Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 25Th April 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to the start of the Summer term at Hamstel Infants!

I hope you all had a fabulous two weeks full of relaxation, fun and excitement, with the added bonus of some sunshine thrown in.

The children came back brilliantly this week and have slipped straight back into school life, demonstrating how settled they are in school and how happy they are to continue their learning.

We were straight back into welcoming parents into school today as we held our Phonics meetings for parents of those children doing the phonics screening check this year. Thank you to Mrs Bryant for all her hard work organising this session and to everybody who came along, we hope you found the information useful.

Next week, our Reception classes are out and about in the local area as they visit Bellevue Baptist Church, one of our local churches and a regular friend to Hamstel Infants. We are sure they will enjoy this visit, as they always do and find out lots of information from Rev’d Andy Goodliff, as they see the things they’ve learnt about in the classroom come to life.

On Thursday next week, our dance troupe will be heading off to the Infant Dance Festival, an annual celebration of dancing involving lots of schools within Southend. This is usually a great event to be part of and I am sure the children will really enjoy the experience and will do us proud in the process.

It seems hard to believe that we are already two thirds of the way through this academic year! Time has absolutely flown, but rest assured that we aim to make the most of the eleven school weeks left before the summer holidays not just academically, as we start to prepare reports and end of year assessments but also with the jam-packed programme we have planned for this next term.

Coming up we have events such as Gemma’s Farm, Sports Days, year group shows, beach visits, borough sports and a teddy bear’s picnic to name but a few. It is going to be a very busy but very fun summer term!

The weather looks set to be hotter next week, with a mini heatwave being forecast so please make sure that the children come into school with a suitable sunhat, their water bottles and sun cream applied so that they can safely enjoy the warmer weather.

Have a great weekend and we look forward to seeing you on Monday!

Scott Roche

Principal

Earrings

We have had a number of children coming into school wearing larger hoop earrings this week. For health and safety reasons, we would urge all parents to ensure that if earrings are worn, that they are simple stud-type earrings as this reduces the risk of earrings being accidently torn from your child’s ear during their play and work.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Labelling Uniform

Just a reminder to make sure that all items of clothing worn to school are clearly labelled with your child’s name, that way it makes it easier for us to return any lost property to the right child and saves you from having to replace expensive school uniform unnecessarily. Thank you.

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Summer 1 Diary Dates - Nursery - Rainbow & Starlight - Reception - Year 1

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

Key Dates for Summer Term

Nursery

Welcome back, we hope that you had a lovely Easter break. The children have with returned happily.

This week we have shared the story ‘Toby and the Tricky Things’ we have talked about things that the children find tricky to do and how if we practise we will be able to achieve.

We have celebrated St Georges Day, the children enjoyed making St Georges flags and designing their own shields.

In Maths we have been practising counting out objects from a larger group to match a numeral.

We have introduced RWI which is our Phonics scheme

• Summer 1 Theme Overview
• Summer KIRFS

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

It was lovely to see all the children back after the easter holidays, it has been an exciting week and the children have been learning about different types of animals, living in hot and cold climates, we have been looking at different textures and colours, the children have made some lovely art work, and have continued their learning with RWI, Maths, and pencil control/sentence building.

We have been looking at different ways of expressing our feelings and how we can explain how we are feeling by using the Zones of Regulation. We have also been looking at differences, what makes us different, how we are different.

The children are learning:

RWI:sh, qu,th,ng,ch,nk

Letter Family: One-Armed Robot and cvc words

Maths: Measuring lengths, subitising, sharing/divide by 2. making towers of 10, counting fingers, building groups of numbers etc.

REMINDER: We have outdoor learning on the Monday 28th, please dress children accordingly, and provide some extra clothe. Thank you

Starlight

Welcome back! We hope you had a lovely Easter break. The children have returned to school well and it has been lovely to see their lovely smiley faces!

This week we have started our new theme ‘Around the World.’ We have shared the story ‘Lost and Found ‘by Oliver Jeffers. The children have been learning about cold climate countries and the animals that live in these climates. We have painted penguin pictures.

In PSHE we have been learning about food and drink that keeps us healthy. We set up a healthy food tasting station; the children tried the different foods, using their senses to describe the flavours, textures and colours of the foods. They were encouraged to express their likes and dislikes of these foods, giving reasons for these choices.

REMINDER: Outdoor Learning on Monday. Please dress your child in appropriate clothing/footwear according to the weather. Also, please provide a change of clothing. Thank you.

Reception Year

It has been lovely to see all the happy, smiley faces coming into school this week! We have started our new theme ‘Around the World’ and started reading the book Penguin. In writing we have been writing a description of the character Ben in the story. In science we have been learning about cold climate countries and the animals that live in these countries.

In maths we have been learning to count things that cannot be seen such as sounds, actions and periods of time. We have been revisiting the rules of counting and practised counting on from a given number. In outdoor learning we have been using the natural resources to create pictures and enjoyed some parachute games.

How to help at home

Handwriting: Continue to practise the zig zag monster letters:

Reading: Watch the 5 QR codes for this week, remember to tick when you have watched the video and return the sheet to your class teacher by Thursday.

Year One

Welcome back! We hope you had a wonderful restful break.

In literacy this week we have read the story ‘The Queen’s Hat’, which is all about a hat that goes missing all around London. We worked together to create a word bank and used this is write a missing poster to help the Queen get her hat back!

In maths we have been learning about simple fractions, including halves and quarters. We have been folding shapes into 2 or 4 equal parts to demonstrate this. In geography we have been learning about the UK and the countries within it. We have also been learning about the capital cities in each country.

In R.E we have been learning about special places of worship and what people do in a church, mosque and synagogue.

Our spelling rule this week: Compound words: when two or more words combine to make one word e.g. football, playground, toothbrush

Common Exception Words Review: house, friend, school

Don’t forget to practise in your spelling book and bring in next week to get a stamp.

REMINDER: Outdoor Learning next week

Letters sent home this week

• Year 1 - Church Visits - 25.04.2025

Year Two

A big welcome back to the Year 2 children, we hope everyone had a lovely Easter break. We have started the summer term with our new theme, Africa. We are excited to be learning all about this continent, what is similar and what is different, particularly in the country of Kenya.

We have enjoyed starting our new week with a book called Meerkat Mail by Emily Gravett. It is about a Meerkat called Sunny who decides he is fed up with where he lives and wants to find a new home. He has a very exciting adventure, meeting all sorts of animals and going to different places. On his travels he sends home postcards. We have been using the book to explore what postcards are and have been writing their own postcards in the character role of Sunny, imagining he visits Southend. We have also been learning what contracted words are e.g. don’t, won’t.

In maths our focus has been 3d shapes. We have been describing their features and working hard in remembering and using the correct language to describe them e.g. vertices, edges, curved, surfaces. We have also been grouping the different shapes based on their properties as well and explored their similarities and differences.

In RE we have been learning all about sacred books and why they are important to different faiths. We looked at the Christian Bible and the Torah. Our teachers were able to show us some real-life examples of these in our lesson. We have been using atlases to locate Africa as a continent and begin to look at some of the different countries that make up Africa. We identified Kenya and have started to think about the climate and weather here and it is different to our climate in England.

Our spelling pattern this week: Adding the suffix – ness e.g. kindness, sadness, goodness

Don’t forget to practise in your spelling book and bring in next week to get a stamp.

Letters sent home this week

Messages from the Office

Nursery Applications for September 2025

The deadline for on-time applications to our Nursery for our September 2025 intake is fast approaching. If you or a friend/family member have a child who will be 3 years old by 1st September then have a look at our Nursery information on the school website or call the school office for a chat to see if our nursery would be the right place for you and your child.

The deadline for on-time applications is Wednesday 30th April. All applications received after this date will be dealt with as received and places may not be available.

Lost Property

The lost property box can be found at the main school office and is full to bursting with 'lost' items! If you are missing any of your child's clothes please come and have a look.

To ensure that any of your child's items are returned safely to them in class please check that their name is clearly labelled on every item.

Medicines

If your child requires medication during the school day or during wrap around care please bring it to the school office, a parent or guardian will be asked to complete a permission form.

Antibiotics - in general if a child has been prescribed antibiotics to be given three times a day these can be given at home. If it has been prescribed to be given four times a day then we are happy support with this. Please bring the antibiotics in their original bottle to the school office and the parent or guardian will need to complete the permission form.

Please note that in general we will only be able to support with giving prescribed medicines. For all other medication please contact the school office to discuss your child's needs.

Community Information

Reporting a Parking Issue

Following on from Mr Roche's message regarding parking issues all Southend City residents can report parking problems to the council using the website - link provided below. Please note you will need a MySouthend account to use this.

01702 468461 - office@his.porticoacademytrust.co.uk