Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 5th July 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

What a busy and exciting week we've had here at Hamstel Infants!

Firstly, huge congratulations to Team Hamstel for their fantastic performance at the Borough Sports yesterday- coming second overall is a fantastic achievement and they all did an amazing job. The children returned proudly holding the huge cup aloft and we are very proud of them all! Also a big shout out to Mr Sayer and Mrs Walker who have prepared the children so well for this event.

Our Year 2 classes had engaging and informative workshops run by the NSPCC as part of their "Speak Out, Stay Safe" campaign. It's crucial for our children to have the knowledge and skills to stay safe, and we're grateful for the NSPCC's support in delivering these workshops.

Woodpecker and Owl classes had a marvellous time on their beach visit this week despite some very up and down weather. Next week, it's the turn of Peacock and Kingfisher classes - we can't wait to hear all about their adventures! As previously a huge thank you to all the parents/carers who helped on our visits.

Today’s Transition Day was a great success! It was wonderful to see the children meeting their new teachers with such excitement. Our Year 2 children looked very grown up as they headed off to take part in an assembly as part of their visit to the juniors. While, at the other end of their school journey, our new reception children took part in the "Talking Transitions" activities along with their parents. It was lovely to see such excitement and enthusiasm from all the children and this bodes really well for a smooth start in September.

Looking ahead to next week, it's shaping up to be just as busy, but equally as exciting! We have curriculum meetings planned for Reception and Year 1 parents/carers, so please do try to attend to learn more about what your child will be learning next year.

Reception parents will hear all about Year 1 plans on Wednesday 10th July and Year 1 parents can get the low down on Year 2 on Thursday 11th July. There are sessions at 9:00am and 2:45pm so we hope you are able to come along.

Team Hamstel will be in action again as they head off to the mini games event at Eastwood School - we wish them the best of luck in representing our school!

We will also be holding a ‘Water and Summer Safety’ assembly to ensure our children are prepared for the warmer months ahead. Where Essex Fire service will be explaining to the children why it's important to stay safe both in, and out of school.

On Thursday, our wonderful ‘Friends of Hamstel’ PTA will be running our Summer Fair from 3pm to 5pm. There will be lots of games and prizes to be won, so please come along to support our schools and join in the fun!

Finally, our Year 2 children (and staff) are working extremely hard rehearsing for their end-of-year show - it's sure to be a fantastic performance! Don’t miss it during our last week, starting at 9:00am

• Tuesday 16th July for Otter and Hedgehog parents

• Wednesday 17th July for Fox and Squirrel parents

The Year 2s will get the chance to let their hair down at their end-of-year disco which is coming up on Wednesday – a great chance for the children to celebrate their achievements together.

Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to another exciting week ahead at Hamstel Infants!

Scott Roche

Principal

Nursery

This week in Nursery we have been reading the ‘Worrysaurus’ the children have been learning about different emotions and answering questions about the story.

We have had fun making up alliterative sentences- a sentence where all the words start with the same sound.

In Maths we have been learning to order numbers to 7.

The children who are moving to reception have enjoyed visiting their new reception classes and enjoyed our Talking Transitions event

REMINDER: Outdoor learning on Friday- Please ensure that ensure that your child has sensible shoes, a hat and that you apply suncream before attending Nursery. Many thanks.

We have had a lost property table outside Nursery, please check if your child has any missing items. Anything that is left on Friday will be taken to the Charity Shop.

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

The children have been listening to the book 'The 10 Little Superheroes' learning about their strengths, and teamwork. It has been a very busy week of sharing and caring, working together in a group and making some lovely art.

The children have continued with the letter families, pencil control and formation. Number work, simple additions, and subtractions. We have been watching counting songs and rhymes and learning about more or less. It's been very hectic, and the children have coped very well with all the new activities we have incorporated with their learning. The children have shown resilience and patience, they have shown that they can work together and help one another when needed during our learning activities.

Letters: All letter families

CVC words

Maths: numbers up to 30 (according to child)

Shapes, subitizing up to 10 (according to child)

Posture control and focus activities.

Starlight

Another busy week in Starlight! We read the book 'George and the Dragon' and compared where the dragon lived with where we live. We decided that it is much nicer to live in a house than a cave! We also shared our likes and dislikes. The Dragon in the book did not like mice (was even scared of them) and we talked about what things might worry us. This was an interesting discussion and it was good to hear each other’s likes and dislikes.

We practiced our cutting skills by cutting out shapes and making it into a castle. We learned the names and properties of each shape. We also continued writing our name and easy words we need for writing a sentence. In handwriting we practiced capital letters. In Maths we carried on working on doubles and number bonds to 5.

Reception Year

This week we have been learning about historical superheroes and reading the book 'George and the Dragon'. In Writing this week, we have been writing descriptive sentences about the dragon in the book, trying to include noun phrases whilst remembering capital letters, spaces and full stops.

In PSHE we have been thinking about how to keep safe at home, learning about the risk and hazards there are at home.

In Maths we have been finding ways to partition (split up) 5 and understand that 5 can be partitioned in different ways. We have been using this idea to find the hidden number! We have also continued learning about 3D shapes, this week focusing on describing different 3D shapes.

In History we have continued learning about Florence Nightingale, this week learning about chronological order and arranging her life events on a timeline.

In RE we learnt about special places for Muslims and thought about how different people go to different places to worship.

We finished our Art unit this week by evaluating our collages, saying what we liked and what we would do differently next time.

Owl and Woodpecker classes had a very exciting day on Tuesday, with our first Reception beach visit. All the children had a great time and enjoyed playing many seaside activities. Thank you for all the grown-ups who came to help on the trip.

All the children in Reception were very excited to meet their Year 1 class teacher and spend the morning in their new Year 1 classroom!

REMINDER: Kingfisher and Peacock Classes Beach Visit: Friday 12th July

New to Year 1 Curriculum Meetings:

• Wednesday 10th July - 9.00am in the Infant School Hall and 2.45pm in the Infant School Hall

Year One

This week we have been continuing with the story ‘The Queen’s Hat’. We rewrote our own version of the story changing the object that she lost. Some of us wrote about umbrella’s, scarves and hang bags. We made a word bank of some mature and exciting vocabulary to help us during our writing session.

In Maths we have been consolidating all our Year 1 knowledge and completing some quizzes to see how much we know. We have been practising and revisiting some of the skills from earlier on in the year.

In Science we have been learning about animals. We identified and named a variety of different pets. We also looked at UK mammals, reptiles and birds. We sorted pictures into different categories and listed the characteristics.

The Year 1 children also got the opportunity to spend Friday morning in their new class with their Year 2 teacher. There was lots of excitement and lots of things to share when they came back to class.

How to help at home

RWI Virtual Classroom Videos – Fluency

Next Week

New to Year 2 Curriculum Meetings: Thursday 11th July - 9.00am in the Infant School Hall and 2.45pm in the Infant School Hall

Year Two

It’s been another fun-filled week in Year 2! This week the children have welcomed visitors from the NSPCC into their classrooms, where they took part in important workshops called ‘Speak Out, Stay Safe’. The children talked about the safe people they can talk to; all the children engaged well and should have come home with a booklet.

The children also welcomed Rev. Andy Goodliff from Bellevue Baptist Church for a special year group assembly. Rev. Goodliff spoke about the importance of helping our neighbours, that our neighbours can include many different people and ways in which we can help in our local community.

In Literacy, the children put their creative hats on, where they planned and wrote some brilliant stories. Continuing with our book 'Winnie Under the Sea', the children used the fantasy element of this book as inspiration to write their own stories using some fabulous story language and adventurous adjectives for descriptions. They worked hard on sequencing their ideas to form a simple 5-part story that has a beginning, build up, problem, resolution and ending. They did a fantastic job, and all the stories are recommended reads!

In Maths, the children have been learning about volume. The children have explored different sized containers and making comparisons using the greater than and less than signs (< >) to say which container holds more or less liquid. They have been learning about how we measure volume in litres (l) and millilitres (ml) and reading simples scales to determine how much a container holds.

In between all the special visitors this week and learning, the staff and children still manged to squeeze in some practising of songs and words for the upcoming end of year show ‘Pirates versus Mermaids’, where they took to the stage for some of their rehearsals. It’s certainly looking to be a great performance from all our Year 2’s!

REMINDER: Wednesday 10th July - End of Year 2 Disco 4pm-5pm

Letters sent home this week

• Year 2 - End of Year Performance - 02.07.2024

Celebration Assembly - Effort & Resilience

This weeks value has been 'Effort & Resilience', below are highlights from around the classes.

Online Safety

WhatsApp is the most widely used messaging platform on the planet, with over two billion users (forecast to become three billion by 2025), across more than 180 countries. The majority of those people (70%) open the app at least once a day – but what exactly are they seeing? Contact from strangers, fake news and convincing scams are all among the service’s well-documented hazards.

According to Ofcom, WhatsApp is used by more than half of 3- to 17-year-olds in the UK (including one in three from the 8–11 bracket), despite its 16+ age restriction. If your child hops onto WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends or family, our updated guide to the service contains the key details you’ll need to support them in doing it safely.

PTA

Summer Fair

The Summer Fair is next week - Thursday 11th July 3-5pm.

They are also looking for willing volunteers to help with the planned Summer Fair.