Weekly News – Friday 16th May

Dear Parents,

This week we are starting to think about the children moving up to a new school year. It's amazing how quickly the academic year flies by! There are lots of opportunities in the diary for children in Year 2 to visit the Junior School, this will begin next week with Sharks and Dolphins going to lunch at the Juniors on Monday and Tuesday. We have also been visiting local nurseries to meet children who will be starting school with us in September. At the other end of the spectrum, the Year 6 children at the Junior School have been taking their SATs this week, which is a huge milestone for them as they prepare for moving up to secondary school. They will celebrate the end of their assessments with a PGL residential trip to Lincolnshire from Sunday to Wednesday next week. We wish them all a brilliant time, they deserve it after all their hard work!

Learning outdoors

The children have made the most of the weather this week with plenty of outdoor learning including bug hunting and time in the gardens. Thank you to the PTA for providing grow bags and compost again for us, so we can do some more planting and observe the fruits of our labours! Children from the Junior School also came over to our pond to do some pond dipping, so we are making the most of our outdoor spaces in school. Please remember that the weather can be changeable, and our Forest School area is under shade, so it can be much cooler than in the sunshine. Coats are still required for these reasons - some children have been quite chilly this week!

PTA Inflatables Event

Next week is the final week before the half term holiday and we are hugely grateful to the PTA for organising the Inflatables event which takes place next Friday. Please see below for ticket details. We do need to remind you that children must be kept under close supervision by their parents. Although some staff may be present, they are not responsible for supervision as this is not a school event. Can we also ask that you park with due consideration, as cars may be left on the road for some time. Passing places must be left clear along Margaretting Road so that traffic can move freely. Please do not block driveways on any roads near the schools.

Community News

We have updated our community news page with lots of activities for the May half term, as well as details of how to order school uniform for September.

Health Advice

A reminder that every Tuesday afternoon we offer a Health Advice Drop-In service with one of the school-age health practitioners. The team are available in the library for you to discuss any health concerns about your child(ren). Please click here to book an appointment.

Let's hope the sunshine returns this weekend!

Best wishes,

Tracey Wilson

Forest School Update

We have been focusing on nests this week. We have a collection of nests that were kindly given to us by tree surgeons so we had the opportunity to have a good look. The tree surgeons knew the nests were old and not being used at the time. Interestingly one of the nests had plastic string entwined throughout the nest which led us on to pollution and plastics. We had a look at what the parent birds used and then tried to recreate our own using clay, feathers and natural materials.
Please remember to bring in spare clothes or waterproofs as the children do like to play with the water and need to be able to change into dry clothes. Some children are finding it cold, please bring a coat, even if it is hot elsewhere the forest has its own microclimate and that’s generally always on the cool side!

 

Home learning

Home Learning Passports

Please try to complete this half term's passports and email any work or photos to parents@writtleinfantschool.com.

Year 1 Home Learning Passport - Summer 1 2025

Year 2 Home Activity Passport - Summer 1 2025

Spelling Practice

There is also some spelling practice for Year 1 and Year 2 below.

All Year 1 children will undertake the phonics screening check in June. The link below gives you more information about the check. This term we are revising Phase 5 phonemes in preparation for the Phonics Screening Check (PSC) in June. Please practise the words in the spelling document below with your child, to help support them with their reading. Please also continue reading with your child at home. Some children will be sent home with phonemes and words practise reading in order to help them prepare for the screening check.

Year 2 Spelling Practice - Summer 1, Week 5

Year 1 Maths

Miss Smith has prepared a document which should help you if you would like to give your child additional support with their maths at home.

Year 1 - Ways to support your child with maths at home

Topic Maps

We have also published our topic maps for the this half term, so you can see what the children will cover in all areas of the Key Stage 1 Curriculum.

Year 1 Topic Plan, Summer 1
Year 2 Topic Plan, Summer 1

EYFS Tapestry Challenge

Can you make a den in your house or garden? We used sheets, tablecloths and tarpaulins and just tucked them around the resources in the garden. The children loved this activity and their creativity and resourcefulness was impressive! As always, send in your photos on Tapestry or into school. Have a great weekend!

PTA Update

Inflatables Fun – Friday 23rd May, 3.15-5.30pm

Just 1 week to go! Our annual Inflatables Fun event and tickets are selling fast. If you are planning on joining us, please order your tickets ASAP so we can make sure there are enough bouncy castles to avoid big queues.

The school field will be transformed into a bouncy wonderland with assault courses, slides and castles galore, plus ice-cream and refreshments to keep everyone going! Online sales will close at 6pm on Wednesday 21st May. Don’t worry though, if you miss the online sales you can still buy wristbands for your children on the door from 3.15pm.

Book advance tickets via the link or scan the QR code on posters around the schools. https://square.link/u/Jq7cL9Hb

Summer Fair – Saturday 28th June

The countdown is on to the annual Writtle Infant & Junior School Summer Fair, from 11.30am – 2.00pm on *Saturday 28th June*. Look out over the coming weeks for advanced raffle tickets, we have a huge number of fantastic prizes to be won including Chelmsford City Racecourse grandstand tickets, passes for Go Ape and Ninja Warrior, Premier League match tickets, meals at your favourite local establishments and lots more.

The fair is only ever a success with the help of *lots of volunteers*, so we need plenty of hands to run all the fun stalls. If you are able to volunteer please let your PTA class-rep know, or email wispacharity@gmail.com(thanks to everyone who has already offered their help).

There are lots of stalls to help on, but we specifically need people with skills in the following:

  • *Face Painting*
  • *Hair braiding*
  • *Football goalies*

Please give us a shout if you can do any of the above.

We also have a couple of non-uniform days coming up...

  • *Friday 20th June*- in return for donations of cuddly toys and bottles
  • *Friday 27th June* - in return for donations of cakes and sweets

More information will be sent closer to these dates.

Discounted tickets

Adventure Island tickets: We have just 4 discounted tickets for Adventure Island left, with dates now extended to the end of 2025 – but these are the last so when they’re gone, they’re gone. Please allow 48 hours from order so we can arrange distribution - get yours via the link: https://square.link/u/ZNuQtufZ

Discounted Barleylands tickets: Please allow 48 hours from order for distribution - get yours via the link: https://square.link/u/GoOZH0e5

Free Donations!

Tesco are offering the chance to win an extra £1,000 donation for purchases made via easyfundraising during May. If you’re not already registered, visit https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/ to start earning free donations!

Keeping Children Safe

  • Thanks to those parents who have supported us in protecting the children’s privacy by waiting on the path by the main entrance until 3pm.
  • Emergency contact details must be up to date. Please email us at parents@writtleinfantschool.com if your details have changed.
  • Any food brought to school must not contain nuts or egg-based foods (e.g. egg mayo, scotch egg, omelette etc.).
  • We all have a duty to safeguard the children in our care. If you have any concerns about a child, please contact the school, the Chairs of Governors (if your concern is about a member of teaching staff), or the Essex Child and Families Hub on 0345 603 7627.

Highlights of the week

EYFS

We have had a brilliant week learning all about Foxes! We drew beautiful pictures of foxes which we labelled, we wrote foxy sentences using our phonics and today we pretended to be fox cubs and made amazing dens in our gardens. What a wonderful Foxy week!

Year 1

In Year 1 this week we have learnt all about the moon and written some interesting facts in our books. We have also drawn different styles of rockets!

Year 2

This week in Year 2, we have wrapped up our division unit and explored the character's feelings in English. We also went on a very exciting bug hunt ready for our computing next week and explored our wall bars in gymnastics.