Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 28th June 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

Another week of wonderful activities and events at Hamstel Infants!

Across the week our Year 1 children have had a fantastic time visiting the beach at Southend. The children all seemed to thoroughly enjoy exploring the seaside and getting lots of sun, sand and sea. They took part in various activities across the day to make this learning experience even more memorable. Thank you to the staff for organising these days and as before, an especially big thank you to all the parents that supported the visit… we literally could not do it without you!

On Wednesday and Thursday, we were thrilled to welcome our new Reception families into school for their induction meetings. It was a pleasure to meet them all, and we are really excited for when they join our Hamstel community in September. We are looking forward to a wonderful year ahead and to seeing our new children thrive as much as our existing children have during their time with us.

Next week promises to be a very busy and exciting one for everyone.

Team Hamstel will be in action again for the biggest event of the year. Yes, it’s the KS1 Borough Sports on Friday! We know that all the children will represent our school with pride, sportsmanship and effort and we are already very proud of our young athletes and what they have achieved this year. We wish them the best of luck!

Our last year group to go to the beach begin next week, as our Reception classes, Owl and Woodpecker, will be enjoying their visits. Please ensure your child comes prepared with appropriate clothing, sunscreen, water bottle and a hat. We look forward to seeing the children having a great time and we are sure they will love exploring and learning about this great environment that is right on our doorstep.

Friday 5th is also a significant day for all our children as we prepare for the next academic year.

• The current Year 2 children who are heading for Hamstel Juniors, will have the chance to go and spend the morning over in the junior school.
• Year 1 and Reception, will take part in our transition class swap, where they will have the chance to spend time in their new classrooms and getting to know their new classroom adults.
• Our new reception children will also be in school, taking part in our special ‘talking transitions’ event to help them feel more comfortable and excited about moving up to our school in September.

I also just wanted to share some other news with you about next year’s plans. Due to an excess number of children needing Year 2 school places across Southend, we have been asked to go back to five Year 2 classes next year. This means that Badger class will return to the Hamstel Infant class list and we will hopefully be welcoming some new staff and new children to our Hamstel community. We know that our current children will give them a typically warm welcome.

Thank you for your continued support, have a great weekend and we look forward to another eventful and exciting week ahead.

Scott Roche

Principal

Nursery

This week has been a much quieter week in Nursery. We have read ‘Pom Pom is Super’ and have been talking about what the children enjoy doing and what they think that they are good at. We have also been learning to answer questions about a story, thinking about how Pom Pom felt at different times in the story.

In Maths we have been learning about weights and using scales to weigh objects. The children used this skill when they made their oat cookies which they enjoyed making.

In RWI we have been learning the sounds ‘j’,’v’ and ‘w’ please follow the link below to practise at home.

REMINDER: Talking Transition Event Friday 5th July 9.30am - 10.30am

This event is for children who are starting in Reception in September it will be an opportunity for you to meet your child's new teacher. Please see posters in Nursery for more details or ask a member of staff if you have any questions.

Please ensure that your child has a hat at Nursery and that you apply sun cream before Nursery Thank you.

Could you ensure that your child has a set of spare clothes at Nursery. Thank you.

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

The children have continued learning about 'Eliot Midnight Superhero' and his adventures, and how he saves the world. They have continued learning about being kind, helpful and respecting space; we have looked at different emotions, happy, sad, angry and how it makes us feel, linking it to the Zones of Regulation. The children have made some lovely artwork during group activities.

The children are learning the zig zag letters and associated CVC words. We have been revising the long ladder letters and one-armed robot letters. We have been learning about seasons, and how the weather changes, types of clothing and nature. We have continued with sentence building/writing and number recognition/sequencing. The children have enjoyed group activities such as 'Simon Says' and 'Follow the leader'.

With the weather being so hot in the afternoons the children had water play in the garden and Dilly`s Den.

Letters: Zig Zag Letters: v w x z (revision) Long ladder letters and one-armed robot letters)

Numbers up to 10 (20) counting fingers and learning to recognise how many items is in a group (subitize)

Starlight

We had a busy week in Starlight! We read the story 'Eliot Midnight Superhero' again and did some good writing work around this. In the afternoons, we talked about seasons, the weather we expect to see in each season and the clothes we probably wear. We made some ‘watermelon’ fans using paper plates and lolly sticks. This was very useful with the hot weather this week!

In Maths, we learned about doubles and looked at odd and even numbers.

We watched some short video clips around feelings and emotions and we made our own ‘feelings masks’.

Reception Year

This week we have been learning about Transport Heroes. We have been reading the book ‘The Naughty Bus,’ and enjoyed playing with some London buses and seeing what naughty things they can get up to! In Writing we have been writing about the naughty bus and all the naughty things that he got up to!

In PSHE we have been learning about different job roles that keep us safe such as firefighters, nurses and police officers.

In Maths we have been consolidating our learning about doubles, making doubles on our fingers, making double amounts with objects and describing them and recognising odd and even numbers. In shape, space and measure we have been learning about 3D shapes, being able to name some of them and think about their properties.

In History we have been learning about the superhero, Florence Nightingale. We have learnt about hospitals in the past and compared them to hospitals now.

In Art we have been learning how to collage the city scapes that we drew last week. In DT we have all enjoyed making our biscuits that we have been designing.

How to help at home

Handwriting

This week we have been learning how to form the capital letters for the zig zag monster letters. Have a go at practising them at home.

Maths

• Make doubles with your fingers
• Make doubles with objects

Letters sent home this week

• Reception - Transition Meeting - 24.06.2024

Year One

In Literacy this week we have been reading the story ‘The Queen’s Hat’. The Queen loses her hat and it travels all around the famous landmarks in London. We wrote some sentences about where her hat travelled to and for our big write we created a missing poster. We used adjectives to describe what the hat looked like and where it was last seen.

In Maths we have been learning positional language. We have been learning to describe the movement of objects using vocabulary such as behind, in front of, next to, forwards and backwards. We have been doing lots of practical activities to support our understanding.

In Geography we have been continuing to learn about famous London landmarks. We have recapped compass points and looked at different maps of London to discuss directions to get from A to B. We also planned our very own trip to London.

We also enjoyed a fantastic trip to the beach this week! Thank you to the parents that came along to support.

How to help at home

Encourage your child to join in with the RWI Virtual Classroom videos.

Letters sent home this week

• Year 1 - Transition Meeting - 24.06.2024

Year Two

It’s been another busy and exciting week in Year 2. As part of our transition process, the children have had the opportunity to spend time on the Junior playground having their morning playtimes. This gave them the chance to meet some Junior staff and children and become familiar with their playtimes. It’s been great seeing all the Year 2 children have fun out there and we hope they have been coming home and telling you all about it.

In Literacy the children have been looking at the structure of our book ‘Winnie Under the Sea’ and creating a ‘story mountain’ from it, thinking about the 5 parts: beginning, build-up, problem, resolution and ending. This supported the children to think about what happens in the story and the types of story language we might use in each part of the story e.g. suddenly, unfortunately. The children then used this plan to write their a re-telling of the story, thinking about the use of story language.

In Maths we have been revisiting what we have learnt this year completing some mental arithmetic questions and different problem-solving style questions.

In Design and Technology, the children have been learning and thinking about different foods which can be used for making a healthy style pizza. The children have linked this back to their learning about the food groups in Science. They have been voting for their favourite toppings and exploring their ideas before creating their designs. They are very much looking forward to making them before the end of term!

The children have also been working hard practising and learning words to songs and character parts for their exciting end of year show, Pirates V Mermaids. We have lots to learn and practise still, so it’s going to be a very busy few weeks before we are ready to share with parents and carers in the last week. Please look at for the final details about this in the next few days.

Letters sent home this week

• Year 2 - Year 2 Disco - 28.06.2024
• Year 2 - Welcome to Year 3 - 28.06.2024

Celebration Assembly - Respect

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

Online Safety

We are providing this guide to inform you about a gaming scene. Whilst this is inappropriate for any pupil at our school we feel that you need to be aware of the what the game involves and why it is inappropriate for primary age pupils. This guide dives into the risks of Palworld, offering expert tips on how to safeguard children.

Releasing in January 2024, Palworld took the gaming scene by storm, selling over five million copies in just three days. A new take on the survival genre – blending mechanics similar to games like Minecraft with the ability to catch and fight alongside creatures reminiscent of Pokémon – it saw plenty of coverage from games journalists and influencers alike.

However, despite its lower age rating and popularity with young gamers, Palworld has been criticised for its reliance on shock humour – touching on topics including animal abuse and sweatshop labour – and as a game featuring online multiplayer, one can expect certain safety concerns to arise..

PTA

Friends of Hamstel Schools are requesting donations of teddies for a teddy tombola at the Summer Fair. Donations can be brought in via classroom doors or the office for us to pass on to the PTA.

Summer Fair

Friends of Hamstel Schools are busy planning a Summer Fair on Thursday 11th July 3-5pm.

They are also looking for willing volunteers to help with the planned Summer Fair.