school but that is accessible and leads to lots of interesting mathematical problems. It gave them the chance to look at a number of problems about drawing diagrams without taking your pen off the paper. They soon got to grips with this new branch of Maths and could work out which problems were possible and which weren’t.
This lead on to a final problem where students were given a map of the UK. They had to try and colour different counties so that those that shared a border where in different colours. The challenge was to do this in as few colours as possible. This led to a discussion on the four-colour theorem which states thatany map in a plane can be coloured using four colours in such a way that regions sharing a common boundary do not share the same colour. It was really interesting to learn about new areas of Maths and see their applications.
Thank you to Dr Witty and Michael O’Brien for running the session.
A couple of weeks later our group of students had the opportunity to visit the UEA. On arrival they had a walk around the campus and made their way to the University library.
First the students, along with those from other schools, brain stormed about the birthday paradox. The question was how many people do we need in a room to have at least a 50% chance of at least one pair sharing the same birthday? He gave a really interesting example of the Football World cup teams from 2014. Each squad had 23 player and of the 32 team, 16 of them had at least one pair of players who shared the same birthday. It turns out 23 is the key number here – although perhaps this is difficult to believe! This news piece on the BBC explains the concept really well: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27835311
Dr Helen Crowley, lecturer in the UEA School of Mathematics, ran a session called “ How not to lose your mind”. During this session students had lots of fun. They were given hats and post it notes. Each student had a number to display on their hat and chest. The challenge was when the hats are mixed up how could they get their hat back by swapping it once with each student. This was a really interactive session with lots of fun and giggles. Our students were great demonstrating to the other students how to solve this problem.
The second session was led by Ben Sparks, a Mathematician, musician and public speaker. The session started with a discussion of where numbers came from and the history behind numbers. Starting with the natural numbers (counting numbers), then problems arose back in history that required division of whole numbers which did not result in a whole number answer, hence rational numbers were discovered. The concept of zero was discussed and then the introduction of negatives. It was fascinating to learn a bit more about the history of numbers. It was great to see our students join in discussions and contribute the fact that as more advancements are made in technology, so the need for more Maths increases.
The final speaker was Luthais McCash, a Research student at the UEA. He had an experiment to show about electromagnetism, whereby he had sand on a frequency-o-meter machine which was subjected to different frequencies. Students should have seen how the different frequencies and wavelengths affected the patterns created in the sand. Sadly, on this occasion the machine did not work well which was rather amusing to the audience! There was some throwing of balls, demonstrating F=ma, and also acceleration related to the speed of the ball and more – all sorts of Maths related to Physics as well.
A big thank you to the UEA for putting on such an interesting day, it really got our students thinking about Maths in the real world. Thanks also to Mrs Chalmers for organising the trip.
There will be one final session for the Year 10s back at Northgate where they will also get to meet some students who are studying Maths at university.
The Green Influencers have already started work on a wildflower area outside of school time. Creating an area to attract pollinators was right at the top of their wish list! They hope in time it will become, not only a quiet mindfulness area, but also an opportunity for learning across different curriculum subjects. They have some big plans for other areas of the school and after receiving a grant of over £5000 from the Ernest Cook Trust, these plans will be able to become a reality.
I think that Verdi would have been proud of this scheme. He probably never foresaw a time in the future when opera performances would be of the quality and cost that they are today. This scheme enables children to see and enjoy his work, performed by top singers and musicians. I think he would have been very proud of this. Also the filming of the performance to enable people to access it at cinemas. He would never have been able to imagine cinemas as they are today. He died in 1901 and cinema was very new, it had only started in 1895. I don’t think he could have imagined our cinemas, imax, online streaming and other technologies. It is only 169 years since Verdi composed La Traviata but it is a completely different world that is moving so fast. Technology that is common today such as mobile phones and the internet would have been unimaginable to him. But it is this technology that is enabling so many people to access his work. In another 150 years how will people enjoy for example Ed Sheeran?
A final creative response mentioned:
The judges said, ‘It was a fantastic video that we all enjoyed watching. Your students did an amazing job not just taking part but also creating the video’. The school received a whole host of books based around the environment and climate change, which no doubt, will be popular additions to the library.
The first session involved UEA lecturer Dr Witty and PhD student Michael O’Brien. They presented problems through the ages. The first problem posed was the Bridges of Königsberg. The problem asks if the seven bridges of the city of Königsberg, formerly in Germany but now known as Kaliningrad and part of Russia, over the river Preger can all be crossed in a single trip without doubling back, with the additional requirement that the trip ends in the same place it began. Our students got straight to work on their mini whiteboards trying to solve the problem, but without success. It turns out that it is not possible. Students had the opportunity to look at and area of Maths called graph theory, which is not often studied at school but that is accessible and leads to lots of interesting mathematical problems. It gave them the chance to look at a number of problems about drawing diagrams without taking your pen off the paper. They soon got to grips with this new branch of Maths and could work out which problems were possible and which weren’t.
This lead on to a final problem where students were given a map of the UK. They had to try and colour different counties so that those that shared a border where in different colours. The challenge was to do this in as few colours as possible. This led to a discussion on the four-colour theorem which states that any map in a plane can be coloured using four colours in such a way that regions sharing a common boundary do not share the same colour. It was really interesting to learn about new areas of Maths and see their applications.
Dr Helen Crowley, lecturer in the UEA School of Mathematics, ran a session called “ How not to lose your mind”. During this session students had lots of fun. They were given hats and post it notes. Each student had a number to display on their hat and chest. The challenge was when the hats are mixed up how could they get their hat back by swapping it once with each student. This was a really interactive session with lots of fun and giggles. Our students were great demonstrating to the other students how to solve this problem.