Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News 7th NOVEMber 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back everyone! I hope you all had a lovely half-term break and are ready for a busy and exciting few weeks ahead. This week, we were delighted to welcome parents into school for two great workshops. Firstly, on Wednesday we held our first ever ‘Wake Up Wednesday Live’ Online Safety Session with Miss Iruskieta. Parents were given up to date information about the ever-changing world of AI and online gaming and some of the pitfalls to avoid. The feedback was really positive and we hope to be able to share more information around this area in the future. Then today, Miss Goodman led her always popular maths workshops for Year 1 parents, we will share any relevant feedback from this next week but I hope you found both sessions useful and informative. Thank you to everyone who attended— it’s wonderful to see so many families supporting their children’s learning and a big thank you to Miss Iruskieta and Miss Goodman for their hard work arranging these workshops. Next Wednesday, 12th November, we are inviting Reception parents into school to come and watch a live handwriting lesson taking place in the classroom – we look forward to welcoming you! A big thank you to everyone who kindly donated a gift for our Christmas Tombola today as part of our dress down Friday. Your generosity is greatly appreciated and will help make our Christmas Fair on Wednesday 26th November, a fantastic event as always! Next week, we will be taking part in Anti-Bullying Week, a national campaign led by the Anti-Bullying Alliance. This year’s theme — “Use Your Power for Good” with the slogan “speak up, support others, and build a world where kindness wins” — encourages everyone to recognise the positive impact they can have by showing kindness and standing up for others. Throughout the week, pupils will take part in assemblies, class activities, and discussions about friendship, respect, and what it means to be an upstander rather than a bystander. We’ll be celebrating the many ways we can make a difference by using our voices and actions to create a caring and inclusive school community. We will also be sharing our anti-bullying leaflets with children and parents. We have lots to look forward to; • On Monday, its Odd Socks Day! Wear your brightest, most colourful socks to celebrate what makes each of us unique and special. • Tuesday morning is our annual Remembrance Assembly, a special time for reflection and respect as we remember those who have served our country during times of war. This year I am going to be joined by several of our Year 2 children to help deliver our yearly message of poems and stories explaining why we wear poppies to help us remember. • At the end of the week, Friday brings our Children in Need – Dress Down Day, where children can come to school in non-uniform and bring a small donation to support this wonderful cause. We have so many exciting things to look forward to this term, so please make sure you have marked all of the important dates from our Christmas events letter in your diaries to avoid disappointment. I hope you have a great weekend and that the children get a chance to recharge their batteries ready for another busy week ahead at Hamstel Infants. Scott Roche - Principal Weekly Celebrations! This week’s value was ‘caring’ so the children have been busy demonstrating this great value which also ties in brilliantly with next week’s Anti-bullying week. However, due to our parent’s maths workshop our celebration assembly was held over until next week when we will return with our weekly instalment of achievement certificates, Going for Gold awards, golden stars and Wow Moments. Don’t forget to watch this space next week! Attendance Our whole school attendance dipped slightly this week to just below our 95% target as we recorded 94.5%. However, we had some different winners this week as they rose to the challenge set before half term and stopped the dominance of our multiple winning classes before half term… • Peacock class won the Reception cup with an impressive 97.3%, just beating Kingfisher class to the top prize • Duck class were the runaway winners in Year 1 with 98%, which was also our best attendance across the school this week • In Year 2, Squirrel class won the cup with 97.2%, just managing to stop Fox class from winning the cup for a third week in a row by 0.1% Well done Hamstel Infants!

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

Year 2 - Dinner Menu - PTA - Messages from the Office - Arbor Hints and Tips

Key Dates for Spring Term - Community

Nursery

Welcome back to all the children, it has been lovely listening to what the children did in the holiday. Our story this week has been ‘Aliens love underpants’. We have used this story to describe patterns and create our own patterns. The children have enjoyed talking about fireworks that they have watched. We learnt about how and why we celebrate Guy Fawkes Night. In Maths we have been practising counting forwards and backwards to five. In PSHE we have continued thinking about different emotions.

How to help at home

• Rhyme of the week: Click on the link below to listen to 1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive. - https://www.youtubekids.com/watch?v=thTysPVvSSQ
• Counting forwards and backwards to 5.
• Looking for different patterns in the home.

REMINDER: Outdoor learning is on Monday Please ensure that your child is suitably dressed for the weather. If you bring your child in wearing wellies please ensure that they have shoes to change into as it is now quite muddy in the outdoor learning area. Could you name your child coat as we have lots of the same coats thank you. As we are a nut free school could you please ensure that you avoid putting foods that contain nuts in your child’s lunch box thankyou

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Anti-Bullying Week - 05.11.2025
• Nursery - Autumn Term Events - 22.10.2025

Reception

It has been lovely to welcome all the children back this week and so many happy, smiley faces! This half-term our theme is Lights and Sounds and we have started our week learning about fireworks night and reading the book 'Room on the Broom'. In writing we have been learning to write labels to name some of the characters on Winnie the Witch’s broom. We worked hard to use our Fred fingers to pinch the sounds in the words. We have started out NELI sessions this week, enhancing the children’s speech and language and vocabulary development. Each week we will be focusing on special words, please use these words at home to ensure that they are embedded fully. We have been focusing on the physical oracy objective of maintaining eye contact with a partner. In PSHE we have been learning about permission and personal space. We have talked about the importance of asking permission before touching someone or someone's belongings.

In maths we have been finding all the maths skills the children have learnt already. The teachers have updated the children’s Teddy Bear Challenge and will let you know what your child needs to work on next. In science we have been learning about solids and liquids, identifying when an object is a solid and when it is a liquid. In RE we have been learning about the importance of Diwali, knowing that it is a Hindu celebration called the festival of lights. In art we have been exploring painting with different tools such as paintbrushes and sponges.

How to help at home

• NELI special words: wrist, ankle, shake
• Handwriting:

• Rhyme of the week: CBeebies Radio - Nursery Rhymes, I'm A Little Teapot, I'm A Little Teapot

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Anti-Bullying Week - 05.11.2025 ​
• Reception - Handwriting Lesson - 03.11.2025 ​

Year 1

Welcome back! We hope you have had a lovely half term break. This week in literacy we have been reading the story ‘Pip and Egg’. We discussed how every story needs characters and a setting. We looked at one of the settings in more detail and wrote a description about it using interesting vocabulary. In maths we have been looking at number sentences. We used part-part whole diagrams to help us work out the missing number. We have also been learning to add using addition stories. In art we have been learning about making marks to show texture and shade. We used our teddy bears to begin to draw a rough outline and then practised different pencil marks to show rough, bumpy and smooth.

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Anti-Bullying Week - 05.11.2025

Year 2

Welcome back to all the Year 2 children, it's been lovely to see you back ready to learn. This week we launched our new theme, ‘Rule Britainnia’, this theme will focus on Queen Victoria and some of the key inventions that were produced in that era. We will be exploring how these inventions have changed over time, particularly the telephone. In literacy we have explored a new book, ‘Queen Victoria’s Knickers’ by Jackie French. This book not only introduces us to the idea of inventions but also makes us laugh. We have used the illustrations to learn and develop our prepositional language e.g. behind, above, along, beside. We have been practising our sentences to describe scenes using some of this language. In our maths lessons, we have been learning to add a 2-digit number that results with renaming, this means that we have been learning to add two numbers together that bridge the ten. For example: Manchester United scored 36 goals in a season and Arsenal scored 29 goals. How many goals have they scored altogether? We have then used our tens and one's equipment and our learnt methods such as the column method to solve problems and number sentences. It’s been quite tricky, but we have been practising very hard! We have also enjoyed Outdoor Learning this week. We have been making soup using different vegetables. We used carrots, potatoes, onions and a stock cub

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Anti-Bullying Week - 05.11.2025
• Year 2 - Reading Rocks Day - 04.11.2025 ​
• Year 2 - Library Visit - 04.11.2025

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

Reception September 2026 - School Tours

If you have a child born between 1 September 2021 and 31 August 2022 they will be due to start school in September 2026. The application process opened on 16th September and if you live within the Southend City Council area you can apply online at www.southend.gov.uk/admissions. Deadline for applications is 15 January 2026.

If you, a family member or friend have a child due to start school and would like to view our school please contact the school office either by telephone 01702 468461 or by email office@his.porticoacademytrust.co.uk to book onto one of the final tours we have available.

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.

Making a Charity Donation

To make a donation towards a charity collection such as Children In Need open the Arbor app or portal. If you have more than one child select their name from the drop down, you will see their main overview page. Choose Quick Actions, click on School Shop, you will see the ‘products’ available. Click on the item, enter the number you wish to pay for and click Buy Product. Either choose Pay Now or Add to Basket. When you are ready make your payment.

To view your purchased items, return to your homepage, then select the child. Go to Quick Actions > Payments > Invoices from the left-hand menu, where you can see the purchases.

Community