Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 31st january 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

The children have had an ‘eggcellent’ week at Hamstel Infants with the arrival of the ‘Happy Chicks’ on Tuesday. It was amazing to see how invested the children have been from the minute the ten eggs arrived, through the hatching process to now, when we have ten fluffy chicks to look after.

Like proud parents, the children have fed, cleaned and cared for them and it has been lovely to watch them have a chance to hold each chick independently. The children have been extremely sensible and have taken their roles very seriously.

The important job of naming the chicks started with some truly amazing name ideas being suggested, each chick now has their own profile in our yellow room. When not visiting the chicks in person, everybody has enjoyed watching the developments on our special ‘chick cam’ which was live streamed to each classroom.

We are all looking forward to seeing how they continue to grow and flourish over the next week and I am personally feeling the pressure as my own children have been tasked with the job of looking after them over the weekend. Fingers crossed all goes well!

Next week, alongside more chick related excitement, we have Year 2 church visits for Otter and Badger classes and its also Children’s Mental Health week. Across the week the children will be learning about their feelings and discussing ways to promote good mental health in young people. We will be ending the week with a dress up day based around the main characters from the Disney film, Inside Out. If you are unfamiliar with the film, aim for your child to wear something either red, yellow, blue, green, purple, orange, turquoise, indigo or pink and you won’t go wrong!

Just a reminder to our Reception parents that on Thursday 13th February, its also our Reception relative’s afternoon tea at 2:30pm. We hope you can make it!

Finally, I would just like to thank you for your patience around our school meals. The kitchen team have been working tirelessly to get things up and running and I must say have done a brilliant job. However, due to the storage and cooking limitations of the current kitchen set up, some slight tweaks have had to happen. That said, we will always continue to make sure the children of Hamstel are well fed and nourished.

Thanks for your continued support as always, I hope you have a good weekend.

Scott Roche

Principal

REMINDER

After School Club and Breakfast Club

Due to growing numbers in both our breakfast club and After School Club, we are now nearing capacity in both. It is therefore, vital that all places are booked and paid for on ParentPay BEFORE attending the club to avoid disappointment on the day. Thank you for your cooperation.

Nursery

This week we have been reading ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’. We have been thinking about our feelings and emotions and how the Elves and the shoemaker felt at different parts of the story.

We have enjoyed learning about Chinese New Year and taking part in different activities.

In Maths we have been practising ordering numbers to five and matching the numeral to the quantity.

The children have been very excited to meet the chicks.

REMINDER: Please ensure that you have a complete set of spare clothes for your child at Nursery.

Could you please return any clothes that have been borrowed. Thank you.

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Children's Mental Health Week - 30.01.2025

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

This week the children have enjoyed learning more about the story 'Hansel and Gretel'. We have looked at the story plot, and how the children worked together to escape, we looked at how the characters may be feeling at certain points in the story, and what these feelings may mean. The children have made some lovely drawings of the witch and her house of sweets, we have looked at different types of materials in the story, and what their purpose is and what they are made of.

The children enjoyed seeing the chicks on Wednesday, two had hatched and they were very excited to see their tiny little wings. We have been watching documentaries about chicks and how they hatch. The children have continued with their reading and writing, posture and pencil grip, they are learning to focus and stay focused for longer periods at a time, we are enjoying RWI, all the children are engaging and writing to the best of their ability. The children have shown patience during adult led turn taking games and sharing activities, and the best part of the week was when the children made some cookies, this was lots of fun and the children enjoyed eating some afterwards.

This week's learning:

Letters: Curly caterpillar Letters

RWI: f e l h

Maths: prepositions, partitions, counting fingers, counting from said number, subitising, filling in missing numbers, simple additions.

Starlight

This week we have continued reading the traditional tale ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.’ The children re-told the story in their own words; they wrote short sentences to make their own books.

In science we have continued our learning on animals. We have learned the different categories of animals: mammals, reptiles and birds. We used our knowledge to identify what category different animals belonged to.

We followed instructions to make our own pizzas. The children practised their spreading, grating and cutting skills.

The arrival of the chicks in school has caused excitement from the children. We have been watching the chicks hatch and develop in our ‘Chick cam’ throughout the day. The children also had the opportunity to go and see the chicks.

Thank you for coming to the maths games/activities on Friday. We hope you enjoyed it!

REMINDER: Outdoor learning on Monday. Please provide your child with a change of clothing. Thank you.

Reception Year

This week we have started reading ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and written some sentences about Goldilocks.

In Outdoor Learning we have been investigating the physical and human features in the school grounds as part of our geography unit on My Local Area.

In PSHE we have completed our unit on Belonging to a Community by learning how to be a good friend and how to resolve a disagreement.

In Maths we have been learning that 5 and 2 more make 7 and knowing that 1 more than 6 is 7.

This week the children have been so excited to watch the chicks as they begin to hatch from their eggs.

How to help at home

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

Maths: how many ways can you make 7?

Handwriting: we have started learning how to write our curly caterpillar letters beginning with ‘c’, remembering to start at 1 o’ clock.

REMINDER:

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Children's Mental Health Week - 30.01.2025

Year One

This week we have continued with the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. We used our imagination to change the object that Jack stole from the Giant. We used this to create a new story with a beginning, middle and end.

In Maths we have started learning about numbers to 40. We used counters and tens frames to practically make some numbers, and this helped us to develop our understanding of tens and ones.

In Science we have continued our learning on animals. We have now learned all the different categories of animals; mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish and birds. We used our knowledge to identify to work out what category different animals belonged to.

REMINDER: Outdoor Learning next week

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Children's Mental Health Week - 30.01.2025

Online Safety

As we grow up, we’re inevitably exposed to new and challenging feelings – whether it’s sadness, fear or rage. These emotions can be tough to handle when we’re still learning about the world – and even once we’ve passed into adulthood – which is why emotional literacy is a vital life skill.

Of course, when emotions are running high, it can be tricky to help young people process these feelings in a healthy way, but it’s incredibly important that we do so as parents and educators. This free guide provides you with expert tips on teaching children to recognise their own emotions and deal with them in a mature manner.

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.