Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 29th november 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

This week saw Christmas start to arrive at Hamstel Infants!

Throughout the week our Reception children made their annual visit to the local post box to undertake the serious job of delivering their Santa letters. This is always a lovely event and the children looked so happy and excited as the left to undertake this very important role.

On Wednesday, we held our Christmas Fair and it was wonderful to see so many of you enjoying the fun. Firstly, thank you to the children for creating the fabulous Christmas hoops that made our school hall look so festive – you all worked so hard and they looked great!

Secondly, thank you so much to everybody who helped from our PTA, our trustee, Mrs Evans, Mr Prince and the catering team and of course, our amazing staff.

Finally, a big thank you for coming to support and spending your hard earned money…we look to have made well over £1000 from the event which will be put straight back into giving the children some more great experiences.

Prizes from the games and the Children’s Chocolate Raffle were given out in our celebration assembly today. Well done to all our winners, especially Eloise in Owl Class who won our top prize of a chocolate hamper, Thea in Newt Class who took home Princess the Teddy, and Gracie in Heron Class who made the best guess of the number of toys in the stocking. Commiserations to those who didn’t win this time around, but there’s always next year!

A big well done to our Dodgeball team who competed in the KS1 dodgeball competition at Garons Park this morning. They won 5 of their 8 games, just missing out on a semi final spot but displaying great teamwork, effort and sportsmanship throughout. Well done Team Hamstel for representing our school so well and thank you to Mrs Walker and Mrs Kennedy who supported them at the event.

Next week is actually fairly quiet (in Hamstel Infant terms anyway), although we do have a magical ballet performance called ‘A Christmas Wish’ for the children to enjoy on Tuesday, while on Wednesday, our regular friend of Hamstel, Rev’d Andy Goodliffe will be holding a special Christmas assembly for the children. The choir are also out and about performing at one of our local residential homes.

The real spirit of Christmas then begins the following week, with our Nursery and Reception nativities, Christmas Jumper Day and our Christmas dinner. Our PTA will also be holding a Christmas Pop-up Shop for the children to buy their own gifts for family and friends on Thursday 12th December.

This week we were also proud to share our recent Ofsted report, we hope you have managed to read it, or see the article in the Southend Echo. I must repeat again how pleased we were with the positivity of the report and how well it represents the high-quality education and enrichment we try to provide for all our children.

Have a fabulous weekend and we will see you in December!

Scott Roche

Principal

Nursery

This week we have enjoyed sharing the story ‘Good day, Good night’ we have been learning about what we do at different times of the day.

In Maths we have been recognising numerals 1-3 and putting them in the correct order and counting out objects to match the numeral.

We have been practising using scissors correctly

We have been busy practising for our Nativity.

Upcoming events - Nursery Nativity Performances

Due to limited space, we can only invite 2 grownups per child

• Tuesday 10th Dec at 2.15pm –Seahorse parents/carers
• Wednesday 11th Dec at 2.15pm - Starfish PM parents/carers
• Thursday 12th Dec at 9.15am - Starfish AM parents/carers

Please ensure that your child has a spare set of clothes at Nursery. That any hats, gloves and scarves are named Thank you

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

This week we have continued learning about the story 'Hoot Owl Master of Disguise' the children are familiar with Hoot Owls endless attempts at different disguises, and how he eventually gets to eat a pizza. The children also enjoyed making a pizza, they loved putting loads tomato puree and cheese on it, and some enjoyed eating it when it was cooked. The children listened to different animal sounds and learned about the special features that each animal have. We have made some lovely owl masks and have been practicing taking step by step instructions to draw a hedgehog. It has been a lovely week, and the children have been working very hard with their targets. We have continued with RWI, maths and writing.

RWI: f e l h

Letter families: r m n h b k p

Maths: groups of 3,5, one more one less, first and last numbers, additions up to 10/subtractions up to 10 (according to Childs ability) number sequencing, and shapes.

REMINDER: The children enjoy listening to stories throughout the day so please encourage children to pick up a book at home, and look at the pictures and if possible, help them to understand the story as you read with them.

Asking questions such as: What do you think happens next? Who? What? And where?

This promotes engagement and focus and helps with comprehension of the story.

Thank you all for your understanding and cooperation.

Starlight

This week we have continued reading ‘Peace at Last.’ The children have enjoyed joining in with the text, especially the bits where they make the sounds that kept Mr Bear awake. They made/wrote sentences to match the key parts of the story.

In Art, the children have enjoyed colour mixing paint to create a nighttime scene.

We made ‘Teddy toast’ in cooking, following verbal and visual instructions. And best of all...the children ate the toast at the end!

Ways to help at home

Please can you help your children to learn how to put their own coats on.

REMINDER: Please can you send in a change of clothes with your child daily, as we do try to access the outside area as much as possible, and the children do get wet at times.

Please can you return any clothes that your child has borrowed as we are running short of spare clothes.

We would like to invite you to share some Christmas activities with your child in Starlight on Friday 13th December at 2:30pm. We look forward to seeing you!

Reception Year

This week we have been learning about sound and reading the book ‘Peace at Last.’ In writing we have been writing words and sentences about the sounds that kept Mr Bear awake. In science we have been learning to name 3 different sounds and how to change sounds. In art we have finished our paintings based on Starry Night and talked about what we liked about our paintings. In DT we made our sliders to represent day or night.

In Maths we investigated ways to compose and de-compose set of 3, 4 and 5.

In RE we have been learning what a celebration is and why it is important. In PSHE we learnt about different situations I may need to say no and how to say no politely.

How to help at home

Handwriting

Reading: Watch the QR codes, encouraging your child to join in. Listen to your child read their book at least 5 times a week.

Maths:

• Explore making 3, 4 and 5 with different objects.
• Explore de-compose 3, 4 and 5 into different parts.

Year One

This week we have been reading the story ‘The Lost Property Office’. We collected vocabulary to make a collaborative word bank with descriptions of all the different teddies left in the lost property office. We used this to write a missing poster for a teddy of our choice.

In Maths we have been continuing to work with numbers to 20. We have been learning to add by making 10 first. We have used tens frames and counters to work practically to help our understanding.

In History we are continued to compare toys from different time periods. We looked at toys from the Victorian era, toys that our grandparents would have played with and toys now. We worked together to create a toy timeline, showing how they have changed over the years. We also wrote some factual sentences about some of the toys.

Year Two

Year 2 have continued to work hard in their classrooms whilst getting those all-important songs and words learnt, ready for our Christingle at the end of term.

In Literacy this week, we have focussed on the use of conjunctions to extend sentences and ideas. We have continued to practise using ‘and’ and ‘because’ in our sentences, but we have also been learning about using ‘so’ and ‘but’, which can be more challenging to apply. The children have been practising this grammar skill when writing some factual sentences about the invention of the telephone, which they have been researching about in history.

In History the children have learnt that Graham Alexander Bell invented the first telephone back in 1876, such a long time ago! The classes discovered the telephone has changed a lot over the years in so many ways, appearance, size and of course the functions of today’s telephones. The children used their new knowledge about the changes of the telephone and with pictures to put these changes into a sequenced chronological timeline. The children discussed the changes and used vocabulary linked to the passing of time to describe the changes e.g. a long time ago, before, past, then, now, present.

In Maths the children have been finishing off their unit on multiplication by applying their knowledge to word problems but also learning to understand ‘cumulative law’, this means beginning to understand that 5x2= and 2x5= will be the same answer even if the numbers in the equation have been switched around. We explored this concept using arrays (a pictorial representation of groups in rows). At the end of the week, we moved our learning on by starting our division unit. The children started this new concept by looking at and exploring grouping as a way of dividing. We also learnt what the division symbol looks like.

This week's spelling focus was:

Adding the suffix –y (dropping the –e before adding the –y) e.g. shiny, spicy, lazy, smoky

Our Year 2 Common Exception Word Spellings: could, would, should, child

Don’t forget to practise this spelling pattern in your home spelling book to get your stamp at the end of next week.

Letters sent home this week

• Year 2 - Christmas Production Invitation - 20.11.2024
• Whole School - Christmas Fair - 20.11.2024

Celebration Assembly - Respect.

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

Online Safety

As one of the most popular messaging apps available, Snapchat sees an enormous amount of usage across the globe – with a significant number of those utilising the platform being under 18. For that reason, it’s important to understand the potential risks to younger users when spending time on this app.

Of course, it can be difficult to identify every hazard associated with the platform, let alone what can be done to mitigate these concerns. Our guide lays out the key online safety risks of Snapchat, as well as how to safeguard young people while they use the app.

Our lovely PTA have signed us up for Asda Rewards Cash Pot - if you usually shop there please consider adding Hamstel Infant School so we can have a chance at some extra funds.

How does Asda Cashpot work?

Asda's new Cashpot for Schools initiative has raised almost £1million for UK primary schools in its first 72 hours. The industry first campaign sees Asda donate 0.5% of the value of its customers shopping to a primary school of their choice – every time they shop using Asda Rewards.

For full details on how to use this Reward Scheme follow the link to Asda