Issue 7 • October 2023
...................... A message from Mr Copeland .................... We have had a wonderful start to the school year and the staff and I have all been delighted with how well the children have settled into their new classes. The priority for this first part of any school year is always to re-establish our school community and make sure that everyone feels welcome, especially those who are new to Hymers Hessle Mount. We had a number of tours and visitors throughout the first half term and many of them have commented on what a calm and happy environment the school is, which is really pleasing to hear. As well as settling in to school the children are becoming increasingly familiar with our routines and expectations and is has been heartening to see the pupils following our CARE Code, engaging both inside and outside of the classroom and already striving towards those high expectations.
The Year 2 children were all recently presented with their Student Leader badges in Assembly. As the oldest pupils in the school they will be given roles and responsibilities throughout the year. They have already taken to the roles as Reception buddies superbly and have provided much needed advice, guidance and kindness to their younger buddies. You will also see them around the school engaging in their responsibilities which include: feeding the fish, supporting lunch time staff, organising play equipment, collecting recycling and many more. One of the first major tasks for the Year 2 Student Leaders was to select this year’s harvest charity. After a number of organisations were presented to them they had a secret vote with Hessle and Anlaby Foodbank coming out on top. After speaking to a number of pupils it was clear that they wanted to support families in our local community. After organising all the generous donations for a fantastic harvest display, four children’s names were picked out of a hat and these four pupils travelled with myself and Mrs Lawson to deliver the donations. They were helpful and respectful; they asked lots of intriguing questions and reported back to the rest of the year group at school. They were excellent ambassadors for Hymers Hessle Mount and two more Student Leaders will be selected to represent the school at
the Hymers College Remembrance Service after half term. We hope that the Year 2 pupils continue to enjoy their Student Leader roles and believe that it will help to develop their confidence and self-esteem alongside empathy, emotional intelligence and problem solving skills. Towards the end of the half term we enjoyed lots of spooky fun in school with pupils and staff all dressed up in costumes for our Halloween day. I would like to thank the HCA for supporting this event and thank you for all of your kind donations. The HCA are always looking for parent helpers and volunteers so if this is something you are interested in please do get in touch. In this newsletter you will see a list of Key Dates for next half term which is going to be jam-packed with exciting experiences for the children and lots of festive events in the run up to Christmas. We are already getting excited for this year’s Reception Nativity. For the first time the Reception children will also be taking their performance on the road into the local community by performing to some of the residents at Tranby Park Care Home, which will be a fantastic opportunity for them and I am sure it will provide much joy to the audience.
............................... PRE-SCHOOL ............................. Pre-School started this half term with our ‘getting to know you’ topic, the children had lots of fun bringing in their family photographs and talking to us about who lives in their family home and what activities they like to do together as a family. Pre-School have also been finding out about how their bodies work and how they can use their senses to do different things. The children particularly enjoyed our weekly challenges, each week they had to complete different tasks based on using one of their five senses, it was so much fun trying to guess the different smells that were hidden inside the smelling pots and trying to guess the objects that were hidden in the socks without peeking inside! We have also been very busy in our Phonics sessions, we have been learning to use our listening ears to guess different sounds around us without looking. We had a great time playing ‘Noisy Neighbour’ and ‘What’s in the box?’ to name a few. In Maths we have been leaning how to sort and match groups of objects and how to think of our own sorting rules, we had lots of fun with our friends putting items into the wrong groups and trying to see if they could guess which items were in the wrong place!
We finished off our half term with our Halloween day, it was lots of fun dressing up in our spooky costumes. We had a great time learning the skeleton dance and singing Halloween songs. We enjoyed listening to spooky Halloween stories and making pumpkin pictures.
After the holidays we will be starting our new topic ‘Bedtime Stories’. We have lots of exciting activities planned for the children as we start the countdown to Christmas! We would like to wish you all a lovely half term break. Mrs Carter, Mrs Doggett, Mrs Hill and Miss Knight
................................ RECEPTION .............................. All the children have settled into Reception well and we have really enjoyed getting to know the pupils! This halfterm we have based our work around the topic “All about Me”. We have looked at where we live and who with, different homes around the world, discussed our families and shown pictures of them to our friends in class. We also learnt about the human life cycle, discussed our emotions and thought about what we have to do to stay healthy. Everyone is enjoying our practical Maths lessons, and we are beginning to develop a positive attitude towards and an enthusiasm for learning this subject!
The children have also started their Phonics lessons this term and are enjoying listening to the stories in the Big Books, learning new
............................ RECEPTION (cont.) ..........................
sounds and Common Exception Words. We are having fun using the mnemonic rhymes to help us learn how to form letters correctly. Our art skills are developing well and we had a great time making portraits using fruit, inspired by 16th century Italian artist
Giuseppe Arcimboldo. We finished the half-term with a fun Halloween day; we carved out pumpkins and made pumpkin soup potions, enjoyed a Halloween scavenger hunt outside and made lots of Halloween crafts.
We are really looking forward to the next half term and are busy preparing for our Nativity performance in December. Details to follow shortly… We hope you have a relaxing half term break and can’t wait to see you all after the holidays!
................................... YEAR 1 ................................. We have had a lovely start to Year 1 this term. In English, we had fun with our ‘Room on the Broom’ story work and even had a visit from Mrs Burns’ pet dragon! So much excitement! We have also been learning about ‘Animals including Humans’ in our Science sessions and can now name animals who are identified as carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. Our daily interactive Rocket Phonics lessons have been supporting the children’s literacy and we have been amazed by the amount of super reading at home. Thank you, it is making a huge difference! I am sure you will be pleased to hear from the Swimming teachers, who have praised the children’s enthusiasm each week as they build on their water skills. The children have also been excited to learn about natural sculptures. They especially enjoyed making hedgehogs shaping clay and to decorate them with twigs from the school grounds.
Across the school we have been celebrating Black History Month and in Year 1 we spent time discovering
the works of Alma Thomas. The children’s own artwork it inspired was incredibly eye-catching.
.................................. YEAR 2 ................................ Wow - what a busy term we have had in Year 2! It has been a fun and very busy start to the school year and we cannot quite believe how much we have managed to squeeze in. The children have all settled in to the Year 2 routines beautifully and are enjoying being the oldest children in the school! One of their roles as Year 2 Leaders has been to look after their Reception “Buddies”, a job the boys and girls have been taking very seriously indeed! We recently enjoyed being paired up with our buddies for an autumn-themed scavenger hunt outside! Our English lessons have also been a lot of fun this term. Our main focus text has been Anne Fine’s hilarious book ‘The Diary of a Killer Cat’, which the children have absolutely loved! We have had a go at hot-seating as the different characters from the story, writing speech bubbles and even creating our own “Killer Pet” diaries. We are very proud of how hard the Year 2 children have worked. They wrote amazing diaries and we loved reading them! We have been learning all about Australia in Geography, researching facts about where it is, the amazing animals that live there, famous landmarks and why it is so important to protect the Great Barrier Reef. We used Indigenous Art to inspire our work, creating bright and colourful dot pictures. In fact, we have created some amazing artwork this term, including beautiful Dream Tree pictures and printing in the style of the British artist Eloise Renouf.
Alongside all these wonderful things, the children have also performed a song in Assembly, continued with Swimming and Music lessons at Hymers and taken the school’s Harvest donations to our chosen charity, the Hessle and Anlaby Foodbank. They also really enjoyed dressing up for our whole school Halloween day! The boys and girls are certainly ready for a well-deserved rest. We look forward to seeing everyone back in school after the half term break! Miss Harvey and Miss Smith
....................... Key Dates for next half term ..................... November Tue 7 Thur 9 Fri 10
– School reopens for the second half term – Phonics Information Evening for Reception Parents 6:00pm – Remembrance Assembly (9:00am) (Poppies will be available in school from Tuesday 7)
– Nasal Flu Immunisations (from 1:30pm) Mon 13 – Odd Socks Day Fri 17 – Children in Need Day Fri 24 – Be Bright Be Seen Day
December Mon 4
– Pre-School Christmas Craft Morning (9:15am) – Reception Nativity Dress Rehearsal (2:00pm)
Tue 5 Wed 6 Mon 11 Tues 12
– Reception Nativity Performance (2:00pm) – Reception Nativity Performance (2:00pm) – Year 2 Christmas Party (1:30pm) – Reception Nativity at Tranby Park Care Home (pm) Wed 13 – Pre-School Christmas Party (1:30pm) Thur 14 – Reception Christmas Party (1:30pm) Fri 15 – Year 1 Christmas Party (1:30pm) Wed 20 – Last day of term - Finishing times: Pre-School & Reception : 11:30am Year 1 : 11:45am Year 2 : 12:00pm
Spring Term starts Tues 9 Jan 2024