Dear Parents

As I write this we are looking forward to Fish & Chip Friday! We will see how the logistics work and adjust as necessary as we reintroduce hot school meals. We had our first fire drill of the academic year on Wednesday and the children did really well. I was especially proud of our Foxes and Squirrels! A tweak to our new arrangements is to rotate areas of the playground weekly, so that each class can enjoy different places to play. We have also assigned the tyre area to give further space to the class who are doing Forest Schools that half term.

Please remember the children will have their individual photos on Tuesday. Parrots can arrive in uniform and then change for Forest Schools immediately after their photograph.

Sadly we cannot hold our usual Harvest Festival at All Saints' Church this year. We will hold a Harvest theme week in school, sharing work with other classes during virtual assemblies, and we'll publish something special for you on our website. Together with the wonderful Reverend Tony from All Saints’ Church, both Writtle Infant and Junior schools will hold a collection to support the homeless charity Sanctus. Donations can be left outside the school entrance from October 19th to 24th. Please donate items from this list only:
Tinned items: fruit, baked beans, tomatoes, fish, ready meals (tinned). Ideally tins with ring pulls, not requiring a tin opener.
Store cupboard items: Pot Noodles, cereal, coffee, sugar, long life milk, small juice cartons, biscuits, cake bars, chocolate, bottles of water, salt, pepper, mustard, stock cubes.
Toiletries: disposable razors and shaving foam, deodorant, shower gel, shampoo.

We would welcome your feedback on the new school uniform from our online supplier. Please email us at parents@writtleinfantschool.com to let us know what you think.

Finally, following some concerns shared with me this morning, can I reassure you that if there was a serious incident involving the school we would always notify parents, using ParentMail and our website. We have received no reports of any such incidents.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Helen Castell

Well done to the following children in Years 1 and 2 who have been awarded Shooting Stars for setting a great example to others this week.

Sharks: Ethan for wonderful English work and Ava for always being polite and thinking of others!
Dolphins: Iris for super skipping and George for beautiful handwriting!
Turtles: Alexa for settling in really well to our school and George for trying really hard in his phonics lessons!
Parrots: Freddie L-N for a great attitude to learning this week and trying his best and Ibrahim for his impressive knowledge of different countries during Geography!

Well done to the following children who have been given HIPIP awards for demonstrating our value of perseverance this week. Erin and Baden in Dolphins, Harry and Ruby in Sharks, Ibrahim and Layla in Parrots and Leo and Humphrey in Turtles.

Here’s what to look forward to next week:

English
Poetry writing: Based on ‘Me’ by Swapna Addow
Reading/writing: Prediction Pip
Handwriting: Zig Zag monsters
Phonics: Unit 17 ‘oa’ letters making the ow, o-e and oe sound
Maths: Addition and Subtraction - Number facts
Geography: Introduction to South America
PSHE: Meditation and journal writing
Computing: Using Seesaw to create our own videos
Music - Hands, Feet and Heart music
Science: The importance of a healthy diet and exercise
Harvest: Talking about Harvest

Have a go at ICT Games' Look, Cover, Write, Check game. It’s a fun way to learn spellings, ten at a time. The national expectation is that at the end of Y2 (KS1) children can spell all of the Y1 and Y2 common exception words. We are currently working our way through the Y1 words.

Home learning activities for this half term are listed in our Year 2 Activity Passport: Autumn 1, which you can also find on the Year 2 Home Learning page. Please also log in to Bug Club, we have updated your child's account with phonics lessons, grammar activities and new reading material.

Our new email addresses are dolphins@writtleinfantschool.com and sharks@writtleinfantschool.com.

Here’s what to look forward to next week:

English: Writing sentences about what you got up to at the weekend and discussing the word ‘who’ and who our favourite ‘who's' are.
Maths: Revisiting the part-whole model and introducing the addition sign.
Music: We are practising our Harvest song using British Sign Language.
Art: Creating wonderful Harvest themed tissue paper collages.
PE: Challenging ourselves further during circuits to increase our fitness.
Forest School: Parrots every Tuesday (Turtles after half term). Please arrive in Forest Schools clothes and trainers. Wellies stay in school. A change of clothes is only necessary if it will be wet that day.

Please click this link for the week's home learning.

Our new email addresses are parrots@writtleinfantschool.com and turtles@writtleinfantschool.com.

We have enjoyed our poem this week 'Falling Apples' and have learnt about how apples grow! We started our 'Daily Mile' this week, we sent you a Tapestry observation about it. We have been hampered by the rain this week but we hope to do it every day. Next week we will be learning the poem 'Wise Old Owl' and finding out about owls. Thank you for your 'Tapestry Challenge' videos, we enjoyed watching them. If you haven't sent in a photo of your child's family, please could we have them next week, by email/Tapestry or brought into school.

Have a fun, rainy weekend.

Our new email addresses are foxes@writtleinfantschool.com and squirrels@writtleinfantschool.com.