What’s On – Friday 11th November

Message from Mrs. Castell

Dear Parents

I have just returned from attending the two minutes silence at the war memorial in the village and I am so proud of our Year Two children who observed the silence so respectfully. Thank you to the parents (and lovely dogs!) who joined us. We met a serving soldier who commented on how respectful the children were. I will continue to sell poppies and other related items on the playground in the mornings until the Royal British Legion comes to collect the takings.

Years One and Two were treated to a presentation from Writtle Parish Council last Friday about the work they do for the village. There were lots of good questions from our children. 

Many thanks to Mrs Scott-Simons for organising a team to take part in a bocchia and curling tournament at Chelmsford Sports and Athletics Centre on Monday. The children really persevered as they were competing against lots of Junior school aged children and trying these sports for the first time, we are really proud of them. 

Next Friday the school will hold a dress down day in conjunction with the Junior School, for Children in Need's Great SPOTacular. Please wear something spotty or yellow, in exchange for a suggested donation of £1 to this worthy cause.

Please check the school calendar as there are lots of festive events coming up, including our Key Stage 1 and Foundation Stage Christmas performances. Ticket details will be issued shortly. On 24th and 25th November WISPA will hold a secret sale of Elf On The Shelf accessories in the school library. Once you have dropped off your children we'll let you in through the back door to the library so you can buy your items in secret! Parents from both schools are very welcome. 

The WISPA and WJSPA Christmas Fayre will be held at the infant school on Friday 9th December at 3.15pm. This is a joint event for both schools, to raise funds for our Health and Happiness Hub and the Junior school pod. Please contact the office if you can volunteer any time on the day to help, if you would like donate a raffle prize or hold a stall at the event. There are two Christmas dress down days in support of the Fair, as follows:

Friday 2nd December for any of the following: sweets, chocolates, soft toys, or coins (of denominations 5p and under) for our money tree stall.

Friday 9th December for bottles (alcohol, soft drinks, toiletries, sauces and condiments).

If you have any unwanted gifts you would like to donate, please bring them to the school office for our Elfridges stall, which will take place in school time after the Christmas Fayre. We will also hold a Christmas jumper swap and both schools will have their Christmas Jumper days on Friday 16th December, the day of our Christmas dinner.

We have taken the decision not to renew our subscription to Bug Club, the online books that can be read at home. The evidence shows very few children are engaging with these at home, as low as 2 per class. It was very useful during the lockdown periods but the money is better spent on real books in school that all children can access. Parents, please return any school books you might find at home, no questions asked! We urgently need them back, as we are short of them in school. Thank you.

We are receiving a series of complaints about inconsiderate and dangerous parking. Please do not restrict access for local residents, pedestrians and other motorists when you park your car. You may consider leaving more time for your journey, or parking further away and walking to school if necessary. We urge anyone to report dangerous and illegal parking to the police. The police have advised us that they must receive information from first-hand witnesses, rather than the school reporting on their behalf. 

Finally, a reminder that parents of children due to start Reception or Year Three in September 2023 must apply for their school place by 15th January 2023.

This week's tip from our Eco Warriors is when you are charging devices, make sure you unplug the device as soon as it's fully charged!

Attendance this week is 94.7% compared with our school target of 96%.

Enjoy your weekend.

Helen Castell

Notices

  • Children go outside in all weathers, so it is essential that they bring a coat to school daily. Please label all belongings, clothing and footwear sent into school.
  • It is really helpful if you can write your child's name on bananas sent in as a snack!
  • 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.
  • 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

If you have any concerns about children, please speak to me as Designated Safeguarding Lead or Mrs Wilson or Mrs Standen who are both also trained safeguarding leads. The governors responsible for safeguarding are Mrs Bobbie Charlick and Mrs Esther Burton.

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 - Annabel for persevering with her tens and ones jottings. Reuben for a beautiful independent drawing of a poppy.

DOLPHINS - Teddy for independence and enthusiasm in maths and Primrose for independence and confidence to read out loud in front of others. Max for his perseverance in developing his fluency in reading.

Nominated by Mrs Castell - Hollie W and Alice as I noticed how well they have been including others in the playground.

PARROTS - Finley B & Noah for working independently during maths to add together and write fantastic number sentences.

TURTLES - Jack for persevering and showing resilience when he fell over. Cara for perseverance and trying her best. Poppy for always being polite, showing kindness and looking after her friends. 

SQUIRRELS - Walter for perseverance with his name writing. Phoebe for independence when putting on her coat.

FOXES - Alfie for really persevering with writing his name. Lottie for always being polite and kind.

From Mrs Scott-Simons - Louie, Hayden and Felix in Year 1 for their team work and perseverance in the Boccia competition and Parker, Molly, Ozzy and Henry K in Year 2 for team work and perseverance in the New Age Kurling competition. All of the children were amazing and made us all very proud.

Year 2 News

This week we have continued exploring our ‘Ice Bear’ text in more detail. We have practised echo and choral reading and have noticed an improvement in the children’s confidence, fluency and expression. Remember this is a great strategy to use when reading with your children at home if they’re struggling with their reading confidence. In Maths, we have been mastering exchanging when adding and subtracting numbers crossing tens, for example 36 + 7 and 54 - 6. Children have used base 10, tens and ones jottings and are being introduced to the column method too. We were so impressed with how well the children reflected and showed empathy on Armistice Day during the 2 minute silence at the village War Memorial. Thank you to those parents who joined us.

Reminders:
As it begins to turn cold, please add jogging bottoms, leggings, socks and hoodies/fleeces for outdoor PE lessons.

Please click here for this week's home learning.

Year 1 News

What a great week. The children have further explored ‘Pattan’s Pumpkin’. We explored the inside of a pumpkin and used adjectives to describe it. We also looked at some verbs and acted them out. We have looked at different methods to add two numbers together and looked at number bonds within 10. We discovered more human and physical geographical features around the world such as Giant's Causeway. We compared materials and discussed whether they were suitable for utensils to cook pumpkin food. We created Diwali lamps and discussed how people all over the world celebrate Diwali.

Please click here for this week's home learning.

EYFS News

This week we have been learning all about space! Our poem was called '5 Little Astronauts' which was similar to last week's poem. In Foxes class their conkers and pom-poms went missing and Foxes thought that it could have been aliens that took them (although some thought it was the elves). Squirrels class realised they had aliens visiting when they had a tangled ball of plastic links, maybe it was a nest! We made traps for the aliens but we didn't catch them! The aliens wrote us special space messages and left us some space dust! We loved writing messages back to them. We are waiting for another message... In phonics we have learnt the words 'to' and 'and'. We have also looked at ck and e. In maths we have been learning all about the number 3. We learnt how to make 3 in different ways, how to write the number 3, how to draw around 2 triangles to make a star and how to make 3p! We went into the hall this week to do some space themed 'Cosmic Yoga' and learnt the rules of being in the hall to do PE. We have also started doing the Daily Mile each day, we start by running 3 laps of the track on the playground and then increase as the children build up their stamina. Have a lovely weekend.