Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 13th december 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

It was time for our younger children to shine this week as both our Nursery and Reception children took to the stage to wow their parents with their nativity performances.

After Monday’s dress rehearsal was full of technical faults…where the phrase ‘the show must go on’ has never been so apt, like true professionals, our Reception performers carried on to perform brilliantly on Tuesday and Wednesday when performing to parents, carers and other family members. The narrators told the story so well, the actors all played their parts to perfection and the singing and accompanying actions were all great. The school hall was packed and the audience were very appreciative of the efforts put in by the children and staff to put on such a polished show…the loud clapping, cheers and whoops from our audiences said it all!

Across the playground in our Nursery, our youngest performers turned the cute factor up to max, as they were equally as brilliant performing their own Nativity story. The Nursery was packed with our fabulous audience and the children clearly loved performing to their families. The actors looked adorable in their costumes and they all knew when to come on and where to stand, while the choir dazzled parents with their beautiful signing. We even managed to get our audience singing along as well.

Thank you to everybody who came along to support the children and a huge well done and congratulations to all the children and the staff for a job very well done!

Thursday was full of Christmas mayhem as we not only had our delicious school Christmas dinner, courtesy of Mr Prince and his super catering team but it was also our Christmas jumper day. There were some truly fantastic festive examples on show!

A big thank you to our PTA who also held their Christmas Pop-up Shop, where the children had the chance to buy their own gifts for family and friends. Thank you for your generous support.

Next week, it’s the turn of our KS1 children to get in on the festive action as we welcome parents to our Year 1 Christmas craft events on Thursday 19th (9:00am for Newt and Heron And 2:30pm for Duck and Dragonfly) and our Year 2 Christingle on Tuesday 17th for Fox and Squirrel parents and Wednesday 18th for Badger, Hedgehog and Otter parents. We hope to see you there!

As if that wasn’t enough, the last week also brings class Christmas parties, a Christmas film event organised by our wonderful PTA and Santa has reassured me that, despite his very busy schedule, he will be popping in to spread some pre-Christmas cheer as well.

We have sent out a message this week with more information about all of these events but as a reminder, party clothes can be worn on Wednesday and Christmas jumpers again on Friday.

There is still lots to look forward to as we near the end of term, have a great weekend whatever you’re doing and we will see you on Monday morning for our last week before the holidays.

Scott Roche

Principal

Car Parking and respectful conduct towards our residents.

It saddens us to have to write this message as we realise it is a very small minority of parents causing concern but we hope you understand why this message needs to be sent.

This week we have received reports from several residents of not only inconsiderate parking where residents have had their driveways blocked at drop off and collection time, but also reports of verbal abuse and threatening behaviour from parents directed towards these residents when they have been asked to move.

Please can we remind all parents to park considerately and to leave residents driveways clear so that we can continue to maintain good relations with those who live near our school.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Scott Roche

Principal

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

It's been another busy week for the children in Rainbow Room, the children have been learning about Santa, and what his job is! We have been listening to the story 'Dear Santa' and the children have become familiar with the storyline. It was Outdoor Learning Monday, but unfortunately, the weather was very wet and cold. Hence, the children were only out for less than an hour before we had to all run back inside, but we continued our adventure in the classroom, and the children enjoyed some messy play.

We have continued with letter and number formation, name writing and sentence building. We have made some lovely artwork and looked at different stories about Christmas.

Letters: Curly Caterpillar Letters

Phonics: Z X SH QU

Maths: Recognising numbers up to 20 (according to child ability) simple additions up to 6, one more one less, counting on from a given number, counting back from 10.

Starlight

On Monday we had Outdoor Learning. We looked for signs of Winter, looking for deciduous trees and evergreen trees. The children also used the adventure trail and seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves.

We have continued reading ‘The Jolly Christmas Postman’ story, referring to the story map to find out which places he visited. The children have listened to key word instructions to complete tasks based around the characters in the story.

Thank you for coming in to Starlight on Friday. We hoped you enjoyed icing the biscuits with your child.

Year One

This week we have been learning about poetry. We read the poem ‘What is in The Toy Box?’ and discussed what we liked and disliked about it. We then used this poem as inspiration to write our own with rhyming.

In Maths we have been consolidating our knowledge on addition and subtraction. We have been practising counting forwards and backwards on a number line and looking at number families.

We have continued our work on materials in Science. We have looked at the properties of various materials and used this knowledge to design a toy. We wrote about the most suitable material for our toy and why.

In Outdoor Learning we got to enjoy some yummy s’mores!

Christmas parties – Wednesday 18th December

Christmas crafts – Thursday 9:00am for Newt and Heron, Thursday 2:30pm for Duck and Dragonfly

Year Two

It’s been our last week of rehearsals and after the dress rehearsal on Monday to the rest of the school, we will be ready to share our Christingle with parents and carers on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

In Literacy the children have been thinking about Christmas poems, they have enjoyed listening to and reading some with their friends in class. They then thought about adjectives and noun phrases linked to Christmas to write their own simple shape poems within a Christmas tree. The children came up with lots of lovely ideas.

In Maths the Year 2 classes have been learning about measuring length. The children started the week off by measuring in metres objects around the classroom and then moved on to measuring in centimetres. The children have also been comparing different lengths in centimetres and learning that we write ‘cm’ to record a length.

In RE we have been learning more about Christingle and what it represents to Christians. We looked at the different parts that are used to make a Christingle and then made our own ones in class.

Reminders:

Tuesday 17th December: 9am Christingle – Fox and Otter Parents and Carers

Wednesday 18th December: 9am Christingle – Hedgehog, Otter and Badger parents.

Next week all Year 2 classes will have a short Outdoor Learning session, please make sure they have warm clothes to wear. Hedgehog Class will have Outdoor Learning on Monday 16th.

Christmas Parties: Wednesday 18th December – Sensible party clothes and shoes please.

Celebration Assembly - Working Together.

This weeks value has been 'Working Together', below are highlights from around the classes.

Online Safety

The holiday season is a time for celebration, relaxation and spending well-earned time with loved ones. While this period will hopefully be calm, it’s important that parents and educators acknowledge there are still things we can do to make these weeks as safe as possible for the young people in our care.

Of course, it’s not immediately obvious what can or should be done to stay safe over the festive season. This guide offers expert advice on the steps you can take to enjoy a less fraught winter break, safeguarding any youngsters who might be present for the celebrations.