Message from Mrs. Castell
Dear Parents
What a chilly week! Despite the challenges of the weather and traffic this week, the attendance and punctuality of the children is improving - this week our attendance was 95.8% compared to the school target of 96%. Thank you for supporting us with this. I appreciate that it is difficult to get medical appointments out of school time, but please try to minimise time lost in school by bringing your child in before or after their appointment, to ensure that they miss as little learning time as possible.
I am very saddened to say that one of our governors, Ralph Bray, has resigned from our governing body. Ralph has been a governor for many years and a constant friend to the school. He will be much missed and we wish him well.
Please read dates and times for clubs carefully to ensure that children are not left behind after school unnecessarily. We advertise dates of clubs on our website and confirm them to you in our ParentMail when we allocate places. I am aware of some misinformation on Whatsapp groups about clubs, so please speak to us directly or check our website if you are unsure!
A reminder that this term we offer an opportunity for you to have a school dinner with your child. Dates for your diary are:
Foxes - Wednesday 25th January, 11.45am
Squirrels - Wednesday 1st February, 11.45am
Turtles - Wednesday 8th February, 12.05pm
Parrots - Wednesday 22nd February, 12.05pm
Dolphins - Wednesday 1st March, 12.05pm
Sharks - Wednesday 8th March, 12.05pm
Please complete the form on ParentMail when Mrs Duff asks for your lunch order. If you are having a school dinner you will need to pay £2.60 to the school office in advance of your meal. Each lunch visit takes approximately half an hour. Please note that for the weeks of our parent lunches I will try to run Choir on a different day, as it would normally be on a Wednesday.
Our next Reading Monday is 6th February and Family Learning Time is on Tuesday 7th February. I am aware that these events fall on two consecutive days, but as we have already reduced Reading Mondays to once a month, I am reluctant to cancel another session.
Community News
Please check our Community Links page regularly, as we often receive interesting activities, notices and resources from local sources. This week we have posted the following updates:
- Afsaic Speech and Language helpline - for parents who have any concerns about their child’s speech & language
- Vacancies at The Duckling Nursery
- Update from Essex Libraries - about the Winter Reading Challenge and Love Your Library day
- Writtle Village Summer Fete - save the date and help run a stall to raise money for our school
- Walking Tour of the Writtle Hut - celebrating 100 years of radio broadcasting
- Chelmsford Recyling Depot Open Day - find out about recycling, waste management and street cleaning
- CMXSC February Half Term Summer Camp - multi sports camp run by our Multi Sports/Gymnastics club provider CMXSC
Next Thursday 26th January, Kittle Photographic will take a photo of all children and staff which will be compiled into a whole school photo to commemorate this year's Coronation of King Charles III. These photos will be available to purchase at a later date.
Have a good weekend. Best wishes,
Helen Castell
Safeguarding
I occasionally get asked questions about legal age for leaving older children home alone. Advice can be found here: https://www.boltonsafeguardingchildren.org.uk/downloads/file/21/home-alone-guide
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.
Notices
- 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.
Awards
SHARKS - Zara for incredible teamwork during her HIPIP collage and making sure everyone was included. Mae for persevering with finding change!
DOLPHINS - Teddy for his super independent maths work on money - we are so proud of you.! Ozzy for his fantastic, independent reading - you were a fabulous 'angry' king!
PARROTS - Archer and Alfie for independently drawing their own number lines using a ruler.
TURTLES - Melody, Ava and Naomi for their fantastic perseverance, effort and enthusiasm in writing this week! Turtles team are very proud of you all
SQUIRRELS - Lani and Oliver for perseverance - really working hard on sitting quietly in class!
FOXES - Andrew for persevering with his pencil and egg rolls during PE! Khiara for perseverance when trying to ride a scooter. Well done!
Year 2 News
We have continued with our ‘Dragon Quest’ theme by exploring the King’s character. Children investigated the King’s thoughts and feelings using the skill of inference. They also participated in some drama where we could clearly see an improvement in their use of expression! In Maths, we completed the unit on money. Any opportunities to apply these skills by counting money, finding totals and working out change would be beneficial. Our new computing unit is entitled ‘We are games testers’. This unit allows the children to explore simple algorithms and develop their simple coding skills. It also encourages the children to think about how computer games work.
Year 1 News
This week we have written the story of ‘Good Little Wolf’. We made our stories interesting by including expanded noun phrases such as sweet, old Mrs Boggins. We looked at number lines and had a go at drawing them using rules. We found missing numbers on number lines and estimated where numbers sit on the number line. For DT, we created the perfect meal for the wolf, thinking about foods that would be appropriate and followed the design criteria. We also practised our throwing and catching skills with Mrs Gowers.
EYFS News
This week we have learnt a poem about Popcorn. We love this poem and really enjoyed our popcorn themed Yoga session today with Mrs Easteal! We have learnt about how popcorn pops when it gets heated up and sat in amazement watching a slowed down version of popcorn popping! We made our own popcorn containers by cutting, folding and joining. Then we made our own popcorn and ate it. In maths we have continued our work in comparing numbers to 5, we have talked about more and fewer and equal. In phonics we have learnt the digraphs ch, ng and ai and the tricky word 'they'. We have been enjoying exploring the ice in the garden and have filled containers with objects in them to leave overnight. During the day we loved trying to get the objects out of the ice in many inventive ways! Have a wonderful weekend.
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