Message from Mrs. Castell
It's been busy busy busy in school this week as we plan for the music festival and other upcoming events. Thank you so much to the parents who entered our school for the Longacres Garden Centre competition. We won a huge planter and a bumper selection of garden tools, seeds and compost which will enhance our forest schools provision and other areas of the school. We are also very grateful to Lewis Williams for once again donating some really lovely plants for our Forest School area.
On Wednesday we welcomed Sharks parents for the last of our school dinners with parents for this academic year. Thank you to everyone who has attended this term.
We are looking forward to the music festival for Year Two next Wednesday and we thank parents for making arrangements for pick up. To confirm, clubs will be on for Year One (apart from Eco warriors) and I will hold onto any infant age siblings of Year Two children in the hall for you until your return from Christchurch. If someone else is collecting please let us know. It is not worth trying to bring Year Two children back for clubs, as the performance finishes at 3.30 and all but Forest Schools club finish at 4pm.
On Thursday 16th March Year 2 parents are invited to the hall after drop off for a coffee morning and discussion about the end of Key Stage 1 assessments in May. On Friday 17th March we have a non-uniform day with children invited to wear bright colours for Red Nose Day and bring a suggested donation of £1.
We wish Miss Wakeling and the Raiders 2 ice hockey team luck this weekend as they take on the Chelmsford Chieftains in a charity match to raise funds for Ellis and Avia. Thank you to those parents who have bought tickets, these are still available from the school office until 4.30pm today. If you are unable to attend but would like to donate, you can do so online here:
Avia: https://www.gofundme.com/f/aviavs-wilmstumour
Ellis: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-save-our-ellis
Important information - Term time holidays - Local authority update
Improving school attendance is a key priority for all schools across Essex. Where families choose to take a family holiday during term time, this can detrimentally impact a pupil’s progress and can prevent them from fulfilling their true academic potential. Our school attendance policy, available via our school website, clearly sets out the process that parents should follow if they wish to apply for leave during term time. Please note that applications should only be made, if you feel that there are exceptional circumstances which mean that the leave cannot be taken during the school holidays. We would ask all parents to note that, where families choose to go on holiday during term time and the absences are coded as unauthorised, Essex County Council may not issue penalty notices and may instead proceed to prosecution and place the case directly before the Magistrates for their consideration in court. If found guilty by the Magistrates, parents could face a fine of up to £2,500 and/or 3 months imprisonment.
Attendance this week is 94.1% compared with our school target of 96%.
Word aware
As part of our commitment to developing vocabulary with our children each class will be choosing a word of the week. This week's word is "predict", chosen by Parrots class as they are thinking about Science week next week. We would be grateful if you would discuss this and use this with your children.
Best wishes
Helen Castell
Safeguarding
The Dogs Trust has some excellent advice regarding safety around dogs. https://lincolnshirescb.proceduresonline.com/p_dangerous_dogs.html
https://www.dogstrust.org.uk/how-we-help/professionals/education
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
- A reminder that you can email our Chairs of Governors, Matt Coffey and Esther Burton, at any time at chair@writtleinfantschool.com.
- If anyone has any spare bird-feeders or teapots, we would love to hang them in the trees for Forest School!
- 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 - Parker- persevering with reading during ERIC time. Franklyn- independence with reading to an adult this week and for moving up a book band!
DOLPHINS - Henry K for his independent 'unique recipe' writing for friendship. Raury for ALWAYS displaying our HIPIP values in and out of the classroom and for simply being rather wonderful!
PARROTS - Finley P - He has been persevering to improve his writing stamina! and Ellie - for being polite and showing respect to adults always!
TURTLES - Eva for persevering with her writing, we are very proud of her amazing work! Finley for politeness for greeting me in the morning with 'good morning' it really brightened my day!
SQUIRRELS - Luca - perseverance when tidying away the brooms - he worked really hard. Hallie-Mae - inclusivity, she has really looked after her classmates this week and invited them into her play.
FOXES - Florence for always being kind and caring. Seren for persevering with making her bag and using staples! Well done.
Year 2 News
We have continued exploring the themes in our book ‘Pip and Egg’. We started the week by looking at the verbs in the book which describe what the characters do, how they move, feel and speak. We revised telling the present tense and how we change words to write in the past tense. The children enjoyed writing a ‘recipe’ for friendship as well and we were so impressed with their wonderful writing and the qualities they look for in a good friend. In Maths, we have moved onto length and height and have recapped measuring in centimetres and metres, comparing and ordering lengths and solving word problems. This topic has given us a great opportunity to explore the importance of a healthy lifestyle. We discussed this in our Science lesson which linked brilliantly with making fruit (or vegetable) kebabs. We’ve also started a virtual world tour learning about and comparing the seven continents; starting with the two largest, Asia and Africa. As you can see, it’s been a busy week but we did manage to rehearse the Pirates V Mermaids songs in preparation for next week’s music festival. (We’re all very excited!)
Year 1 News
This week we have dived into our topic book ‘How to Find Gold’. In English, we described one of the illustrations and our partner had to draw a picture based on our descriptions. We also discussed what the words ‘dangerous’ and ‘difficult’ meant and discussed whether Anna should go on this journey. In Maths, we further developed our numberline knowledge and filled in missing number lines. We also found one more and one less than any given numbers within 50. In our book, Anna and Crocodile are attempting to find gold using a map. They believed the treasure could be in France, so we explored how to travel to France across the English Channel! We also sang our new favourite song ‘The 5 Oceans Song’, we wonder if the children can remember it at home?! We discovered another female pirate named Anne Bonney and looked at the adventures she had travelled.
EYFS News
This week our poem was called 'Spring Wind' . We learnt about how the wind is made and we looked at some extreme winds too, we made kites but couldn't take them outside because of the rain, snow and sleet! We enjoyed exploring the small amount of snow we had on Monday. In phonics we have got to the end of phase 3 and will start phase 4 phonics next week but we will continue to work on phase 3 sounds and for some phase 2 sounds as well. In maths we learnt all about the number 8, we enjoyed playing a game with dominos and adding together the dots to find out who had more or fewer. We found out about the Hindu Festival of Holi and mixed colours outside in the garden and squirrels class made a beautiful colourful banner together using their handprints. Foxes class have been helping the Year 2's with the backdrop for their music festival. They have been painting and drawing fish and sponging colours for the sea, rocks and seaweed.
Forest School News
Dolphins - Tuesday 7th March
Some children buried a treasure box filled with diamonds and gold and made a treasure map for the Year 1 children to find the next day. We were pleased to see the robin again after he did not show up last week. We talked about the seasons and what is happening around us right now and that we are still in Winter. We talked about the full Moon that could be seen that evening.
It is Science Week next week, we will be focusing on our senses. We started talking about touch and wonder if all trees feel the same and finding different textures. Next week we are focusing on smell, if anyone has any used yoghurt pots we would love them.
Parrots - Wednesday 8th March
The children could not believe their eyes when they were digging and came across a treasure box. They even came across some Roman pottery and a dinosaur bone ( their words, not mine!) As this was linked to their topic in class the children were fully engrossed and so excited.
We braved the snow flurries as long as we could and then did some activities inside to defrost.
It is Science week next week so will be focusing more on our senses and the world around us.
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