Dear Parents,

It is lovely to see the children's spots and stripes today in support of Children in Need. Thank you for your kind donations. I am also grateful for your purchases of poppy items which raised around £100. I was very proud of the children as we held the two minutes silence in school for Armistice Day- I joined Foxes class and they were wonderful!

Thank you for your continued support with our arrangements for keeping everyone safe. There have not been major changes in school, we continue to work within the control measures we established for our re-opening in September. Please ensure that you stick to the lockdown rules when travelling to and from school and do not mix in large groups. Of course there will be a great deal of anxiety for families during this period and we are here to support in any way we can. Please contact us if you need to.

We are grateful to Miquill Catering and their team for the smooth transition to serving hot lunches at school. We welcome your feedback on how this is going - please email us at parents@writtleinfantschool.com.

A reminder that we have a remote celebration assembly on Fridays and enjoy sharing achievements the children have outside of school. Do email parents@writtleinfantschool.com with any stories.

It may be that your child is using ICT more frequently, especially while isolating. Please continue to consider the safety aspects of children using laptops, tablets etc. There is a lot of information on our website on the e-safety page. Thinkuknow is a particularly useful website.

The primary school admission round opened on 9 November 2020, for parents/carers to apply for a school place in Reception from September 2021. The statutory national closing date for applications is 15 January 2021. Applications can be made online via www.essex.gov.uk/admissions. All Year 2 children will also need to apply for Year 3 places during this period. For applications to Writtle Junior School, Mr Taylor will hold the parents' information sessions via a Zoom meeting. We will send further details as soon as we receive them. We will keep reminding you of the 15 January deadline, it is absolutely essential that your application isn't late!!

Essex are reviewing the Essex Early Years and Childcare Strategy 2015–2018 to understand the current landscape. The intention is to produce and implement a new 2020 version that takes into account any impact Covid-19 has had on early years schools and private, voluntary and independent parts of the sector. As part of this process they have launched a Childcare in Essex – Parents’ Views survey to seek the views of parents.
You are very welcome to take part and contribute your comments.

We have had a complaint from a resident in Long Brandocks about parking today. Please do not block drives and be considerate of our neighbours when you park. Thank you.

Finally, please take a look at our Community Links page for details of the Outdoor Christmas Tree Festival in Writtle this year. Sadly the usual Christmas Tree Festival cannot take place at All Saints Church this year, so the suggestion is to place a Christmas tree in your window or garden, so we can enjoy an ‘outdoor festival’ as we walk around the village! There's also a competition if you wish to enter.

Stay safe
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: Grace for making amazing progress in her reading and writing! Nathan for showing such a positive attitude to his English work!
Dolphins: Sophie for always showing care and consideration for others! Theo for his confidence in independent work!
Turtles: Stanley for a fantastic story map and a clear verbal retelling of the story!
Dillin for good listening during Forest School!
Parrots: Lily for challenging herself and writing an excellent version of 'Pumpkin Soup' and Georgia for increasing her confidence during whole class discussion!

Here's what to look forward to next week.

English: The Ice bear, reading together and finding facts.
Reading: Extreme Living by Dawn McMillan. The Polar Regions - comprehension activities.
Phonics: Unit 22 phoneme / ear / written as 'ere' and 'eer'.
Maths: Addition and Subtraction - Using different methods, reasoning, problem solving and assessment.
Computing: Using laptops to search for information
Science/Geography: 'Teachers in the Freezer'
History: Scott of the Antarctic

The new activity passport has been published - please give these a go and let us know how you get on. We can't wait to see your photos!

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

Here’s what to look forward to next week:
English: We are going to look at punctuation such as; question marks and exclamation mrks.
Maths: We are going to identify different 3D and 2D shapes.
Science: We are looking into different materials and their properties. PE: We are travelling in different ways with a ball and practising our throwing and catching skills.
Forest School: Turtles every Tuesday. 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 email addresses are parrots@writtleinfantschool.com and turtles@writtleinfantschool.com.

What a wonderful week we have had! The children were interested and respectful when we learnt about the significance of poppies and Remembrance Day. They observed the silence beautifully. We also learnt about Diwali and Children in Need.

Next week we'll be learning a new Poetry Basket poem: 'Breezy Weather'.

Maths will be all about the number 3 and we will be enjoying 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears.'

We are so impressed with the way the children are learning all their new letter sounds! Next week our new letters are o, c, k, and ck.Our new tricky word will be 'my'.

Look out for a super surprise coming for Christmas! We will tell you all about it very soon!

Have fun this weekend!

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