Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News 26th september 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

I can’t believe we are already half-way through this half term, but it’s been another very calm and settled week, and by Hamstel Infant standards, a fairly quiet one.

Heron and Newt managed to complete their local walks after the rain washed out last week’s attempt. The children came back very excited to share what they’d discovered about our local area… a lot of the things we take for granted as we come to school each day. Again, a big thank you to the parents who volunteered their time to help on the walk, we can’t do these sorts of events without you!

Just this morning, Team Hamstel headed off to Garons for the first sporting event of the year – the inter-school cross country competition. Well done to the team for competing so well and especially to those who achieved high places overall. A big thank you again to the parents that came along to support. We will share the full report and overall results next week.

Next week is another busy one as we welcome Reception parents into school on Tuesday 30th for a Phonics meeting and the chance to watch our brilliant teachers in action within a real-life phonics lesson. This is a great opportunity to see exactly how we teach phonics in our school so please come along if you can, meeting in the hall at 9am, before moving onto the classrooms.

Friday is our Harvest festival, where our local reverend, friend and parent of Hamstel, Revd Andy Goodliff will be coming in to school to lead our assembly. The children have been very busy rehearsing seasonal songs such as ‘cauliflowers fluffy’ in preparation for this event. A big thank you to those who have already made donations to help those less fortunate than ourselves. We will be continuing to take donations across the week, so please help if you can. Thank you.

On Friday, the children will also be having their individual school photographs taken, so please send the children into school looking smart and in their best uniform for us to capture those all-important memories.

There are still so many great things coming up in this half-term for our children to enjoy including Black History day, Nite Owls visit and special storybook assemblies, not to mention our parents evenings that are fast approaching on Tuesday 14th and Wednesday 15th October. More details of these meetings will follow shortly.

I am now off to spend the weekend camping in a tent, somewhere near Chelmsford, so wish me luck and I hope you all have a great weekend.

See you on Monday morning for another week at Hamstel Infants.

Scott Roche

Principal

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

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

Key Dates for Autumn Term - Community

Nursery

This week the children have enjoyed listening to the story ‘My friends’. During our carpet times we have been talking about new friends that we have made.

We have also been learning the names of different body parts and have enjoyed singing ‘Head Shoulders Knees and Toes’.

We have been continuing to learn the Nursery routines which the children have mastered very quickly.

In Maths we have been naming 2D shapes.

REMINDER: Could you please ensure that your child has a pair of name wellies at Nursery and a spare set of clothes. Thank you

If you have not received your tapestry log in details this is via email. Please speak to either Mrs Snashall or Miss Brooks and we will resend the email.

Please check your junk box first.

Letters sent home this week

• Nursery - Drinks in Nursery - 25.09.2025
• Whole School - Labubus and other Toys in School - 24.09.2025
• Whole School - Harvest Celebration - 24.09.2025
• Whole School - Harvest Donations Needed
• Whole School - Individual & Sibling Photos - 23.09.2025

Reception

This week the children have enjoyed their first outdoor learning session, eagerly exploring the wildlife area and learning all the expectations and routines to keep themselves safe outside. We all enjoyed using our sense to explore the wildlife area, finding different things that we could see, hear and smell.

This weeks theme has been friendship, we read the book ‘I’m going to make a friend’ and throughout the week we have been building our new friendships in our classes. In our PSHE lesson we talked about how to recognise different emotions in other children.

In maths we learnt how to subitise (know how many there are without counting) 1, 2 and 3 and how to show these numbers on our fingers in different ways.

In handwriting we started learning to write the long legged giraffe letters focusing on l and i. In our writing groups we are learning how to write our names starting with tracing the letters, then moving onto copying the letters and eventually writing our names independently.

How to help at home

Reading: Please listen to your child read or read to your child at least 5 times a week. Please date and sign the home school book when you have read with your child. This helps us to see who is reading at home.

Handwriting: Practise forming these letters starting at the top and moving down and then around.

Maths: Follow the link to find out how to subitise and play some fun games

Subitising | numeracy | 1, 2 and 3 - BBC Bitesize

REMINDER: PE will start next week on the following days:

• Monday: Kingfisher
• Tuesday: Owl
• Wednesday: Peacock
• Thursday: Woodpecker

Phonics workshop and watch a lesson: Tuesday 30th September at 9am. Meet in the school hall.

Next week, the week beginning 29th September, we will be learning about families. Could you please post a photograph of your family on Tapestry by Monday 29th September. We will be sharing these photographs with the children, asking the children to talk about their own families. Thank you.

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Labubus and other Toys in School - 24.09.2025
• Whole School - Harvest Celebration - 24.09.2025
• Whole School - Harvest Donations Needed
• Whole School - Individual & Sibling Photos - 23.09.2025

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

This week the children have been listening to the story The Feelings Book, this is a funny book about different types of feelings and how we react to them, and it shows that not all feelings are boring! We have been looking at families, mums, dads and family. And how they make us feel, what reactions we give when we see them. It has been a busy week with looks of art and craft work, the children are enjoying using paint and different objects to make lots of different patterns. We are learning about the seasons, and the change of weather, and their names. We are continuing our learning with maths and English, labelling items and learning new cvc words.

RWI: s/ Revise: m a - sat, sit, set. mat, map, mad, ant, at

Math: subitising, counting to 10 on fingers, recognising numbers up to 20/counting from said number, filling in missing number, sequencing and simple additions (according to childs ability)

Letter Family writing formation: t / revise: l, i.

REMINDER: Outdoor Learning Monday 29th

Please can parents bring in some family photos as we are learning about families. (These will be returned)

We also have outdoor learning on Monday, so please dress children appropriately, if necessary, please bring new wellies and a change of clothing.

Starlight

This week in Literacy, we had lots of fun diving into the magical world of Alice in Wonderland! The children created their own imaginative potions, mixing a variety of weird and wonderful ingredients. They then used time connectives and imperative verbs to write their potion instructions.

In Maths, we continued our work on place value, focusing on understanding the value of each digit in 2-digit numbers. The children enjoyed comparing numbers and used the terms greater than, less than, or equal to to explain their thinking.

In Geography, we began learning how to use maps and compass points. The children had a great time creating an aerial view of Starlight Class and thinking about how spaces look from above.

Well done to all of Starlight Class for another fantastic week of learning!

REMINDER: Outdoor Learning on Monday 29th. Please dress your child in appropriate clothing and provide and change of clothes too. Thank you.

Year 1

This week we have continued with the story ‘The Bog Baby’. We have been learning about adjectives and noun phrases and came up with a bank of words to describe him. We then used this to create an exciting found poster all about what he looks like. In maths we have been working practically to compare numbers using ‘more than’ and ‘less than’. We have also been using the STEM sentences ____is the greatest number and _____ is the smallest number to secure our understanding. In Geography we have been finishing up your unit on the local area and mapping. We looked at an aerial view of the school grounds and worked collaboratively to plot specific places like the outdoor learning area, our class and the PE hall. In PSHE we have been looking at families and what this word means. We have been celebrating that everyone’s family is different.

REMINDER: Outdoor Learning next week

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Labubus and other Toys in School - 24.09.2025
• Whole School - Harvest Celebration - 24.09.2025
• Whole School - Harvest Donations Needed
• Whole School - Individual & Sibling Photos - 23.09.2025
• Year 1 - Phonics Workshop - 22.09.2025

Year 2

It’s been exciting week in Year 2 as the children have been making potions, linking to the idea of shrinking potions from Alice in Wonderland. The children worked with their partner to create their potions using different items such as lavender. After making the potions the children thought about the steps, they did to create them. Once they had thought about the order and what they used they then wrote some simple instructions using ‘bossy’ verbs in their sentences e.g. mix, stir

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Labubus and other Toys in School - 24.09.2025
• Whole School - Harvest Celebration - 24.09.2025
• Whole School - Harvest Donations Needed
• Whole School - Individual & Sibling Photos - 23.09.2025
• Year 2 - Year 3 School Tour - 19.09.2025

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,

Friends of Hamstel PTA

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 opens 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 tours we have coming up.

Christmas Fair

We know it is very early to be mentioning Christmas - but initial plans have already begun - please see the flyer below.

Community