Please find below a school update letter to parents:

Letter to Parents – Delayed School Re-opening HPS

Please find below a letter to all parents regarding arrangements and organisation for potential school reopening:

Letter to Parents – Potential School Reopening 22.5.2020

This page will be used to showcase some of the projects that you are doing at home. If you have completed any of our challenges, or produced some work of your own, please do send it in to hamsterley@durhamlearning.net.

Thank you Bella for the great Earth Day project that you and your dad produced. I liked the curlew; one of the sounds I associate with Hamsterley School is the haunting cry of the curlews.

Bella and Dad’s Garden project

Freya has sent in a photo with her Earth Day and St. George’s Day posters on display beside her rainbow.

Will has found a very wide range of wild plants.

 

Ewan has been investigating Roman shields (scutum) and has made his own replica shield.

 

Emily and Mirren have been designed Roman shields.

 

They have also created Medal design’s for bravery, linked to the NHS.

Sebastian and Finn have sent in their Roman Projects.

Sebastian’s Roman Report on Religion and Myths

Sebastian has added some more information to extend his project: More info from Seb!

Finn’s Gladiators

And here is Finn’s extra information. I’m very impressed – he’s produced a really comprehensive research report.

Finn’s extra research

Freya really enjoyed the VE project ideas from Mr T. She especially enjoyed finding out about her great-grandfather’s role in the RAF. She also found it interesting learning about the home front and women’s roles – especially the land girls- digging for victory and how they managed with food rations. She used her Great Grandma’s original BeRo book to bake for her celebration tea party and interviewed her Nanny who recalled being at a VE Day street party in 1945, aged 5yrs old. As you can see from the photos she really got into the spirit of things!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Max has drawn this excellent sketch of a Roman soldier.

Max and Rory have spent some of their time learning useful life skills. I was impressed by their repurposing of an old boat into a stylish garden seat. Max learnt how to use the sewing machine to make the cushions. Well done!

We have a new moon on Friday 22nd May, and Mirren has completed her moon phase diary and moon project, The moon and space. I’m impressed by her research into the moons around other planets (and dwarf planets) in the solar system.

Emily has also been busy growing edible plants. The cress, mustard and broccoli shoots not only were an interesting science project, they also apparently tasted delicious in a sandwich.

Today (Wednesday 22nd April) is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Earth day is an annual event celebrated around the world on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection.

To celebrate Earth Day, why not look at the diversity of life around you. You can spend 15 minutes looking out of your window – how many different birds can you see. If you listen at about 6:00 PM, you can hear lots of different bird songs. Which ones are the most tuneful? How many different bird calls or bird songs can you recognise? The Woodland Trust has a useful page where you can hear samples of the most common bird songs.

If you have safe access to a garden or green area, have a look at the plants and flowers growing there. How many different species of tree can you see? Again, the Woodland Trust has a page where you can download simple guides to leaf identification or blossom and catkin identification. There will be many common wildflowers growing in your garden. This worksheet school plant hunt lists the most common, but I’m sure you will be able to see many more. The  Country Life Guide to Wildflowers can help with identification – it has 43 pages, so don’t try and print this out without permission.

Finally, while you’re starting your phases of the moon chart (see yesterday’s update for details), why not see what constellations you can spot? The planet Venus is very bright in the evening sky now, and if you are lucky you might catch the tail-end of the Lyrid meteor shower.

 

Tomorrow is St. George’s Day, the national day of England. (The date is easily remembered – two, three, four, 23/4). ‘Mr. T does History’ has a great website with some useful home history ideas, and Mr. T has produced a video about St. George’s Day, with st georges day pdf resources for you to complete to show what you’ve learnt.

Hope everyone is keeping well! If you haven’t started yet, why not take part in our letter writing challenge.

We have a new challenge for you. Write a letter to your friends at school, telling them what you have been up to since school was closed.   If you’re not sure what to write, these questions might help as a prompt:

What new things are you finding to do? How are you passing the time? What do you miss most? What will you do when you are allowed to socialize again?

 

We hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter weekend.

School would have been restarting today (Monday 20th April), and we have updated our home learning links for the summer term.

For English and Maths, we are using the Hamilton Trust ‘Learning at Home’ packs.

This week is Week 3 (they started with Week 1 and 2 as revision packs before the Easter holidays).

In Science in Class 2, we will be looking at the Earth in Space. The moon restarts its phases with a New Moon on Thursday 23rd this week. Keep a diary of the moon phases over the next month. Draw them as accurately as you can Which way is the crescent pointing? Which side of the gibbous (one of my favourite words) moon is more rounded? Key vocabulary: crescent, gibbous, quarters, waxing, waning, new moon, full moon. If you have binoculars you should be able to make out the dark areas which are called the moon’s ‘seas’ (which aren’t really seas).There are good resources for the Earth in Space on the BBC Bitesize website. The file Space Projects has a list of a few ideas for extra home projects linked to Earth in Space.

In History, we will be looking at the Romans in Britain. Again, the BBC Bitesize website has some great resources to get you started. See the file  Romans in Britain Projects  for some ideas for home research. To get you started this week, find out about Julius Caesar’s attempted invasions of Britain in the years 55 and 54 BC. There are some questions to answer here: Julius Caesar’s Invasions of Britain

The BBC Bitesize website has also launched daily lessons in Maths and English for each year group.

Finally, we have been asked if we have more CGP books for Maths and English, as many of you have completed the ones sent home last month. Unfortunately, it would not be practical for us to get these out to you, but you can order them yourselves from the CGP website.

Update Monday April 27th.

We are now on week 4 of the Hamilton Trust ‘Learning at Home’ packs. Remember, you can email school if you are stuck on anything.

Hamsterley Primary School Rainbow 🌈 Competition (with thanks to Tracy Dutton for the idea).

The challenge is to create a rainbow. You can paint it, draw it, bake it, flower arrange it, make a real one with spray… the choice is yours.

Photograph your child waving to the camera with the rainbow they have created, and email the photo to hamsterley@durhamlearning.net. Please also confirm whether or not we have permission to add the photo to the this page on the school website.

There will be prizes for all participants when we return to school.

Hamsterley and Bedburn children’s Easter 🐣 egg decorating competition.

Post a photo of your child’s decorated egg on the Facebook page that is called ‘Hamsterley and Bedburn villages’ along with their age in the comments.

Two categories age 8 and under, and age 9 and above.

Closing date 9th April, winners announced 10th April.

Judged by David Crook
Prizes winner of each group £10 Amazon e voucher
Runner up £5 e voucher

While we are on our enforced closure, there are a number of websites that we use in school which the children can access from home. UPDATED 28th March – new sites at bottom of page

www.sumdog.com

The children from Y1 onwards have their own username and password for this. If they have forgotten, email us on hamsterley@durhamlearning.net and I can remind them.

 

www.purplemash.com/sch/hamsterley

The login details are the same as the pupils use for Accelerated Reader in school (name, initial).

 

scratch.mit.edu

A great site for learning coding – the Class 2 pupils should remember the details for the MrHamsterley account.

 

In school, we often use the Twinkl site for curriculum resources. While schools are closed due to Covid-19, they are offering free registration to all.

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/offer

Offer code: UKTWINKLHELPS

 

And the Hamilton-Trust website, an excellent curriculum site which we use frequently in school, is producing weekly ‘learning at home’ packs for each year group in Maths and English. You can download them here: https://www.hamilton-trust.org.uk/blog/learning-home-packs/

 

Sir Linkalot is a great spelling website / app, and they are allowing free access for home educators while schools are closed.

TTS (an educational supplies company) have produced Home Learning Packs for Reception, KS1 and KS2.

White Rose Maths Hub have produced weekly lessons for each year group, with short videos explaining that lesson.

BBC Supermovers have produced a series of videos which combine learning with movement – great for when you’re stuck indoors.

Dr Chips does a daily Science, Technology or Computing activity. A new video is released at 10:00 AM each weekday, but past videos and ideas are all available to do on the website.

The Scouts: The Great Indoors is a wonderful collection of interesting activities for children to do at home.

Cambridgeshire LEA have a website with a host of ideas for home learning across all subjects and ages

The National Schools Partnership have a page of challenges linked to industry.

Well done to the following pupils for receiving the following awards this week:-

Class 1 

Headteacher Award – James

Tidiness Award – Charlie

Kindness Award – Jamie

 

Year 3/4 

Headteacher Award – William

Tidiness Award – Jeh

Kindness Award – Aadi

 

Year 5/6

Headteacher Award – Rory

Tidiness Award – Ava Sc

Kindness Award – Matthew