What’s On – Friday 23rd September

Message from Mrs. Castell

Open Days for parents of children starting school in September 2023 are now published on our website. Click the photo to sign up and share the link with friends and family!

Dear Parents,

Thank you for the kind comments following my decision to retire. The Governing Body are considering all options and will inform parents and carers of their conclusions as soon as possible.

Activities this week
Thank you to the parent helpers who attended our safeguarding meeting on Tuesday. If you are interested in volunteering at the school, please speak to me or the school office. Year Two visited All Saints’ Church on Wednesday and were praised for their fantastic behaviour. On Thursday, Foxes children and their parents had an assembly on road safety from the Safer Essex Roads Partnership. We hope you found it useful. Squirrels will have their turn in October.  Today the Year 2 team met with parents to go through the curriculum for the year ahead. A copy of the presentation has been sent via ParentMail. Year 1 parents' meetings take place on Monday evening at 5pm online and Tuesday morning at 9am in the school hall. A ParentMail with the online meeting link will be sent home today.

Harvest Festival
Our Harvest Festival takes place on Wednesday 5th October at 10.00 in All Saints Church. Please note that in line with the church's fire risk assessment, a maximum of two members per household can attend. We will be having a collection to be shared between WISPA and the Link Club, an association which supports the elderly of the village.

Working Parents and School Events
Thank you to those who have raised concerns that working parents cannot attend all school events. We are trying to find a balance between offering different opportunities such as reading in class whilst not wanting to upset children whose parents are at work. I welcome comments from parents as we want to achieve the right balance. Please email or speak to me on the playground. Reading Mondays begin on Monday morning - these are short weekly reading sessions for parents and their children and they are entirely optional.

School Council
We are pleased to announce that our school councillors have now been elected by their peers. They represent the views of their class to highlight what is important to the children and work with the local Parish Council and their counterparts in the Junior School. Congratulations to:

Teddy & Sophie in Dolphins
Zara & Franklyn in Sharks
Isla & Samuel in Parrots
Maria & Archie J in Turtles

School Library
We are nearly there with our refurbishment of the library and my enormous gratitude goes to Joan Gentle for sorting and putting back all the books. We look forward to showing it to you.

WISPA/WJSPA Coffee Morning
We would love to see more volunteers joining our parents association, who raise funds to provide extra resources for the children. The committees of both the Infant and Junior school parents associations invite you to a coffee morning at the Junior School on Tuesday 4th October to find out more about what's involved and how you can help, even if you have very little spare time.

Attendance
This week's attendance is 95.4% compared with a school target of 96%.

Enjoy the weekend.

Helen Castell

Notices

  • Please label all belongings, clothing and footwear sent into school. Our lost property box is already filling up - if you are missing items please check the box in reception.
  • Please note that the daily snack must be fresh or dried fruit or vegetables. Small fruit that might present a choking hazard must be cut in half, e.g. grapes and cherry tomatoes
  • As we have children in school with life-threatening allergies, please do not send products containing nuts into school, or egg-based foods such as egg mayo, scotch egg, omelette, frittata etc.
  • We do take children out in all weathers, so they bring a coat to school daily now the weather is turning.
  • Please take extra care when crossing the road as due to staff sickness we only have one School Crossing Patrol at the moment.
  • We welcome donations of spare joggers and white polo shirts aged 4-5/ 5-6 to keep in class as spare clothing. Boys and girls pants and socks are also always welcome.
  • Teachers cannot always check the class email during the day. Please send urgent messages to parents@writtleinfantschool.com.
  • We love to share awards, medals, trophies, even anecdotes from children’s achievements outside of school. Please hand them to me or email parents@writtleinfantschool.com for assemblies on Friday.
  • Diary dates and school events can added from our website to the calendar on your phone. Click on your chosen list of dates from the Links section and then click export at the bottom of the page.

Safeguarding

Talk PANTS helps children understand that their body belongs to them, and they should tell someone they trust if anything makes them feel upset or worried.Information can be found on
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/support-for-parents/pants-underwear-rule/

We all have a duty to safeguard the children in our care and if the school suspects or knows that a child is at risk of significant harm, we will make a referral to Social Services. The school does not investigate any disclosures that children may make, we are a referring agency. Procedures on safeguarding from the Government make it clear that all staff should operate with an ‘it could happen here’ approach to any concerns they may have. If you have any concerns about a child please telephone the Essex Child and Families Hub on 0345 603 7627.

Awards

SHARKS - Evie for persevering with her phonics this week. Albie for super speedy independent maths work!

DOLPHINS - Bonnie for her brilliant attitude and perseverance in her maths work and Kim for her independent working and super attitude to learning!

Isabelle B deserves a mention for her perseverance in learning to ride her bike! 

PARROTS - Violet for persevering with her name writing and Adonis’s for persevering with recognising her numbers to 20!

TURTLES - Norah for having a fantastic first week at school, always showing politeness and being independent in her work. Naomi for perseverance in her phonics!

Year 2 News

We have been really impressed with the children’s engagement and interest in our Great Fire of London topic. The children have written captions for photographs, written a glossary of key words and practised using a dictionary. Our phonics focus has been on alternatives graphemes for the ‘ee’ phoneme; ee, ea, e-e, ey, y and ie. We have continued our place value work on numbers up to 100 placing and estimating numbers on a number line and comparing objects and numbers up to 100. The children enjoyed a focused lesson drawing the London skyline. It was National Fitness Day this week so the children have been learning how to skip and thinking of ways to keep active.

Please make sure that your reading books are in school every day.

Please click here for this week's home learning.

Year 1 News

We hope you had a wonderful long weekend, however it was spent. We have continued with our whole class phonics sessions and have focused largely on presentation in books. We have practised counting forwards and backwards within 20. We have also introduced whole class HIPIP time which the children have really enjoyed. HIPIP time is a whole school approach of purposeful play to encourage the children to work collaboratively. The children have developed their football skills with Mrs Gowers and practised running back and forth with the ball safely. Have a fantastic weekend!

Please click here for this week's home learning.

EYFS News

We are so thrilled with how most of the children have settled into school life. As we come to the end of the first-full week at school we are all shattered including the children. They have done so well learning all the routines and rules, It is tiring work! This week the children have loved being outside, enjoying our garden and all it has to offer. Please remember to bring in a change of clothes,wellies and an extra rain mack. We will also be sending a Tapestry note to some parents asking for a small family photo to put up on the wall. Look out for our Tapestry Challenge too! We hope you all have a relaxing weekend and see you next week.