

The Buzz
Summer Term - 27th April 2023

Message From The Executive Head Teacher
We are once again back into the business of a busy school term. The staff are working hard to ensure an exciting and engaging term for the children with a focus on learning.
Everyone at HISN is looking forward to celebrating the coronation of His Majesty King Charles III on Friday 5th May. The children are invited to come to school dressed in red, white and blue (no football kits or sprayed hair) and the children will be making crowns to wear which have been provided by HISNA (thank you!). Look out for further communications from your child's year group regarding this.
Classes at HISN continue to enjoy the free workshops provided by Lazerlions, these have been very popular with the children.
HPP has also reviewed it's uniform policy, please read it as there are some small changes; see the link below.
Please ensure you have read the recent letter regarding NEU strike action. Whilst the school has been unaffected up to this point, there will be a class closure on Tuesday 2nd May which parents will need to plan for.
Helen Lockey
Executive Head of School
Please take time to watch the Richmond Borough Councils YouTube video on the Dangers of the River Thames. Click the above Safeguarding link to view.
Attendance
The classes with the best attendance last week were 1C and 1K with 99%
The classes with the no lates last week were 2D and RF
CERTIFICATES OF EXCELLENCE
Last week certificates were given out to children who focussed on the HPP principle of PARTNERSHIP
RDC Tygre
RF Alfred
RC Amelia
RK Hibba
1B Henry
1C Ayla
1H Will H
1K Jai
2A Leo
2D Esme
2J Kieran
2T Willow and Katie
Nursery
Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man! We have loved continuing our storytelling this week and have been learning new vocabulary including character and setting.
We focused on different story settings and talked about where the story of The Gingerbread Man is set. Our playdough area has seen lots of gingerbread being baked.
We have also been continuing to work on our mark making skills and enjoyed using speech bubbles to record what the story characters might be saying.
On Tuesday the children had a wonderful surprise of some class caterpillars. This created lots of discussion and questions around how to take care of the caterpillars, how long they will take to grow and what they will eat. We are excited to see how they grow and observe how they change from caterpillars into butterflies.
Out in the garden we have been exploring with magnets and testing different objects and materials to see if they are magnetic or not. Alongside this we have been on a shape hunt this week as our focus in maths is naming and recognising 2D shapes.
Reception
We have all been keeping an eye on the growth of our bean plants and have noticed all sorts of wonderful things. Some beans have grown tall and thin, others have grown leaves whereas some roots have popped out from the bottom of their pots. As the children remember the life cycle of a bean plant, we are also recapping our learning of the life cycle of a butterfly.
Each class have seen the arrival of our caterpillar's. It is so interesting to see them wriggling around and munching away in their pots. We wonder how long it will take them to turn into beautiful butterflies?
Over these last couple of weeks we have been exploring the story of 'The Gingerbread Man'. The children have loved making gingerbread men out of playdough and have been very busy designing and decorating a Gingerbread Man so they are ready to be sent off on an adventure to a family member or friend. We are excited to receive them back at school so we can hear all about their travels. The children have been retelling the story using puppets and have loved acting out the line "run, run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me! I'm the Gingerbread Man" !
Reception had their indoor PE lesson this week. We put on our dancing feet and made sure that we used big body movements to create a seaside inspired dance routine. We learnt that dancers only count to 8 and so we made sure that our movements fitted into these counts. It was really good fun and the children loved thinking of actions that were inspired by a trip to the beach. We saw seagull movements where we flapped our arms like a bird's wing. We used our bodies to show an umbrella opening as well as acting out a digging motion as we pretended to dig a moat in the sand!
MAG Week
It has been so wonderful having all the lovely Mummies, Aunties and Grandma's visit us in school for MAG week. The children have been so excited to share their time in Reception with their grown ups and got very busy doing different activities. We wanted our lovely MAGs to feel very special so we set up a Reception spa in our classrooms and pampered our ladies with a very relaxing hand massage. The children also decorated biscuits with their grown ups and we saw brilliant team work as they came up with beautiful designs. The children got arty with their MAG and painted portraits of them and noticed how beautiful they are. It was so lovely to hear all the kind comments the children were saying, "Mummy, you have curly hair. I love your curly hair." It has been such a treat to have our Mummies, Aunties and Grandma's in school with us this week and the children have said "it was the best day ever!"
The children have been enjoying learning all about the different animal groups in Science this week. We worked in teams to sort animals into their various groups, then identified the key features of each animal group, before creating posters to share with the class and discuss what we had found out.
We have been focusing on the creatures featured in our new focus text, ‘The Ugly Five’ by Julia Donaldson, this week. We have been creating or own expanded noun phrases by pairing adjectives and nouns to describe the creatures, ready to use in our own recount of the story.
Maths - we have been counting forwards and back in 2s, 5s and 10s, identifying the patterns made when counting on a number square and using these to find the missing numbers on number tracks. We are now beginning to use this knowledge to multiply and divide objects and quantities into groups.
History - we have thoroughly enjoyed looking closely at castles, investigating the methods invaders used to attack castles (e.g. mining, siege tower etc.) and how the occupants tried to defend it. We worked in groups to record our findings before presenting these to the class, sharing the best tactics to attack and defend each castle.
Art - we have been looking at the work of various architects and learning a range of different paper folding techniques to create our own piece of structural art.
PE -We have investigating moving at different speeds over varying distances, focusing on how we take bigger strides when running faster, and using a slower pace for longer distances. We have also been developing our control and co-ordination skills when dribbling a ball with our hands, using soft touches to maintain good control and wide fingers to move the ball.
RE - we are beginning to learn about Jesus and his life. This week we have been focusing on the people in his life and identifying the festivals that celebrate the important parts of Jesus’s life.
The children have had a great first week back and we are very excited to see all the amazing work that we know is yet to come. Keep up the good work, Year 1!
Year 2
English: Continuing with our Indian folk-tale 'The Tiger Child', the children have used drama to retell the key events within the story. We thought about how we know what a character is feeling by looking at its body language and facial expressions.
Maths: The children have been excited to explore our new learning in maths of telling the time. We have been using clocks to find o'clock, half past, quarter past and quarter to. It is amazing to hear the children having a go at telling us the time throughout the day.
History: We have begun to learn about Mary Seacole and the significant impact she made as a nurse during the Crimean War. This week, the children put Mary's life into chronological order to make a timeline.
Information for Parents below
Following on from our successful ADHD Coffee Morning and workshop last week, Sallie Crook (from ADHD Embrace) has sent some additional documents: the list of private diagnosing services which was requested during the session and the link to the handbook if you did not manage to pick one up. These can also be found on the website under the tabs: Key information / Whole School / ADHD Workshop and Coffee Morning.
Click on the above to view the handout from the ADHD workshop.
Click above link to view the ADHD diagnosing services list.
Contact details
Email: office.hisn@hpp.school
Website: hpp.school
Location: Hampton Infant School and Nursery, Ripley Road, Hampton, UK
Phone: 0208 979 1815