Year 1: Literacy and Maths

Over the last two weeks, Year 1 have been reading Supertato in Literacy. 

This week, Year 1 had an overnight visit from the... Evil Pea! Evil Pea had caused havoc in the classrooms and trapped a range of vegetables. The children were so alarmed, they wasted no time and wrote to the rest of the school, warning them of the Evil Pea's mischievous antics! They also designed their own Supertato to save the day as well as considered the different ways to rescue the vegetables. 

Today, the children found out that Evil Pea had taken Supertato and the only way to free him was to solve a range of subtraction padlocks. The children quickly set to work in using their number line to solve the calculations and free Supertato.

The children worked extremely hard and have now earnt a well deserved week off!

Achievements of the Week (w/c 17th October)

Congratulations to our Times Table winners this week! These pupils have hopped aboard the Times Table train to continue their journey to becoming a Times Table Champion. They have worked exceptionally hard to learn and master their multiplication and division facts. 

Congratulations to our Reading and Poetry Superst★rs this week! To achieve this award, all of these children have either read poems or books by their year group authors (Bronze is 5, Silver is 10 and Gold is 15). A big well done to this week's winners who have demonstrated great commitment and dedication to reading. 

Our Achievements of the Week winners should be very proud of their success!  

Hacton's Digital Leaders 2022

After careful consideration, these children have been selected to be Hacton's Digital Leaders. They have demonstrated a clear interest in computers and digital technology as well as an ability to support their teachers and peers. 

Throughout the year, our Digital Leaders will be called upon to set up computers for teachers, support class members with computing related tasks and improve their skills in Digital Leader sessions. 

We are all very excited to work alongside them to enhance Computing at Hacton. 

Year 6: History

The horrific weather may have put a stop to our Year 6 pupils going on their trip to Hornchurch Country Park; however, Mr Manning did not let the rain stop him from sharing his wealth of knowledge with the Year 6 pupils. Instead of going to the park, our Year 6 pupils learnt all about the planes flown from and to Hornchurch during WWII, some of the pilots, the different weapons that were used and how people kept themself safe when they were being shot at. The children were even lucky enough to see some of the artefacts that Mr Manning owns. 

Year 2: Forest School

It's a (pizza) wrap! 

Monday saw the final Forest School session for 2MS and what better way to celebrate the past 5 weeks in the woodland than the eagerly awaited campfire! 

The children enjoyed their warming hot chocolate, hotdogs and pizza wraps and had the opportunity to toast a marshmallow on the fire safely. They have shown great teamwork, perseverance and respect for the environment over the last few weeks as well as learning new skills with the tools. It has been wonderful to observe them enjoying the Forest school site. 

Thank you, 2MS!

Year 5: Imperial War Museum Trip

What a way to end our topic with a visit to the Imperial War Museum near Waterloo. The children had the fun and excitement of taking two trains into the city and thoroughly enjoyed physically seeing the many artefacts that we have been learning about - they were particularly awestruck by the sheer size of some of the WW1 artefacts! The WW1 exhibit was engaging, moving and thought-provoking; another fantastic experience to add to our WW1 topic. 

We managed to get a whole year group photo beneath some of the old naval guns. These guns could fire a shell (bigger than the children!) from Waterloo to nearly Hornchurch itself. 

Whole School: Diya Lamps

Last week, each year group was invited to make a Diya Lamp in preparation for the festival of Diwali. After careful moulding of the clay, the children were able to decorate their lamps using sequins and gems. 

Year 5: History

Year 5 have been learning about the hardships of life as a solder in World War 1. To help bring history to life, the children were lucky enough to have the 10^th Essex Living History Group visit us. Mr Weaver (Sargent Major) arrived with a wealth of WW1 artefacts and knowledge which the children thoroughly enjoyed exploring. What a brilliant way to fully immerse themselves in history! 

Reading Ambassadors: Year 1 Library Visit

On Friday, our Year 6 Reading Ambassadors paid a visit to Year 1 to show some of the children our wonderful school Library.  The Ambassadors showed the younger children how our library works and introduced them to some of their favourite picture books.  Year 1 were able to buddy up to read to our older children and some were entertained by listening to stories read by Year 6.  As expected, everyone's favourite part of the session was exploring all of the cosiest spots to sit and enjoy a good book!

We were delighted to see our library being shared by the children so beautifully and impressed with our Year 6 team's patience, kindness and enthusiasm.  The Reading Council can't wait to share more stories throughout the year!

World Mental Health Day at Hacton #HelloYellow

On Friday, Hacton showed our support for the Young Minds charity by celebrating #HelloYellow and raising awareness for children and young people’s mental health. The school was awash with yellow! The children readily took on the #HelloYellow challenges of saying something kind to a teacher, waving and smiling at a friend and telling a joke to make someone laugh. It was wonderful to see everyone so engaged and promoting such a positive message. Our wellbeing Ambassadors took on a pivotal role of bringing in joke books from home, some of which proved to be really popular! 

We are delighted to have supported such a worthy cause and will continue to embed mental health awareness within our school ethos. 

Year 3: SPaG

Over the past few weeks in Year 3's weekly SPaG lessons, the children have been learning all about conjunctions and how to use them to extend and open their sentences. Last week, the children experimented with opening sentences with subordinating clauses and adding in the appropriate punctuation. 

The children have thoroughly enjoyed learning about conjunctions with the help of singing along to the fantastic Grammarsaurus videos. 

Well done, Year 3! 

P-HIC: Literacy

Miss Meade’s group have enjoyed reading 'The Day the Crayons Quit'. The children have learnt what a protest is, why people might protest and have discussed and recognised individuals’ feelings. To fully immerse themselves in the story, they made slogans for placards and took part in their own crayon protest…it got very noisy and quite heated! The children then wrote a letter from Duncan to the crayons, apologising and offering a resolution.

Awesome Attendance Winners (w/c 10th October)

At Hacton, we have introduced a celebration of our attendance. Each week, as part of our assembly, we will announce who the Awesome Attendance winners are. They will get to have our Attendance cup for the week and will be rewarded with a treat in recognition of their fabulous attendance. 

See below for last week’s figures: 

Hacton's Maths Ambassadors 2022

Breaking News!

It is with great pleasure that we present our amazing Maths Ambassadors for 2022-23.  This outstanding group of mathematicians will be working alongside the Hacton Maths Team to ensure the best mathematical experience for all of our young people.  

We are extremely excited and can't wait to see them fulfilling their new role.  Well done!

TTRS Winners (w/c 10th October)

To run alongside our Times Table Journey, we have introduced Times Tables Rock Stars (TTRS) to help our children to develop a secure understanding and quick recall of their times table and division facts. 

Each week, class teachers will select a child in their class to enter the TTRS draw. At random, one child in KS1 and one child in KS2 will be chosen to win a prize. 

To be in with a chance, you need to be regularly using Times Tables Rock Stars: Play (ttrockstars.com). Good luck! 

Here are this week's winners!

Year 5 and 6 Cross Country Competition

This week, some of our Year 5 and 6 children participated in a Cross Country competition. Our Hacton representatives put 100% effort into the event and both teams finished in excellent places: 1st place for the girls and 3rd place for the boys. 

Well done! 

Achievements of the Week (w/c 10th October)

Congratulations to our Times Table winners this week! These pupils have hopped aboard the Times Table train to continue their journey to becoming a Times Table Champion. They have worked exceptionally hard to learn and master their multiplication and division facts. 

Congratulations to our Reading and Poetry Superst★rs this week! To achieve this award, all of these children have either read poems or books by their year group authors (Bronze is 5, Silver is 10 and Gold is 15). A big well done to this week's winners who have demonstrated great commitment and dedication to reading. 

Our Achievements of the Week winners should be very proud of their success!  

E for Effort and WOW! Winners (w/c 10th October)

In order to reward our pupils who have gone above and beyond in their learning each week and put in extra effort, each class teacher chooses one pupil to receive the E for Effort cup and certificate. 

Here are this week's individual winners. Well done - we are very proud of you all!   

Art: Queen Elizabeth II Portraits

To remember and pay tribute to the fantastic life of Queen Elizabeth II, the whole school used different Art techniques to create a portrait of her at different points of her life. 

Hacton's Wellbeing Ambassadors 2022

Congratulations to our Wellbeing Ambassadors! 

Our Wellbeing Ambassadors have the important responsibility of leading and promoting wellbeing within their class and across the school. Their role will include not only supporting their peers but helping our school community to discuss important issues such as mental wellbeing, bullying and online safety. 

TTRS Winners (w/c 3rd October)

To run alongside our Times Table Journey, we have introduced Times Tables Rock Stars (TTRS) to help our children to develop a secure understanding and quick recall of their times table and division facts. 

Each week, class teachers will select a child in their class to enter the TTRS draw. At random, one child in KS1 and one child in KS2 will be chosen to win a prize. 

To be in with a chance, you need to be regularly using Times Tables Rock Stars: Play (ttrockstars.com). Good luck! 

Here are this week's winners!

Year 2: Forest School

This week was our penultimate session before the much anticipated and long-awaited campfire next week! Despite a rainy start to the day, we were lucky enough to enjoy a sun filled afternoon. We looked at how the trees had changed in the last week and thought about the season of Autumn. We continued to create with clay as well as making dream catchers and dragon eyes. We saw some amazing weaving skills and very creative ideas. We can't wait to celebrate the end of our time at Forest School next week!

Harvest Festival 2022

Today we celebrated our Hacton Harvest Festival. Children gathered in the hall and looked closely at the word Harvest and some of the words that its letters make: eat, share, vast, starve and earth. We were thankful for the donations we have been able to give to our local foodbank; however, we remembered also those in our community who have to rely on these donations. The children sang some beautiful 'Harvest classics' and enjoyed being together for this special, annual celebration.

Thank you for your generous support in providing for this worthy cause. As usual, the Hacton family have pulled together to do our bit for those who need it most. 

Year 2: History

This half term, the children in Year 2 have travelled back in time to 1666 to learn about The Great Fire of London.

They began the topic by baking their own bread roll using traditional methods of mixing, kneading and proving, as well as shaping and baking their rolls to take home. The smell around the school was divine!

Following this exciting lesson, we launched into our journey back to the bakery in Pudding Lane where the Great Fire started. The pupils were introduced to Thomas Farriner and enjoyed a virtual session with the baker. He explained to them how the fire started, what he did during the fire and the events that unfolded afterwards. This then sparked a moral debate about Thomas Farriner's actions and as to whether he acted rightly or wrongly.

What fantastic insights into moral dilemmas and how to act when faced with difficult circumstances! 

Well done, Year 2!

Year 4: Science

Year 4 have been learning about how to care for our teeth and how poor care can lead to tooth decay. In their scientific investigation, they used eggs to represent our teeth and eggshells to represent the enamel. Eggshells have a similiar chemical composition to tooth enamel so the children were able to clearly see the impact of tooth decay. 

Year 6: Joseph Coelho Workshop

Our Year 6 Reading Ambassadors had the important task of reviewing the Joseph Coelho workshop that they recently participated in. Here's what they had to say...

Year 6 were lucky enough to meet their year group poet Joseph Coelho during an online workshop. Hosted by the British Library, we met both Joseph Coelho and author Rose Robbins who inspired us to write stories about ourselves. The session was really interesting and we were fortunate to have both authors read us their work live on air as well as teach us a few tricks. Both authors explored the idea of being unique and being represented in stories which was really fascinating to our year group. We were so excited when Joseph Coehlo started reading one of the books that we have in our reading treasure chests!

Finally, the session culminated with being taught how to make autobiographical concertina books so that we could be the heroes of our own story! The aim was to show that anyone can be the star of a story and anyone can be an author.  

We really enjoyed making our stories and thinking about the moments in our lives that have been special to us. 

Awesome Attendance Winners (w/c 3rd October)

At Hacton, we have introduced a celebration of our attendance. Each week, as part of our assembly, we will announce who the Awesome Attendance winners are. They will get to have our Attendance cup for the week and will be rewarded with a treat in recognition of their fabulous attendance. 

See below for last week’s figures: 

 

Hacton’s Reading Ambassadors 2022

Introducing our Hacton Reading Council...

Our Reading Ambassadors have been busy settling into their new roles and are excited for all that the year ahead has to offer. The children have already attended their first meeting, written their first blog, met the Year 1 classes ready to help with their reading AND started some very special top-secret library projects.

We know they will be fantastic assets to our school this year. Mrs Lawless is already blown away by their creative ideas and passion for reading. 

Stay tuned for more updates from them soon...

Achievements of the Week (w/c 3rd October)

Congratulations to our Times Table winners this week! These pupils have hopped aboard the Times Table train to continue their journey to becoming a Times Table Champion. They have worked exceptionally hard to learn and master their multiplication and division facts. 

Congratulations to our Reading and Poetry Superst★rs this week! To achieve this award, all of these children have either read poems or books by their year group authors (Bronze is 5, Silver is 10 and Gold is 15). A big well done to this week's winners who have demonstrated great commitment and dedication to reading. 

Our Achievements of the Week winners should be very proud of their success!