Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 12th january 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to our Spring term. I hope you all had a great Christmas break and are raring to go for the new year.

This week the children have settled back to their learning very impressively – the school has been very calm and the children have returned smoothly to the well-established routines set in the autumn term. We also welcomed our new Nursery starters who have been equally as brilliant. We had a visit this week from Mrs Woolf, our Portico CEO and she was also really impressed with how our young children focus during their lessons and move calmly and sensibly around the school. While we are always very proud of our children here at Hamstel Infants, it is also nice to hear that from other people as well.

Just a couple of reminders for all parents…

If your child attends Breakfast club, places must be booked beforehand as our staffing levels are determined by the amount of children attending. If children just turn up at the hall in the morning and we are not expecting them, it could cause safety issues as we have limited staff on site available to offer additional help.

Also just a reminder that dogs must not be brought onto the school site, this includes small dogs that are held in arms or bags.

Thank you for your ongoing cooperation with these requests.

The spring term is always our shortest but is no less busy and next week we have the first of our Maths workshops of the new term when Reception parents are invited to join us on Thursday 18th January at 9:00am (Kingfisher and Owl) and 2:30pm (Peacock and Woodpecker).

There will be lots more opportunities for parents to come and join us in school and for our children to enjoy as we move through the year, including World Book Day, reading and maths workshops, library visits, an afternoon tea and our eagerly awaited Year 1 Spring Show.

As it’s our first full week back of 2024, I would like to wish you all a healthy and happy year ahead and I hope you have a great weekend.

We look forward to welcoming the children back on Monday.

Best regards,

Scott Roche

Principal

Nursery

It has been lovely to see the children come back so happy after the Christmas break. We would like to welcome our new starters who have settled well into Nursery life.

This half term our theme is ‘Once Upon a Time’. We will be reading lots of traditional tales and singing nursery rhymes.

In Maths we have been learning about shapes that have 4 sides such as squares and rectangles.

We have been learning about everyday objects and what they are used for.

REMINDER: Please ensure that your child has spare clothes at Nursery.

Please ensure that your child’s hats, gloves and scarves are named.

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

This week the children have been learning about 'The Three Little Pigs', we have been learning about different materials and media, big and small, long and short, we have looked at weight, and different textures. The children have enjoyed listening to the story, they have all enjoyed doing the huffing and puffing along to the story. We have incorporated this into our daily attention autism bucket, and the children have really enjoyed joining in and blowing down cups and empty boxes. They have made some superb pigs and have used different materials to make the pigs' houses.

It has been a busy enjoyable week and the children have completed lots of activities.

Starlight

It has been lovely to welcome the children back after the Christmas break.

This week the children in Starlight have enjoyed the story of 'The Three Little Pigs' and loved joining in being the Big Bad Wolf, ‘Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I blow your house down’ during the story. The children have been learning to name the characters and think of words to describe them. In art we have used the different textures to make the three houses of the little pigs.

In Maths we have been learning all about 2D shapes.

We have also been very busy practising to write curly caterpillar ‘c’.

All in all the children have had a very busy week completing lots of activities.

Reception Year

It has been lovely to see all the children so keen and happy to come back to school after the Christmas holidays. This half-term our theme is ‘Once Upon a Time,’ we will be reading lots of different traditional tales over the course of this term. We have started our learning by reading ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and thinking about the characters in the story and adjectives that we could use to describe the characters.

In Science we have been learning about materials, including the names of different materials, their properties and their purposes. We will be using this knowledge over the next few weeks to design and make a house for the Three Little Pigs. In Geography we have been learning about Winter and to know the names and location of places on a UK map. In Maths we have been learning to use our fingers to quickly show different quantities and to recognise numerals to 5. In Handwriting we have been learning to write the curly caterpillar letter ‘c.’

How to help at home:

Reading

• Continue to listen to your child read 5 times a week.
• Watch the QR codes for your child’s RWI Group

Maths

• Can your child show the correct number of fingers when you say a number?
• Can you child recognise numbers to 5?

Handwriting

• Practise writing the curly caterpillar letter ‘c’. Remember to start at 1 o’clock and curl around the caterpillar.

REMINDERS: In order to make our houses for the Three Little Pigs, we will need junk modelling materials. A note has also been put up in your class window.

Letters send home this week

• Reception - Maths Workshop - 08.01.2024

Year One

A BIG welcome back to the Year 1 children this week. The week has been full of enquiry and speculation as the children were made aware on Monday morning that there had been a CRASH LANDING in our Wildlife Area! There were bits of, what we think may be a spaceship scattered everywhere, there were pieces of metal, electrics and even a space helmet discovered! Of course, Mr Bailey used the special yellow tape to section off the areas. The event sparked lots of interesting chatter in the classrooms.

Due to this event taking place, Mrs Tracy asked the children to write a recount of what they found and what happened on Monday morning. The children used time conjunctions such as first, next and finally to sequence the events together. Mrs Tracy found the Year 1 recounts very useful!

In Maths the children have been learning about 3D shapes. They have been learning to identify some of the common 3D shapes by using the correct names such as cube, sphere, cuboid and cone. The children have also been learning to recognise 2D shapes in pictures and group shapes, thinking about some of their features e.g. corners, sides.

In History the children have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the famous space explorer Neil Armstrong and how he was the first man to walk on the moon in 1969. The children have learnt lots of interesting facts and we are sure they would love to tell you about them, if they haven’t already that is!

How to help at home

RWI

The links below are for a RWI virtual classroom video. Each video links to a sound that the children have been learning in their RWI lessons. Please watch these videos with your child, encouraging them to join in.

Letters send home this week

• Year 1 - Read Write Inc - 08.01.2024
• Year 1 & 2 - Class Dojo - 11.01.2024

Year Two

It’s been a chilly first full week back in school, but the children have all come in full of excitement for the new term ahead and of course their new theme, Let’s Explore!

The week started with the children posing questions around a photo taken of Scott of the Antarctic and his team when they finally reached the South Pole on their expedition. Not knowing anything about the photograph the children verbalised and wrote questions that had sparked some interest about who the men might be, what they were doing, where they were etc. With lots of excitement the children carried out some research to discover more about Scott and his team, what they did, why and what happened on their expedition. The children finished the week by writing some explanation sentences to answer some posed questions.

In Maths the children have been learning about mass and measuring in kg and g. They have been exploring this concept practically using scales as well as having images of scales and reading the given measurement. The children have also been learning to compare two different masses.

The children have also carried out an observational drawing lesson this week, in which they carefully drew a winter bobble hat and gloves. In PSHE we also talked about what a community is and discussed any communities the children might belong to, e.g. a club, school, faith.

REMINDERS: It is Outdoor Learning next week, please make sure the children are wearing warm clothes and suitable shoes. Hats, gloves and coats should be named.

Letters send home this week

• Year 1 & 2 - Class Dojo Trial - 11.01.2024

Celebration Assembly - Caring

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

Online Safety

Smartphone Safety Tips

According to Ofcom, 69% of under-18s use a smartphone as their main method of going online. Additionally, 49% of children use them for online gaming – putting smartphones only behind consoles (59%) as the device of choice for playing games on. Most people won’t require such statistical evidence, however, to acknowledge the huge importance of phones to young people.

Given that Santa’s recent visit is likely to have bestowed smartphones on an even greater number of young people, it’s a particularly opportune moment to ensure that children are able to use their handsets responsibly – and, above all, safely. From passcodes to parental controls, and from screen time to scams, This guide has the essential advice.