Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 2nd february 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

This week we welcomed our Year 1 parents in for another of our ‘Reading Rocks’ workshops led by Mrs Tracy. Parents had the chance to gain ideas on how to support reading at home and listened to why we value reading for pleasure so much at Hamstel Infants. A big thank you to our author, Jacqueline from Jacqson Diego who enhanced the event even further and to Mrs Tracy for organising.

We really do feel that learning to read not only underpins all other learning but when you read for pleasure, it opens a whole new world of creativity and imagination, so your attendance and support around this area is greatly appreciated.

Next week, Our Nursery children will also be learning all about Chinese New Year, while our KS1 sports teams are participating in two different events. The first is an interesting Maths Festival event combining PE and Maths on Tuesday before our boy’s football team step into action on Friday. We wish them all good luck and hope they enjoy the events…Go Team Hamstel!

Wednesday 7th February is a very busy day. We have a Parent Council meeting in the morning, where we will be sharing some of our plans to improve the school. If you would like to be a parent councillor, please let the office know and we will get in touch. We are also inviting Year 2 parents to come in and join our Mastery in Number maths lessons on Wednesday at 2:45pm. We hope you will come and join your child in class and find out how we embed the important elements of number in our young children. Finally, the PTA are also planning to do a pre-loved school uniform sale after school on Wednesday, so if you need any replacement uniform, please pop along and see the PTA on the playground.

Just a reminder that Friday 16th February is an INSET day so school will be closed to the children, then after the half term its World Book Day on Thursday 7th March where children will be able to dress as their favourite characters.

I hope you have a great weekend and we look forward to welcoming you back, bright and early on Monday morning.

Best regards,

Scott Roche

Principal

Nursery

This week we have been reading ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ story and have been answering questions about the story. We have also been thinking about rhyming words by reading ‘Oi Frog’ and sorting what the animals should sit on, for example bears sit on chairs and goats sit on coats!

In Maths we have been comparing objects by size such as taller, shorter and the same. We have been practising counting backwards from five. In Geography we have been talking about what we see on our journey to Nursery.

REMINDER: Please ensure that your child has spare clothes at Nursery. If your child has borrowed Nursery clothes recently could you please return them, thank you.

We would be grateful of any donations of trousers, socks, pants and knickers that your child has outgrown. Many thanks.

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

This week the children have been listening and learning about the story 'The Gingerbread Man'. The children have made some lovely craftwork, with painted hands and feet. We have experimented with lots of messy play and thera play. The children have continued with their pencil control activities, one to one activity, number and letter recognition and understanding.

Swimming will commence as usual on Tuesday.

Starlight

This week we have been reading the story 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'. The children have been practising their cutting skills by making The Three Bear masks and bear headbands.

In Maths we have been ordering bears by size and completing simple addition and subtraction calculations. We have also been using dice to subitise the dice patterns.

The children have continued looking at the emotions ‘sad’ and ‘happy’. We discussed how they would feel if certain situations happened to them.

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - NHS Dentist details - 24.01.2024

Reception Year

This week we have started reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We have been learning to write words and short sentences about the book.

In PSHE we have been learning about how to be a good friend.

In Maths we have been looking at die patterns, subitising the different arrangement of dots and using double dice to represent larger numbers.

In Geography we have been learning to identify human and physical features in our school environment.

In RE we have been learning about Chinese New Year and comparing it to New Year in UK.

How to help at home

Reading

• Continue to listen to your child read at least 5 times a week.
• Encourage your child to watch the Virtual Classroom videos.

Handwriting

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - NHS Dentist details - 24.01.2024

Year Two

Year 2 have been very busy this week planning and writing their own stories based on the text they have been using in class over the past couple of weeks, 'Lost and Found' by Oliver Jeffers. The children planned a simple prequel story about the penguin’s journey from the South Pole to the boy’s front door. The children came up with lots of great ideas and wrote some brilliant five-part stories of the penguin's adventure. The children thought about their story language to open the sentences and sequence their ideas.

In Maths the children have been revisiting their multiplication skills and knowledge, developing their fluency and written methods. They have explored solving some multiplication problems to, talking about how they solved them using mathematical language to talk about their methods.

In PSHE the children have been talking about how different communities help people feel included. The children talked about shared interests, beliefs and friendships, to help people feel like they belong to a community.

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - NHS Dentist details - 24.01.2024

Celebration Assembly - Effort & Resilience

This weeks value has been 'Effort & Resilience', below are highlights from around the classes.

Online Safety

For many companies who operate in the online space, attention and engagement are the holy grail. Social media sites in particular make deliberate creative choices to keep people scrolling, reading, watching and clicking. This phenomenon is known as ‘persuasive design’ and it’s being employed in the vast majority of the digital world’s most popular destinations.

A study by the charity 5Rights Foundation concluded that “…the brain's response to rewards and punishments can be leveraged through persuasive design to keep children online.” To tie in with Safer Internet Day 2024, thisguide can help to educateyoungsters on the effects of persuasive design – and suggests ways to insulate themselves from its influence.