Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News 12TH december 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

Another super mix of festive fun this week as our youngest children took centre stage performing to family and friends across the week.   I had the great privilege of seeing all of the performances to parents delivered by our Reception and Nursery children on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and I was so impressed, not only by the sheer number of songs, actions, words and dance moves the children had learnt but also by the way they sat respectfully, smiling and listening while others performed before giving their all when it was their turn to take to the stage. A brilliant achievement considering that for many of our children it was their first experience of performing in front of an audience!   Our youngest children in school certainly had the cute factor as they performed the Christmas story three times (and with three different casts) to a packed audience in Nursery. Every child got their moment to shine as one of the key characters and they all sang their songs, complete with signing, brilliantly.   Reception also retold the Christmas story but with some humorous songs, some great acting and some amazing dance moves. Like Nursery, Reception performed their nativity three times across the week, once to the whole school on Monday, before two performances on Tuesday and Wednesday to a very packed school hall.    All of the parents left with a real festive buzz and lots of lovely comments about how well the children had performed. Well done Nursery and Reception for some amazing performances and a big thank you to all of the staff involved in making these productions happen.   Yesterday, we also celebrated Christmas jumper day by not only wearing some fabulous festive attire but also enjoying our Christmas dinner produced by our head chef, Mr Watty and the Pabulum team. The children were the guests of honour as the staff served them at their tables and they enjoyed a delicious dinner, crackers and Christmas music. A big thank you to all of the staff who made this a lovely occasion for the children to enjoy.   Next week, it’s the turn of our Year 2 children to perform their Christingle service to parents/carers on Tuesday and Wednesday. They will also perform their dress rehearsal to the whole school on Monday in preparation for the parent performances. The children have been rehearsing so hard over the last few weeks and from hearing the sound of traditional carols ringing out around our corridors, I can guarantee that the audience are in for a real treat!   On Thursday next week, our Year 1s will be enjoying some Christmas crafts with their parents, carers and families but please don’t worry if you feel that our Year 1s are missing out on a performance of their own, because they will be performing their Spring show later on in the year.   Next week there are lots of other exciting things going on for the children to enjoy including class parties on Friday along with a Christmas film event run by the Friends of Hamstel and a visit by the big man himself….yes Santa has confirmed that he will be visiting our school next Wednesday with a small gift for every one of our children.   A very exciting few days ahead, so please relax and recharge over the weekend ready for the last week of the autumn term!   Scott Roche Principal

Important Messages

Please can we remind all parents that bottles brought into school should only contain water. If flavoured drinks and juices are sent into school, your child will be given water to drink in a cup instead and the flavoured drink will be returned to you at the end of the day.   Our school site must be a safe place for our parents and children to walk. This means that we have several rules in place to keep our site safe.    These include; ·         No bikes or scooters to be ridden on site ·         No smoking or vaping on site ·         No dogs anywhere on the site (including held in arms)   Please can we respectfully ask ALL parents to follow these simple rules and make sure that children are well supervised at all times in order to keep our school a safe place for all.   Thank you for your cooperation.

Weekly Celebrations!

This week our special values were enthusiasm and determination.   You may notice a theme here, but earning certificates were Thomas & Aiyah (Hedgehog), the whole class (Otter), the whole class (Fox), the whole class (Squirrel), the whole class (Duck), Thea & Jude (Heron), the whole class (Newt) and Ronnie & Benjamin (Dragonfly). There were lots of fabulous reasons for nominations including; maths enthusiasm, always trying their best in everything they do, enthusiasm for learning, working so hard all term, being determined to do their best, enthusiasm when sharing ideas and for coming so far in their learning over the term.      There was just the one Going for Gold sticker this week which went to Lila for earning 20 or more dojos. Lila also collected a special principal award as she has achieved gold three times across the term. Well done Lila!   We also had two great WOW moments this week when Joanie shared that she had won a Winter Wonderland Cheerleading competition and Delilah was recognised for being the best dinner hall helper ever!  – Congratulations Joanie and Delilah, these WOW moments sound amazing!     This week the Golden Stars for the classes with the most dojos, went to Newt class for the fourth week running in Year 1 and Squirrel class in Year 2 but being the last celebration assembly of the year, we also found out the classes that won our half termly ‘Super Star’ certificates for the classes that earnt the most dojo points across the whole half term.   Our ‘Super Star’ classes were Otter class in Year 2 with a total of 1892 dojos and Newt Class in Year 1 who recorded a fabulous 2233 dojos in the last 6 weeks...Fabulous!   After Christmas, we are looking forward to our Reception children joining our celebration assemblies as well.   Well done to all our winners of the week!

Attendance

Our attendance remained at 92.7% again this week below our 95% target. We gave our half-termly Attendance Super Star certificates to each class that achieved attendance over our 95% target during the last half term. Well done to Fox Class, Duck Class and Heron class for this achievement!   This week our weekly attendance cups went to…

• Woodpecker class who recorded 94.2% in Reception
• Heron class who regained the cup in their own right in Year 1, with an impressive, and best in school figure, of 98%
• Fox class, who regained the Year 2 cup with a brilliant 97.5%

Get well soon if you’ve been unwell this week – hopefully we will see you on Monday as we have lots of exciting events planned for the last week of term so we hope the children are well enough to come to school and enjoy them….it would be a real shame for them to miss out!

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Autumn Term Diary Dates - Nursery - Reception - Rainbow & Starlight - Year 1

Year 2 - Dinner Menu - PTA - Messages from the Office

Key Dates for Spring Term - Community

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

It has been a busy and exciting week for the Rainbow Room children. We have been learning all about keeping safe and identifying who the safer strangers are in our community. The children have also continued enjoying our focus story, 'Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?' They had lots of fun adapting the story by adding their own animals and inventing new sounds for each one. During outdoor learning, the children explored a range of natural activities, including painting with mud, drawing with charcoal, and experimenting with natural materials to create interesting mixtures. In RWI and maths, we have been reviewing and revising our previous learning to strengthen understanding and build confidence.

Starlight

This week in Outdoor Learning, the children enjoyed creating beautiful fire pictures using natural paintbrushes. They also experimented with making and using their own charcoal paint. We spent time exploring the school grounds to find the best places to put our bird food, thinking carefully about where our feathered friends would feel safe. In literacy, we read 'Coming Home' by Michael Morpurgo. The children created wonderful word banks inspired by the poem and used these to write thoughtful descriptions of the robin. In maths, we continued our work on multiplication, focusing on learning and beginning to recall the 5 and 10 times tables. The children worked really hard and are becoming more confident every day. In PSHE, we explored what it means to work together as a team. The children identified different teams in pictures and then practised teamwork themselves by using the parachute to keep balloons in the air—great fun and fantastic cooperation! We were so pleased to see the children looking festive in their Christmas jumpers, and we hope they enjoyed the special Christmas dinner.

REMINDER: Wednesday 17th December – Starlight Christmas crafts afternoon at 2:30pm. We look forward to seeing you!

Year 1

In literacy this week we have been learning about what a poem is. We looked at a repetitive poem called ‘What Toy is This?’. We chose some toy pictures, described them and used this to write a repetitive poem of our own.  In maths we have been learning about numbers to 20. We practised making 10 first and then counting on up to 20. We also looked at recognising, reading and writing numbers to 20.  In science we continued to look at materials. We identified and compared properties of materials and used this knowledge to design a toy, explaining the most suitable material the toy is made from and why.  In P.E we have continued with ball skills and dance. 

REMINDER: Christmas party – Friday 19th December 

Year 2

In literacy, we have been exploring the text 'Coming Home'. The children looked closely at the language and linked it to their senses to help them imagine the scenes more clearly. They then used these ideas to write their own detailed scene descriptions. In maths, we continued to strengthen our multiplication skills by practising the 2, 5 and 10 times tables and solving related problems. We have also been working hard on our Christingle performance for parents next week, and the children are excited to share what they’ve been practising.

Please note that Otter Class will be taking part in their Outdoor Learning session on Wednesday 17th December next week and children should come to school dressed in their outdoor learning kit on that day. This is due to all the fun end of term activities taking place on Friday 19th December.

Please note that Hedgehog Class will be taking part in their Outdoor Learning session on Tuesday 16th December next week and children should come to school dressed in their outdoor learning kit on that day. This is due to all the fun end of term activities taking place.

Year 2 Christingle

• Fox and Otter families- Tuesday 16th December at 9am
• Squirrel and Hedgehog families- Wednesday 17th December at 9am

Support Our School with Easyfundraising!

Dear Parents & Carers,

We’re excited to let you know that our PTA is now using Easyfundraising to help raise money for our school and you can help too, simply by doing your everyday shopping online!

It’s completely free to use and takes just a minute to get started.

1. 🛒 Here’s how it works: Visit our fundraising page here
2. Click “Support this cause” and create your free account.
3. Start your online shopping at your favourite retailers (like Amazon, Argos, Tesco, M&S, Just Eat and many more!).
4. The retailer sends us a free donation at no extra cost to you!

It’s an easy way to support our school while doing what you’re already doing online. Every penny raised goes directly towards enriching the learning experience for our children from new equipment and resources to fun events and activities.

Please take a moment to sign up and share the link with friends and family too!

Thank you for your continued support,

Messages from the Office

Parking around the school

Unfortunately, despite previous requests we are receiving an increasing number of concerns raised around unsafe, illegal and inconsiderate parking near to the school at drop off and collection times. Please always park respectfully and safely. That 'just be a few minutes' whilst parked on a road corner obstructing the view of other road user could cause a serious incident, which none of us want to happen. As a citizen if you see problem or illegal parking you can report this - the link for Southend Council is here Report a Parking Problem and the link for Essex Police is here Report antisocial behaviour | Essex Police We are looking into raising this issue further with the local ward councillors and other services to request support in tackling this.

Arbor Hints and Tips

Breakfast and After School Club

To change or cancel Breakfast or After School Club you need to contact the office. Parents are unable to change/amend their own bookings. If your child is booked into After School Club or Breakfast Club, it will show on their calendar in Arbor, including the session i.e SHORT, FULL, LATE. A full week view can be seen by clicking the blue arrow in the ‘Calendar’ tab.

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