This Week’s Headline Story…
School Celebrates Sporting Success
13th June 2025
Highfield and Brookham School is celebrating a spell of phenomenal sporting success. The school’s pupils have excelled on the cricket pitch, in the swimming pool and on the athletics track this …
Nursery Complete Food Production Process
It’s always satisfying to eat food you have grown yourself and this week the Nursery children have really enjoyed harvesting, cooking and tasting some of the produce they planted and tended earlier in the term. As part of learning about the world around them, the children chopped and prepared homegrown radishes, learning how to manage cutting utensils safely before eating the radishes as an accompaniment to a cheese-and-biscuit snack. The children then harvested all the strawberries that have ripened in the recent warm sun before carefully cutting up the fruit and adding sugar to produce tasty strawberry jam. Some of the jam was carefully stored in jars for later, but plenty was left for all of them to try it out on freshly-baked bread. And while the radishes received a mixed reaction, the love for the strawberry jam was unanimous!
Sam Forster, Head of Nursery
Reception Assess Gymnastic Skills Progress
Throughout the year, Reception have been taking part in weekly gymnastics lessons. Each session has focused on developing fundamental movement skills, including strength, balance and coordination. These foundation skills not only support the development of more complex sporting abilities as the children grow but also play a crucial role in the classroom, helping them sit with good posture, grip pencils effectively, use scissors with control, and move confidently around the playground. This week marked a special milestone as our Reception children took on the role of gymnastics assessors. Equipped with high-vis vests and clipboards, they worked in pairs to peer-assess key gymnastics skills, which gave them the opportunity to practice and demonstrate important collaboration, communication and problem-solving skills. It was wonderful to see how impressed they were with each other’s progress and how confidently they recognised and reflected on key areas of each other’s development.
Jess Oecken, Head of Pre-Prep Sport
Year 1 Step Out Of The Shadows In Science
Year 1 needed a little help from Mother Nature this week as they investigated shadows in science. The children displayed admirable resilience and perseverance as they had several failed attempts to see how the sun moves during the day – because there was too much cloud and no sun! When the sun finally did make an appearance, the children placed water bottles on blank paper on the ground outside and marked the shadow created by the position of the sun. This they did several times to get a clear idea of how the position of the sun changes throughout the day.
Hannah Feery, Year 1 Class Teacher
Year 2 Test Their Theories With Growing Experiment
Year 2 have been busy learning how to set up an experiment to find out what plants need to grow. They have been making predictions and setting up fair tests. The children considered many ideas before deciding that some plants would be tested without light, some without water and some without soil. Of course, we have our control group that has all the elements we think a plant needs to stay healthy. Watch this space as we observe over the next few weeks to see which plants will thrive.
Kerri Wilkes, Year 2 Class Teacher
Year 3 Tackle Non-Unit Fractions
In maths this week, Year 3 were tasked with finding a non-unit fraction of a set amount. Working logically to solve the multi-step problems, the children learnt that the key was to divide the whole number by the denominator of the fraction and then multiply the result by the numerator, therefore linking their knowledge of times tables. To help them, Year 3 created and used bar models to support them in their calculations.
Rebecca Lane, Year 3 Class Teacher
Year 4 Potty About Ancient Greek Artwork
Year 4 have been learning about Ancient Greek pots in art this week, recording contour, patterns and mythological images in order to create a 2D drawing. The further the children got into their task, the more determined they were to record ever more complex patterns. Year 4 revelled in the challenge of making their drawings graphic and symmetrical, as well as putting their own unique stamp on them.
Olga Houghton, Head of Art
Year 5 Pitch In To Ready Their Campout Tents
Teamwork, problem solving and leadership skills came to the fore this week as Year 5 camped out under the stars. Working together in small groups, the children were tasked with the tricky job of pitching their tents on the golf course on Thursday night ahead of a session of bushcraft in the woods next day. Faced with sometimes unwieldy and heavy canvas, tent poles, guy ropes, tent pegs and mallets, Year 5 considered the best position for their tents before strategically pitching them. Natural leaders surfaced during the process while the groups quickly realised that everyone needed a role in order to pitch the tents quickly and efficiently.
Jo Gordon, Year 5 Class Teacher
Year 6 Pull No Punches In Fight Scenes
In drama, Year 6 are learning about the Japanese style of theatre called kabuki. They began by listening to the story of The Meditator, which includes the characters Ukyo, Taminoyi and The Servant, before learning four stage-fighting techniques. Getting to grips with slapping, punching, hair pulling and the stomach kick, the main objective was to perform these techniques safely and with total conviction. Year 6 learnt to ‘hide’ the trick from the audience with correct body positioning and how to use the actor’s action and reaction to gain the desired effect. The children used these techniques effectively to create their own fight sequences which linked these movements together. And despite how realistic it looked, no-one came to any actual harm during the lesson!
Sarah Baird, Head of Drama
Year 7 Take Centre Stage On The Cricket Pitches
With Year 8 busy exploring west Wales, Year 7 took centre stage on the cricket pitches this week. While the boys and girls had a mixed bag of results, with several hard-fought wins and several battling defeats, they were all linked by the common thread of giving their all for their teammates while putting into practice everything they have learnt in their PE and Games lessons in terms of batting, bowling and fielding techniques. And while things haven’t always gone their way in matches, the children have shown great perseverance and a will to win all season. With the end of the season now in sight, Year 7 can look back on their efforts with great pride.
Richard Dunn, Head of Cricket
Year 8 Revel In A Week Of Welsh Wonder
After a week of academic focus in the form of their Common Entrance exams, Year 8 travelled to St David’s Bunk Barns for a week of activities in sunny Pembrokeshire. The children have thrown themselves into various wet and dry activities, ranging from surfing and climbing to kayaking and coasteering. The confidence and collaboration of the children has been exceptional, and it has been delightful to see the children enjoy time in Wales. The sunshine certainly helped early in the week but while the rain that came on Thursday certainly dampened some clothing, it failed to dampen any spirits. The cohort were great ambassadors for the school and themselves and it has been a pleasure to support them in adding yet more fond memories of their time at Highfield and Brookham.
James Figgis, Head of Year 8