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Hatherop Messenger 21st June 2024

Hatherop Beach Party

We are so excited for our Hatherop Beach Party, an event for the whole Hatherop community. All children will be included at £5 a ticket added onto the next invoice. If parents would like to opt their child/children out they are able to do this by 27th June.

For the water activities, for safety reasons there will be a timed slot for different children.

  • 3.30 - 4.30 - Nursery & Pre-Prep
  • 4.30 - 5.30 - Prep School

Please click on the link if you wish to OPT OUT of the Hatherop Beach Party by clicking on the link below.

Boarding Slip n Slide Fun

Match Reports

Please click on the link below to access this weeks' match reports.

Arts Week Gallery

What a truly fantastic end to our Arts Week! Castlebry was the perfect way to celebrate a weeks of the arts at Hatherop. Huge thanks to all the children and staff for all their hard work in providing such an amazing day for us all to enjoy. Please see below for some highlights of the week.

Learning This Week

Kindergarten

What a glorious week in the sunshine, we have had a great time in the garden playing in our new sand. We have two new children who joined us in nursery this week, Lottie and Saffie. Mrs Janet Ewan has now joined us in Nursery and is getting to know the children well.

The topic this week has been 'on Safari' the children have had a great time learning about the animals that we may find on the safari along with painting, sticking and collaging lots of different animals. Some children went for a walk through the woods to see what they could find and hear.

Dates to remember:

  • For the children who attend dance lessons with Lana on a Tuesday afternoon, please join us on Tuesday 25th at 2.30pm for an open class.
  • PA Beach party - Friday 28th June - please collect your child at 3.30pm from Nursery to attend the beach party together
  • Nursery sports day - Wednesday 3rd July
  • No parent and toddler group with Mrs Riley on Friday 5th July.

Transition

It has (finally) been lovely and sunny this week, and we have taken full advantage of the beautiful weather with trips to the tree house, an adventure to Hatherop playground, and a fabulous day in the woods for our Dinosaur Day!

The children packed their own bags with things they might need for an expedition and shared their ideas with each other. Mrs Nixon-Lee brought in a selection of 'dinosaur' skulls for the children to inspect, and she was very impressed with how many different species they could identify, along with their knowledge of herbivores and carnivores! The children then made their own dinosaur nests and, after having their snack in the outdoor classroom, an egg appeared in each of them! The children had great fun being palaeontologists and breaking them open to see which dinosaur might be hiding inside. Later on, the children made dinosaur skeletons with sticks and dinosaur bone bracelets using elderflower stalks! Have a go at making some at home – the children will be sure to identify an elderflower plant now… The day was complete with some exciting pterodactyl races!

We finished the week with a visit to 'Castlebry' to see the wonderful creations the older children have made during the carnival-themed arts week extravaganza! We enjoyed listening to the older children sing a selection of songs and had great fun dancing to our Jellytastic song with Miss Scott.

Reception

Reception had a fantastic Arts Week! We enjoyed various workshops and activities, starting with an Arty Crafty Little Monkeys workshop where the children made carnival masks with colourful feathers. We also learned cross-stitching, decorating animals with needle and thread. On Wednesday, we transformed into clowns, using black-and-white photos and adding colourful backgrounds, hats, bow ties, face paint, and bright red noses. We participated in carnival dance, music, and singing workshops and made carnival headbands and had a circus in the forest. In addition to arts, we prepared poems for our performance on Friday.

Next week, we'll learn about plastic pollution in oceans using "Somebody Swallowed Stanley" by Sarah Roberts. We'll make posters encouraging recycling and create fish from recycled materials. Please bring clear plastic bottles (no larger than 500ml). In math, we'll focus on number bonds to 10, repeating patterns, describing positions, and mapping!

Prep 2

Prep 2 have enjoyed a fantastic arts week centred around the theme of ‘Carnival’. They have spent time outside at Forest School creating flower-pressed bunting and mask making with Mrs Thomas from Arty Crafty Monkeys. In addition, everyone has decorated their own carnival style initial using paint and markers, taken part in a cookery session with Mrs Jeffery and made their own clown collages. The children have also been busy learning poems and songs from The Carnival of the Animals, and we were delighted with their performances on Friday afternoon at our Carnival Finale!

Diary dates:

  • Thursday 27th June – Forest School Cooking for Prep 2. Please bring long sleeved tops and trousers to protect the children’s arms and legs even if the weather is sunny and hot. It is much cooler in Forest School.
  • Monday 1st July – Move Up Morning to Prep 3
  • Tuesday 2nd July – Sports Day
  • Friday 5th July – Prize Day/End of Term

Online Safety

WhatsApp Update and Safety Guide

Some of you may be aware that, after lengthy legal battles, WhatsApp have made some changes to their App. This means that the minimum age for using WhatsApp has now dropped from 16 to 13. The Internet Watch Foundation have produced a useful guide, which can be found HERE.

Also, given that WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world it's no surprise to find children from Year 3 upwards using it with very little understanding of what safety features are available. Internet Matters has a great guide for parents about privacy settings, where to get support and more.

You can find the guide HERE.

WhatsApp Advice

We're urging parents to check the group WhatsApp settings on their children's phones after a number of 11 year olds in Gloucestershire were exposed to sexual violence and racist content. Find out how to change the settings on the messaging app here.

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