Dear Parents

My thanks go to our wonderful children in Years 1 and 2 for their performance of I'm Gonna Shine this week. I really feel in the Christmas mood now! The singing and acting was amazing - thank you to the staff for putting on a wonderful production and thank you to parents for all of your support. We look forward to seeing EYFS next Thursday.

Please try and go along to the Writtle Christmas Tree Festival at All Saints' Church this weekend. Our tree is called A Christmas Dinner and we have all had great fun with the challenge of making ornaments to represent some of our favourite food to have on Christmas Day! Please vote for us!!

Thank you for today's donations for our Christmas Fayre. Please, please consider how you can help next Friday. The Fayre will be held on the infant school playground from 3.15 - 5pm and our choir will be singing at 4pm. We have another dress down day next Friday and we have sent home raffle tickets to every child in their bookbag today. Please return your ticket stubs in an envelope to the school office, either with money included or a note to say you have paid on Eventbrite. We also need your unused raffle tickets back to the school office please, so we can sell any extras on the day of the Fayre. Every penny raised helps us in these very difficult economic times for schools. Without WISPA we would not have our lovely new library and they have funded a pantomime for the whole school next week.

The Writtle World Cup is going brilliantly! Scores this week are as follows:

Monday - Group A: France v Netherlands (1-4), USA v Spain (8-0)
Wednesday - Group B: Wales v Portugal (2-11), England v Germany (13-0) (don't we wish that was real-life!)
Thursday - Group C: Ecuador v Poland (8-1), Saudi Arabia v Australia (0-8)
Friday - Group D: Mexico v Denmark (4-0), Japan v Belgium (3-0)

The children have played with great sporting spirit and the spectators have also been amazing, cheering on every team. We're looking forward to the knock-out stages next week!

It is with sadness I need to inform you that our chair of governors Natalie Booker has stepped down from the role due to personal reasons. In the interim our Vice Chair Joan Gentle is acting chair and can be contacted through the school office.

Can I remind you all of the following:

Reading Monday is now the first Monday in the month, so it will be held on Monday 5th December at 8.45am.
All clubs have now finished for the term and children should be collected at 3.10pm.
If your child wishes to bring in Christmas cards for their friends, please make sure they are all clearly named, including the class name.
The deadline for primary school applications (for places in Reception and Year 3 from September 2023) is 15th January 2023. Late applications go to the bottom of the pile, so don't miss the date! Our final Open Day is Monday 12th December.
Urgent emails that need to be dealt with during the school day should always be sent to parents@writtleinfantschool.com. Teachers cannot check their class email accounts during the day. Notification of absences, whether it is on the day or giving advance notice of appointments etc. must always be sent to parents@writtleinfantschool.com.

Attendance this week is 90.8% compared to our school target of 96%. Please refer to our list of common childhood illnesses as a guide for isolation periods.

I look forward to seeing some of you at the Christmas Tree Festival this weekend.

Best wishes
Helen Castell

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 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.

We are often asked how to adjust settings for devices used at home. A useful guide can be found at: https://esafetytraining.org/resources/parents-carers-area/settings/

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.

Obviously the Christmas performances were the highlight of our week. All the children were amazing but a special well done for those who stepped in after illness. We are very proud of them all and are sure that you are too. We have started our new geometry Maths unit focusing on naming 2D and 3D shapes and have recognised properties and drawn 2D shapes. A lot of the Year 2s have been heavily involved in the Writtle World Cup, not only playing but supporting and cheering on all the teams.

Reminders:
Remember reading books. They need to be in school every day.
Make sure your child has a full PE kit in school - lots of children are missing out as they do not have socks, tops etc.

Please click here for this week's home learning.

Thank you so much for coming to watch our Christmas performance! The children thoroughly enjoyed performing and showing you what they have learnt. This week we have continued to get into the Christmas spirit by making more Christmas decorations. In DT we made and decorated gingerbread men which the children loved doing. We also started recognising and naming 3-D and 2-D shapes in maths and continued working on writing super sentences in English. We are so proud of the progress the children have made in phonics and reading. Please keep reading with your child at home as it is so beneficial to them! Also a reminder if you have any books you have not yet returned to please bring them in.

Please click here for this week's home learning.

This week we have continued the rehearsals for our show! It's on Thursday 8th December at 9.30am. Just a reminder that children need to come to school dressed in their PJs or onesies. They can be Christmas ones if you have some. We have been talking about kindness this week, we have talked about respect and inclusion. We have been given a kindness advent calendar so every day there is a suggestion for an act of kindness for us to do. In maths we have learned about one more and one less. In phonics we have looked at the phonemes ll, ss and j. Have a look at Tapestry. We have a Christmassy theme for our challenge this week! Have a great weekend.