Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Animal Mask Workshops

  Tue 13 Jun 2017 Mr Phoenix

  Children in Year 1, Year 2 and Year 5 had a creative day making animal masks with artists visiting from Rural Arts. The artists showed the children how to construct and shape animal masks. Year 1 and 2 used vivid colours to develop undersea creature masks, while Year 5 focussed on various 3D techniques with natural colour tones to create their wild animal masks.

  The children all enjoyed their art workshops, and the Year 5 masks have a starring role in the Summer Production!

  

• East Barnby 2017

  Mon 22 May 2017 Mr Phoenix

  From 22nd to 26th May Year 5 and Year 6 are away on their residential visit to East Barnby.

   

  Keep up with the latest news from the visit and have a look at our exciting photos in the gallery here:

  http://www.hampsthwaite.n-yorks.sch.uk/east-barnby-2017/

• Stray FM reports our Sensory Garden opening

  Wed 05 Apr 2017 Mr Phoenix

  Children from Hampsthwaite School have featured on the Stray FM radio news, as our newly launched sensory garden opened. Stray FM reporter Patrick visited school and asked the children about the work they had done on the garden. They told him about the inspiration they have had from Henshaws and the garden they visited there, and how the school garden has now been improved.

  As part of their 'Go Green' learning theme, children from Year 3 and Year 4 have been busy making artwork, sculptures, patterns and musical features for the garden, as well as painting, clearing and planting.

  Joined by parents from across the school, and representatives from David Wilson Homes, who have helped build some of the larger garden features to the children's designs, we all celebrated the official opening on Friday 31st March. Some of the ArtMakers from Henshaws also came to visit our garden, and they donated a beautiful plaque and a spiral tree sculpture to add to the garden.   

  Have a look at more pictures and listen to the Stray FM news item in our gallery.

  Stray FM also have an article on their website here and a home and garden audio feature here.

  http://www.hampsthwaite.n-yorks.sch.uk/sensory-garden-grand-opening-march-2017/

  

• 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!

  

• Pancake Races 2017

  Tue 28 Feb 2017 Mr Phoenix
  After learning about Shrove Tuesday and thinking about our sense of taste in Worship Time, we held our annual Pancake Race during morning playtime. The children were great racers, with both speed and stamina to keep going! Yellow Team did the best at racing fast and keeping their pancake intact, and it was Yellow Team who were brilliant at flipping their pancake without dropping it too!

  

• Reception Open Morning

  Thu 16 Feb 2017 Miss Herrington
  Last Tuesday we had a very busy morning in Team Dragon as parents joined us for our Open Morning. We started the morning by reading a story to introduce our new topic on Dinosaurs. The children and their parents then had an opportunity to learn and play in the provision areas inside and outside.

  Together they did activities such as making clay dinosaurs, making a map linked to the book, reading tricky words on large dino footprints, adding together dinosaurs, printing with dinosaurs in the paint and many other things.

  It was great to see how proud the children were of their learning, asking to show their parents their learning books and showing them their work on the displays. The children then had an opportunity to show their parents their learning journeys on the iPads and could discuss their achievements observed and recorded by the staff during their play.

   

  It was a lovely busy morning of learning and sharing together.