Issue 2 • December 2022
...................... A message from Mr Copeland .................... What a wonderful half term it has been and Christmas has certainly arrived at Hymers Hessle Mount. I was thrilled to be able to watch the Reception pupils in all three of their performances of ‘Away in a Manger.’ This part of the curriculum is fantastic for pupils’ self-confidence and selfesteem and it has been lovely to see the confidence of the Reception pupils building over their first term in full-time school. The costumes, set, songs and actions were brilliant and every child in the year group had a speaking part. Many thanks to all the parents, grandparents and the supporters of the school who created a fabulous atmosphere for the children. I am also very grateful to the Reception team of: Mrs Carter, Mrs Evans, Miss Smith and Mrs Doggett for all of their hard work in putting the performance together.
It has been delightful to see the Hymers Hessle Mount Community support a number of charities this half term and it has allowed the children to think about the CARE Code and supporting people in our community that are more in need than ourselves. This half term we have supported the Royal British Legion through making donations for poppies which were proudly worn in our Remembrance Assembly. Over £200 was raised for BBC Children in Need and the pupils enjoyed a fun afternoon organised by Year 6 Leadership Club and even got to meet Pudsey Bear! We have donated money to the Save the Children charity through Jolly Jumper Day donations and it was lovely to see the pupils donating wrapped Christmas gift to the Children’s Ward at Hull Royal Infirmary on the last Wednesday of term. The children have enjoyed the charity events and I think that teaching children to give back to local and
The other year groups have also got into the Christmas spirit with decorations going up around the school, advent treats and cheeky elves causing mischief in some classrooms! We have celebrated Jolly Jumper day, created and exchanged Christmas cards and also enjoyed a delicious Christmas Lunch. I was fortunate to be able to attend part of the Pre-School Christmas Craft morning and join the Pre-School children and their families making festive decorations and reindeer food whilst enjoying juice and biscuits and singing along to Christmas songs. A huge thank you to Miss Smith for organising this event.
wider communities has countless benefits for their mental and emotional development.
Unfortunately we have one member of Reception staff leaving the school at the end of this term and I would like to say a huge thank you to Miss Smith for everything she has done over the last couple of years at the school. Miss Smith is going to study a Masters in Art Psychotherapy at Sheffield University and on behalf of the Hymers Hessle Mount community I would like to wish her lots of luck for the future. It has been a pleasure to work with Miss Smith; she is an excellent teacher who is kind, caring and supportive and has done a wonderful job as part of the Reception teaching team this year.
Thank you, Miss Smith, we will miss you and you are welcome to come back to see us all at any time.
............................... PRE-SCHOOL ............................. We have enjoyed a wonderful second half of the autumn term in the Pre-School! It has gone very quickly but we have managed to squeeze a lot of learning and fun into these last few weeks. Our theme this half term has been ‘Bedtime Stories’. We have focused on stories including ‘Whatever Next’ and ‘Bedtime for Monsters’, learning about the different features of books, writing speech bubbles for characters and creating story maps! We have also worn odd socks to celebrate our differences at the start of Anti-Bullying Week, worked with groups of Year 6 children from Hymers to help raise money for Children in
Need and pretended to light a fire in our Woodland Area as part of our learning about Bonfire Night! This term has also been full of opportunities for us to learn about different festivals and celebrations, starting off with a focus on the Hindu festival Diwali. We learnt all about how and why it is celebrated and had a go at creating our own Rangoli patterns and Mehndi designs. Over the last few weeks, we have begun to think about Christmas! The children have had a super time making calendars and cards in class, helping to decorate the tree, learning about the Christmas story and enjoying front row seats to watch the Reception children perform this year’s Nativity! We also invited our parents,
guardians and grandparents to enjoy a morning of festive crafts! It was a fantastic event, enjoyed by everyone who came along. Thank you so much to all who were able to join us and for your positive feedback - we are already planning our next Pre-School craft event! We are so proud of the children and how hard they have worked this term. We look forward to seeing them after a well-earned rest, and to welcoming our new children and their families into our Pre-School community. To those of you who celebrate, have a wonderful Christmas and we will see you in the New Year. Merry Christmas from the Pre-School team!
................................ RECEPTION .............................. Reception have had another busy half term we have been looking at seasonal changes and looking for signs of Autumn in our school gardens. We have enjoyed talking about harvest time and learning about different foods from around the world and how farmers protect their crops. We have also been finding out about the Hindu festival of Diwali and how it is celebrated. The children listened to the story of Rama and Sita and made their own Rangoli patterns using shapes and colours. They also had fun making some Mehndi hand pattern designs. In Maths, we have been learning about shapes and numbers, we went on a star hunt around the school grounds, it was lots of fun spotting the different patterns on the stars. In Phonics, we have been learning to read sight words ‘tricky words’ and we have been learning how to blend and segment phonic words and sentences.
The children have all made fantastic progress in their reading and writing skills and we couldn’t be prouder of them. We finished off this half term with our topic, Christmas! We discussed why it is celebrated each year, we had lots of fun listening to the Christmas story and making decorations for our homes. We enjoyed rehearsing for our nativity play ‘Away in a Manger’, and we would like to thank you for your hard work helping the children to learn their lines for the play. It is lovely to see the children’s confidence developing. We hope you enjoyed the performance as much as we did. We hope you all have a lovely Christmas break and we look forward to seeing all the children after the holidays.
................................... YEAR 1 ................................. The children have continued to work hard in Year 1. In our English lessons, we have looked at The Owl Babies Story and how the owlets anxieties proved unfounded by the safe return of their mum. The children completed some thoughtful work on their own worries and how to overcome them. They also wrote an amazing adventure of their own where the owlets helped the very one and only Father Christmas! Our Science lessons have continued to look at animals including humans. We have learnt how zoos have helped animals from becoming extinct. We have also discussed that animal enclosures must recreate their natural environment for the animal to flourish. The children have also looked at the seasons and how Winter follows Autumn bringing its own unique characteristics. In History, the children have learnt about popular toys through the 20th century and the early 21st century. They have thought about their favourite toys and how they are similar/different to their parents’ and grandparents’ toys. We have to say a huge thank you for your support in answering our toy survey and sending in some super photographs. Our Maths lessons have been full of practical problem solving linked to 2D and 3D shapes. The children have also looked at fact families and continued their work on place value, addition and subtraction. The children are starting to ‘think outside of the box’ which is lovely to see.
Our Art lessons have taken us into the world of moving pictures. This has allowed the children to develop their understanding of mechanisms such as levers, wheels and sliders. The theme of this topic was Traditional Tales, so the children linked their work to stories such as Jack and the Beanstalk and The Three Billy Goat’s Gruff. The children
thought long and hard over who could be the troll under the bridge! We are very much looking forward to continuing to help your children flourish next term. Have a super Christmas! Well done Year 1!
.................................. YEAR 2 ................................ Year 2 have had a Magical Muddle of a half term. It all started when we arrived at school one Tuesday to find a locked chest, a broomstick, a cauldron, cloaks and hats in our classroom. We found a number of clues including a letter from a witch called Tabitha which explained what we had to do. We wrote potions and made ordinary glue turn into slime using magical wands we found outside in our woodland area. What an exciting day! Over the next week we found sealed envelopes, but we were told we could not open them until every child had found one in Year 2. They kept appearing in all different places! We finally had all the envelopes, and the time came to open them. Inside each envelope was an individual key. But what would these keys open…? We soon realised this was the key to our imagination, which we unlocked to create some wonderful detailed writing, creating story endings, setting descriptions, our own potions and much more. The children are keeping the keys so they always have this ability to unlock their amazing imagination at any time. We are extremely proud of the wonderful work the children in Year 2 have produced this term.
We are keen for Hymers Hessle Mount children to continue to have links with people in the local community. Reverend Gemma Turner and a few of the local parishioners at All Saints Church Hessle were very welcoming this month when the Year 2 children visited to look at church artefacts, stories in the stained-glass windows and learn about the Christian Christingle service. The children reflected on their day whilst holding their Christingle which they had made.
....................... Key Dates for next half term ..................... January
February
Wednesday 4
– Staff INSET Day
Monday 6
– Children’s Mental Health Week Commences
Thursday 5
– Term Commences
Monday 9
– Year 2 Swimming & Music continues
Tuesday 7
– Safer Internet Day
Tuesday 10
– Year 1 Swimming (at Hymers) starts
Monday 13
Sunday 22
– Chinese New Year
– HALF TERM to Friday 17 February (inclusive)
Monday 30
– The Big Schools’ Bird Watch week