Latest News

Golden Hat-trick as Hampsthwaite wins Y3/4 Skipping

Wed 22 Mar 2017 Mr Phoenix

Hampsthwaite completed a hat-trick on 22^nd March, winning their third competition in a row! After success in the Debating competition then the Netball, Hampsthwaite children have done themselves proud again, this time in the inter-school Skipping Festival. Competing at Harrogate High school, Hampsthwaite earned 7 Golds and 3 Silvers in the 12 skipping events, making our team clear winners overall.

Having prepared eagerly during PE sessions and putting lots of practice in at playtimes, our Y3/4 children have learned a wide range of skipping skills over the last few weeks. Events in the Festival included paired skipping – face-to-face and butterfly skipping – group jumping and individual speed-related skills.

It’s certainly the case that, inspired by Y3/4, skipping has really taken off in the school as a whole. I am sure this will continue into the summer and beyond. Skipping is a great way to have fun, improve skills, get along with friends and keep fit.

Congratulations to all our Y3/4 children – our hearts ‘skipped’ a beat with excitement when we heard you had won!

Netball Winners

Tue 21 Mar 2017 Mrs Tennant

Congratulations to our Y5/6 netball team who have made it through to the final of the Harrogate school's netball tournament. Last night, at Harrogate Grammar School, the team, which included Abi, Ellie, Freddie L, George C, Taylor, Grace T, Lalousha and Hattie, played brilliantly winning all their games. Their first game was against Pannal and they won 8-0, this was followed by a 2-0 win over Western and finally a 3-1 win over St Peter's. All team members played with confidence, skill and determination and were a credit to the school.

Thank you to all the parents who helped and came to support. See you at the finals!

Hampsthwaite Wins Debating Competition

Mon 20 Mar 2017 Mr Phoenix

Congratulations to our Y5/6 team who showed superb debating skills at the Harrogate Council Chambers on Monday 20th March. Speaking for and against the subject of 'is Homework a waste of time?', the team put forward excellent arguments. As well as giving their speeches, our team demonstrated brilliant listening and questioning skills, and engaged fully with the other teams throughout the competition. The decision from the judges was unanimous - Hampsthwaite were declared the winners!

As well as our team will now going on to the county finals, we would like to invite the Mayor into school for a whole-school inter-house parliamentary-style debate at some point in the next few months.

Very well done to Gabriel, Hattie, Isabella, Lalousha and Thomas, who all received a well-deserved personal gold medal each, along with a celebration plaque for the school. And a special well done to Hattie, who received a certificate for 'Best Girl Speaker' in the competition. We are incredibly proud of you all.

Architecture Workshops

Thu 16 Mar 2017 Mr Phoenix

Designing, constructing and building has been taken to a whole new level in school this week, with Architecture Workshops for all classes. Children from Nursery to Year 6 have had a great time making large-scale models, in workshops organised by Bob Bower, workshop developer from the Cambridge-based company.

Each group had a specific workshop, many of which were developed to be directly relevant to the learning they have been doing in class. Our Nursery children started off, working in pairs to build tetrahedrons. They loved the concept of enclosing space, and were quick to go 'inside' their pyramids. Building these into a larger pyramid into which they could all fit brought great excitement! Reception and Year 1 children worked in a similar way, making increasingly large pyramids - it was interesting to see their developing approaches to design and the concept of 'community' emerging, as they wanted to bring their pyramids together to make 'towns'.

Year 2 worked on a brand new concept - making a skeletal dinosaur, and Bob developed the design ideas along with the children as they created a massive T-Rex.

Year 3 and 4 designed and built bridges, working from a strengthened truss and developing their own ideas to raise this up and create sufficient stability for it to function as a bridge. Team work was of the essence here, and lots of varied designs resulted.

Year 5 and 6 made a life-size Viking Longship, and applied a great deal of their maths work to the construction of the right-angled, equilateral and scalene triangles needed for the project, and the calculation of the sizes needed for different parts of the ship. Fitting themselves inside gave a real idea of how cramped these Longships would have been!

The constructions that resulted were certainly awe-inspiring, and the collaboration, social interaction, design thinking and structural understanding that the children developed was fantastic.

Thank you to our PTA for introducing us to the Architecture Workshops team, and for funding the two days of workshops. From the children's enthusiasm and comments, it was certainly worth the money. One of our Year 2 children said "That was the most awesome day in school ever! I will always remember our dinosaur!"

Have a look in the gallery for more photos of the workshops in action. Thank you to Bob and the team for a great two days.

http://www.hampsthwaite.n-yorks.sch.uk/architecture-workshops/

World Book Day 2017

Thu 02 Mar 2017 Mr Phoenix

Well done everyone for a fantastic World Book Day! The children had great costumes - a superb range of different book characters - and enjoyed sharing their favourite books during Buddy Reading. Have a look at the photos, and see more pictures in the gallery.

http://www.hampsthwaite.n-yorks.sch.uk/world-book-day-2017/

Don't forget to spend your World Book Day voucher to get a FREE BOOK or £1 off any book purchase!