Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 14th february 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

This week it was great to welcome in both Year 2 and Reception parents to school.

Firstly, Year 2 parents got the chance to see a ‘number in mastery’ lesson in full flow. We hope you found this insight into the classroom useful to see how we teach our children to develop and demonstrate good number sense, which we hope will give them a secure understanding of how to build fluency and those firm mathematical foundations needed to progress further.

On Thursday afternoon, we held one of our highlights of the year as our Reception families joined us for a delightful afternoon tea. We hope you enjoyed tucking into the delicious sandwiches, crudités and fairy cakes.

A big thank you to everybody who came along, the staff who organised these events and our children for being such great hosts!

We also wanted to share some great news about an award we have recently received. Over the past two school years, we have been working hard to achieve ‘The Healthy Smiles Plus’ accreditation which focuses on encouraging healthy eating, reducing sugar intake and also undertaking supervised toothbrushing as recommended by the CDS (community Dental Services).

Through our teaching of good practice, dental role-play and games, engaging parents and our healthy school’s workshops, we achieved the award with flying colours. A big well done to all the parents and staff who engaged with the programme but especially Miss Golding, who in her role as our Healthy Schools Coordinator, led us on this journey. Look out for some dazzling smiles around our school!

Please can I remind all parents/carers that the school car park is for staff only and is NOT to be used by parents. Sadly, we have had several parents parking in the car park recently and then rather dangerously, walking their children along the driveway that our staff use to enter in their cars. Thank you for your cooperation with this matter.

It seems hard to believe that we are now at the half way point of the year, but we still have lots to look forward to in the second half of the term including music festivals, parent’s evenings, science day and of course, our World Book week. Don’t forget to check out the dates of all our events later on in this newsletter.

Finally, please remember that Monday 24th February is an inset day and school will be closed to the children, so we look forward to welcoming you all back on Tuesday 25th February.

Have a great half term break – relax, enjoy family time and have fun!

Scott Roche

Principal

Nursery

This week the children have enjoyed sharing the story ‘The three Billy Goats Gruff’. This has led to us learning about height and length. The children enjoyed comparing different objects and saying which object was the tallest or the shortest.

We have been learning to say the initial sound in words.

We have enjoyed making our own trolls using playdough and paper plates.

In Geography we have been talking about our local area and what we see on our way to Nursery.

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

The children have continued learning about the book 'The Little Red Hen'. We have been looking at how we can help each other, and how we can respect each other's space. The children have practiced working together and helping each other with finding words to express being kind. We have been making some lovely art and craft items. The children have enjoyed experimenting with different materials and media, looking at different textures, and what they are made of. We have looked at repositions (on, in, top, bottom etc.). We have been doing with physically in the classroom, and the children have enjoyed finding items they can move around to be either on top of or under.

RWI:

CVC words: a, e , o – dog, bed, box, red, jog, met, mat etc.

Maths: showing a given number with fingers, subitising, partitioning up to 6 (5 can be partitioned into 3 and 2 etc.) counting and filling blanks.

Starlight

This week we read the story ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ The children sequenced the story, before re-telling it in their own words. The children worked together as a team to collect items in Red Riding Hood’s basket in a relay.

The children followed visual instructions to make a wolf hand puppet. They used their puppets to re-enact parts of the story.

In maths, we have continued learning to add and subtract numbers. We used practical equipment, before writing number sentences to match the number problem.

In cooking, the children made cookies.

Thank you for all your support again this half term. We hope you have a lovely break.

Reception Year

It has been a lovely finish to our half-term with many of the children’s relatives attending our Relative’s Afternoon Tea on Thursday. The children loved showing their grown-ups what they have been learning, enjoyed performing a song about The Enormous Turnip and sharing some delicious food and drinks with their adults. Thank you to all the relatives who came along and shared the experience with the children.

This week we have finished our theme, Once Upon a Time, by reading The Enormous Turnip. We have written sentences about the story, remembering to form our letters correctly and leave spaces between each word.

In PSHE we have been learning about rules that keep us safe when using the internet. In maths we have been recapping everything we have learnt so far and finding out how confident we are with our learning. In shape, space and measure we investigated different ways squares and rectangles can be made from smaller shapes. In geography we learnt how to create simples map using both physical resources and drawing our own maps.

How to help at home

Handwriting

Maths

Make squares and rectangles with different objects. Which shapes have you used?

Upcoming events: Outdoor Learning first week back!

• Tuesday 25th February: Owl and Peacock
• Wednesday 26th February: Woodpecker
• Thursday 27th February: Kingfisher

Year One

It’s been a busy week finishing our plush toys project this week in DT. We have been using the running stitch we learnt last week to sew our two pieces of fabric together. There have been some great designs of rain clouds and smiley sunshine's. We have evaluated our final pieces, and we are very proud of our finished products.

In Literacy we have been learning about simple prepositions e.g. on top of, next to, under, the children have been using this language verbally in stem sentences and then applying to some simple written sentences. Towards the end of the week, we designed our own garden setting and wrote some sentences about it. We tried hard to include some of the prepositional language we had learnt in our description.

In Maths this week we have been revisiting addition and subtraction. Thinking about previously learnt methods such as using a number line to count forwards and backwards, using a part part whole method or a tens frame. We have worked hard practising the different methods and talking about our understanding using our stem sentences e.g. ____ minus ____ equals _____. ____ plus ____ equals _____.

The Year 1 team hope all the children have a lovely half term break and we look forward to seeing you back on Tuesday 25th February.

Online Safety

Over the years, Fortnite has become a household name in the gaming community. It was one of the first titles in the ‘battle royale’ subgenre, where players are thrown into a chaotic free-for-all on a sprawling map and fight until only one remains. Its cartoonish presentation and satisfying gameplay loop make it a potentially attractive choice for young players.

However, it’s important to remember that online safety risks are always present – especially in multiplayer games – and Fortnite is no exception. This free guide, put together with expert input, tells you all you need to know about the safety concerns of this popular title and offers advice on how to protect children and young people as they enjoy the game

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 will soon be 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 will be available from the school office from Monday 3rd March.