Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 28th february 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to the second half of the spring term, I hope you had a fun-filled half term and got to enjoy your time together.

The large majority of the children have settled back extremely well into the well-honed routines put in place during the first part of the year and there has been some fabulous learning taking place across the week. It has been a real privilege to have lots of children come to show me their work this week which is and always will be, one of the highlights of my job!

We ended the week in style with our ‘Waddle on Sea’ black and white dress up day, with ‘style’ being the operative word as we saw a variety of dresses, tops, shirts, waistcoats and even a full tuxedo complete with bow tie matching our penguin themed day. Excitement is building as our penguin is arriving today and we will very shortly be unveiling our winning design. Thank you to everybody who sent in money to support the very worthwhile cause, Havens Hospice.

Next week, it is our eagerly awaited Book Week and what a lot we have to look forward to!

Our Year 1 classes will be visiting the library on Tuesday and Friday and we have a storyteller scheduled to come into school on Friday. Our children will be doing lots of storytelling work around our focus book and we launch our book week completions to design a junk model book character. We can’t wait to see the children’s creations!

Whilst on the subject of Book Week, please could I respectfully ask for your kind donations towards our story teller next week. Without your support, these lovely activities can’t happen which would be a real shame for the children. Thank you

Next week, Team Hamstel are also back in action in the Tag Rugby tournament, we wish them luck and will let you know how they get on next week.

Have a great weekend, see you all on Monday!

Scott Roche

Principal

Additional notice

We have received several complaints from parents regarding the parking around the school site. Please can I ask all parents to park respectfully and considerately. Of other parents and our local residents

Additionally, following on from our last newsletter, we are still getting parents using the staff car park at the beginning and end of the day. This resulted in a reported near miss for one of our children this morning. We will start to ask our site team to man the car park at these key times, so please do not be offended if you are refused entry.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter

Scott Roche

Principal

Southend City Day 2025

Saturday 1st March 2025 / High Street

Southend High Street is set to come alive with a celebration of our city’s heritage, culture, and community spirit!

Enjoy live performances, roaming entertainment, and activities for all ages, alongside a tempting selection of food and drink. From music and dance to creative displays and local talent, there’s something for everyone to enjoy as we come together to celebrate everything that makes Southend special.

Nursery

This week the children have enjoyed the story ‘Hooray for Fish’. The children have enjoyed learning about which creatures live under the water, we also sorted animals which live on the land or under water. In Maths we have been practising subitising and recognising numerals to five.

In outdoor learning we have started looking for signs of Spring.

REMINDER: World Book Day is on Thursday, children to come dressed as their favourite book character.

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

Welcome back! Hope everyone had a lovely break, it's nice to see everyone excited to be back in Rainbow Room.

This week the children have been listening to the story 'My Monster and Me'. This is a lovely story about sharing your worries. The children have enjoyed learning about different ways of expressing their worries and have been using the Zones of regulation to support this. It has been a busy week with lots of new subjects, we have been learning about capacity, mass (weight) and measurements (big/small/thin/thick etc), states of matter (liquid, solid and gas), materials and their properties. We have used picture cards, activities and short video clips to support understanding, we have all enjoyed playing games in the classroom, finding items/toys with different sizes and weight, and comparing them. The children have completed worksheets and short activities to further their understanding on these subjects.

The children have made some colourful pictures of their monsters, and they have formally been introduced to the classroom “worry Monster”, the children were all very excited to meet him and are allowed to ask for Mr. Blue (the worry monster) to put their worries into his big pocket. This has been a fun way of getting the children to express their feelings.

We have looked at different ways of expressing numbers, composing and decomposing numbers from 1 to 10, simple additions up to 20 (according to child's ability), And we have looked at one more and one less. The children have bounced right back into RWI and have been enjoying learning new words and sounds (special friends) QU and SH, CVC words and red words.

REMINDER: Monday is Outdoor Learning, please dress children appropriately (they may need a change of clothing) as it may be wet and muddy. We will be experimenting with water and hopefully some puddles!

Starlight

Welcome back! We hope you had a good half term.

In literacy this week we have started reading ‘Whatever Next!’ by Jill Murphy. We have been thinking about what items we would take to space if we were Baby Bear and the reasons for this. We brainstormed our ideas together and the children wrote a sentence to say what they would take and the reason for this, using the word ‘because’ in our sentences.

This week we explored the blue zone in the Zones of Regulation. The children learnt and practised some strategies they could use if they were in this zone, to helping them to self-regulate.

In cooking this week, we practised our knife skills, to slice and cut different fruits, to make a cosmic fruit salad! We explored the textures of the fruits and cut them into different shapes.

REMINDER: Outdoor Learning on Monday. Please dress your child according to the weather conditions and provide a change of clothing. Thank you.

Letters sent home this week

• Spring 2 Theme Overview

Reception Year

This week we have started our new theme ‘Out of this World!’. We have started learning about monsters and reading the book 'My Monster and Me'.

In writing we have been learning to write our names, including our surnames, remembering to form all the letters correctly.

In maths we have revisited the principles of counting and investigated the 1 more and 1 less pattern, describing the relationship of numbers to 10.

In PSHE we have been thinking about some simple rules to follow when using technology, such as asking a grown up before using technology.

In outdoor learning we continued our learning about maps and created different maps of the school, including the wildlife area.

In art we started our unit about the artist Megan Coyle. In our first lesson we looked at some examples of her artwork and discussed what we liked and did not like so much about her work.

In RE we learnt about special people, identifying people that are special to us and what makes them special.

How to help at home

Reading: continue to listen to your child read at least 5 times and week and watch the RWI QR codes.

Handwriting: Practise forming the curly caterpillar letters, remembering to start at 1 o’clock.

Maths:

Count different groups of toys you have a home. Did you line them up to count them accurately?

Say one more and one less for each group you counted.

Letters sent home this week

• Spring 2 Theme Overview
• Spring 2 KIRFs

Year One

Welcome back!

In literacy this week we have started reading ‘Whatever Next!’ by Jill Murphy. We have been consolidating our skills in writing sentences using because. We have written lists about the different items we would like to take to space and used the word because to explain why.

In maths we have been learning about addition and subtraction number stories. We have worked practically with our learning partners to create and challenge each other with our own problems.

In history we have started our theme ‘Man on the Moon’, we have been working on our enquiry skills to ask and answer questions. We have also created a timeline showing the important events in Neil Armstrong’s life.

This week's spelling pattern: oi/oy alternative

Common Exception Words:

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

Library visits next week

• Tuesday: Dragonfly & Duck Classes
• Friday: Newt & Heron Classes

Outdoor Learning changes this week;

• Tuesday – Heron Class
• Wednesday – Newt & Dragonfly Classes
• Friday – Duck Class

Letters sent home this week

• Spring 2 Theme Overview
• Year 1 Home Challenges

Online Safety

Marvel Rivals is a highly popular multiplayer shooter that pits iconic superheroes against formidable villains. The game is free –to play on PC and current-generation consoles but does feature microtransactions that allow players to spend real money on cosmetic items for their characters.

While Marvel Rivals has been deemed suitable for children aged 12 and over, there are several risks associated with the title that parents and educators should be aware of. This free guide offers more information on these safety concerns and lets you know how to ensure that children playing the game can have a fun and age-appropriate experience.

Messages from the Office

Nursery Admissions for September 2025

Do you or someone you know have a child who will be 3 years old by 31/08/2025? If so, you may be interested to know that we are now taking applications.

We are pleased to announce that we are offering tours of our Nursery to prospective parents who may wish their child to start with us in September. Some of the dates are already fully booked, so don't delay!

Application packs are available from the school office from Monday 3rd March.