Reception Class 2023

If you know of anyone looking for a Reception Class place for 2023 please ask them to get in touch. We still have spaces available!

Our last tour is happening on Thursday 12th January at 9.30am, places can be booked by contacting our office.

Applications must be submitted to the local authority by 15th January 2023. 

Staffing

This term we welcome Miss Welch as Year 3 Class Teacher. Welcome to Year 3 Miss Welch!

Play Coordinator Vacancy at Hambrook

We are looking for a new Play Coordinator at Hambrook Primary School. 

Do you enjoy working with children and creating fun learning opportunities? Are you interested in leading a team? Are you positive, enthusiastic and happy to be outside in all weathers? 

Hambrook Primary School has an opening for a new Play Coordinator. This role is Monday- Friday 1.5 hours a day (at lunchtimes) and one additional afternoon per week. If you are interested, please contact the school office for an application form and job description. 

OPAL at Hambrook- an update

Thank you to everyone who has donated items to help get our mud kitchen off the ground. This has been a great addition to our adventure playground and the children are loving it! We also have had some costumes and dressing up outfits donated which we are looking forward to using as Spring begins and we get some drier weather. We also have now established a new digging area and children have already begun some big excavation projects. Our next step is opening up the adventure playground in all weathers and to support this everyone is welcome to bring in wellies to store in school so they can avoid getting the regular shoes muddy. If you would also like to send your children in with some waterproofs (e.g trousers or a light weight raincoat that folds up) feel free to send these in a PE style bag that children will be able to keep on their pegs.

This term the play team are going to be expanding the activities on offer with inclusions of Lego activities, some drawing/colouring and a few other ideas we are still developing.

This term we are going to be adding a small world activity area and adding some items to our sandpit. We therefore are looking for any of the following items:

• Plastic buckets and spades (the sort you get at the beach)
• Small plastic animals or dinosaurs
• Dressing up hats
• Any tarpaulin or something similar (e.g large builders bags)

Any donations are greatly appreciated and can be left at the school office. If you’ve any questions please speak to Mr Noone or Mr Thompson.

We are also always looking for more resources that children can use to enhance and expand on play we are already offering so are looking for more donations of wooden pallets, wood/timber and pieces of guttering that children can use for den building.

The OPAL scheme is already showing huge benefits to the children’s play experiences at Hambrook and we are excited to share more of these with you as the year progresses.

Meditation- an update from Mrs Bassett-Lowe

Mrs Bassett-Lowe has been continuing her Wednesday afternoon meditation teaching. This term she will be working with Year 5 and Year 6. Please see an update below on the learning that took place.

In Y5 and Y6 this term we have been looking at strategies we can use to let go / cope with some of our big emotions.

We practised controlled breathing 3:5, where we breathed in for a count of 3 and exhaled for 5. This helps lower our heart rate, allows us to destress; and as we are focussing on the breath, it takes our mind away from what is troubling us.

We looked at bringing CALM to our bodies by taking several deep breathes into our chest, then arms, followed by legs and finally to our mInds.

Continuing the theme on focussing on our breath to aid us, we worked on squared breathing. Breathing in for a count of 4, holding for a count of 4, breathing out for a count of 4 and holding for a count of 4. This exercise is able to be done discreetly, if we are finding things hard.

We also reminded ourselves of a favourite, starfish breathing, where we can use our hands to help just focus on taking slow, deep breaths, inhaling as we travel up the finger and exhaling as we travel down the finger.

We looked at how we can use our senses as a way of letting go. Focussing on 5 things we can see, hear and feel can help ground us and calm our minds down.