What’s On – Friday 30th June

Message from Mrs. Castell

Dear Parents

We have had a real treat today with the first of our performances from Year One. We were all thoroughly entertained with their Royal Variety show and my thanks go to all the staff who made this possible. We will continue to collect for Great Ormond Street Hospital at our performances this half term. Foundation Stage have theirs next Thursday 6th and Year Two their Celebration Assembly on 13th July. Bring your tissues!!

Year Two enjoyed a trip to Hylands Park this week and Squirrels completed our class visits to Writtle Library. You will be receiving your child’s report on Monday and we look forward to sharing positive comments with you. On Wednesday, Year Two will go on another trip, this time to the Wilderness Foundation at Chatham Green for a day of outdoor activities. Year 1 are going to Maldon Promenade Petting Zoo on Thursday.

Summer Fete

We look forward to seeing you at our Summer Fete tomorrow. Please come to the Junior school playground from 11.30am to 1.30pm. This is our biggest fundraiser of the year so we would love your support - please bring plenty of loose change for the stalls! Raffle tickets will still be available to buy tomorrow, the prizes on offer (pictured) are fantastic! It's not too late to offer help with setting up and clearing away - even half an hour of your time would be greatly appreciated.

Eco-Schools Green Flag Award

Thank you to Miss Wright, Miss Wilson and our brilliant Eco Warriors club children for securing the Eco-Schools Green Flag for our school! They have encouraged everyone in school to be more environmentally conscious, to recycle more and to ensure that fewer resources go to waste.

Clubs

A reminder that next week is the last week for clubs, apart from Mrs Gowers' tennis club which runs until Monday 10th July.

Classroom Doors

Our classroom doors are being transformed with lovely designs representing the class names. Thank you so much to Mr Brick at Signs Express Harlow for producing the graphics and taking the time to install them for us. The final doors will be completed next week. Wrapping the doors will be one of my retirement gifts to the school - I wanted to leave something behind that would be for all the children to see.

Book Fair and Reading Monday

Well done to the winners of our Book Fair competition, we had so many brilliant entries it was almost impossible to choose!  The Book Fair has been a great success, raising more than £400 to spend on books for our library. We hope the children enjoy reading their new books at home. The final Reading Monday of the year will be on Monday 3rd July at 8.45am.

Word Aware

This week's word is chrysalis, chosen by Turtles class. Please try to use this word at home and discuss its meaning with your child.

Attendance

Attendance this week is 90.6% - our school target is 96%. Please remember that from September 2023 the doors will open at 8.40am and close at 8.50am. The extra five minutes ensures that we are meeting the expected length of the school week from September 2023.

I look forward to seeing you at the Fete tomorrow.

Best wishes
Helen Castell

Safeguarding

Can I please ask parents not to enter the school building unless invited by a member of staff. Staff are always positioned by the school doors when they are open, but if they are talking to another parent, please wait and ask before entering. We must know who is in the building for safeguarding purposes.

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

  • 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.
  • Please do not walk your children across the staff car park, it is not a thoroughfare and is very dangerous to cross. Thank you.
  • A reminder that you can email our Chairs of Governors, Matt Coffey and Esther Burton, at any time at chair@writtleinfantschool.com.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Year 2 News

It was lovely to see so many of you at Hylands this week. The children really enjoyed the day and had great fun participating in some archery, golf, cricket and football. We finished off the afternoon with some parachute games and mindfulness activities. In our Topic work, we jetted off to Africa to observe the human and physical features of the continent and compared them with the UK. The children were proficient in sorting the features into the correct categories. We have been very busy rehearsing our end of year show ‘Tuishi Pamoja’. Lyrics have been sent home so you can practise and a link has also been sent with the backing tracks.

On Monday we will send full details of our trip to the Wilderness Foundation, but in the meantime please be aware that the centre is recommending that insect repellent is worn, as there are more mosquitos around than usual this year. Just in case you want to buy some this weekend! Also, for those parents who are joining us, please be advised that the trip is very much tailored to the Year 2 age group, so it would not be suitable for younger siblings to join us, only adults. Thank you.

Please click here for this week's home learning.

Year 1 News

Wow what a fun show! Thank you to you all that could make it to our Royal Variety performance. The children were fantastic and it was so fun to watch. It was Miss Wilson’s last performance at Writtle and it definitely brought a tear to her eye. In English, we have been writing our own stories with our own settings and our own characters. In Maths, we have been learning to tell the time using the vocabulary before and after, as well as recapping over days of the year and months of year. Next Thursday is our school trip to Maldon Promenade Zoo, we can’t wait! So rest up and have a lovely weekend in the sunshine. See you at the fete on Saturday!

Please click here for this week's home learning.

EYFS

This week we have carried on learning about caterpillars and have enjoyed watching them change into chrysalises. Every day this week we have written about how they have changed from very small caterpillars when they arrived. We have been practising for our end of year assembly, we look forward to performing for you on Thursday at 9.30. The children do not need anything from home, we are practising their words in school. In phonics we have been revising phase 3 and phase 4 and writing sentences. In maths we have been revisiting doubles and halves, 3D shapes and odds and evens. We look forward to seeing you on Monday for reading in class. Have a lovely weekend.

Forest School

Tuesday 27th June

There was no Forest School today as the whole year group was at Hylands Park, but we still carried out plenty of work in the Forest School area, as well as emptying the rotten wooden planter in the playground and clearing the pond area and installing a picnic table.

Wednesday 28th June - Squirrels

The Squirrels had fun getting to know the lovely chickens that we are very lucky to have during the forest school sessions. One of the chickens even laid an egg in the afternoon! We have Ginny, Gertie, Marco and Dolly Part-hen. They are rescued ex battery hens that one of our parents bring in to us so we are very lucky. In the morning we found the newts again, the children remembered where they were last week and went to that spot straight away. We looked at some butterflies that have been preserved in special boxes. This was alongside all the physical equipment we have: the hammock, mud kitchen and polytunnel for colouring, drawing and calming activities.