Weekly News – Friday 23rd May

Dear Parents,

The half term break has come around very quickly and we are looking forward to the celebratory Inflatables event this afternoon. Please check ParentMail for information about the event and changes in pick up arrangements today. Your children have been working incredibly hard this half term and have packed in so much learning! We have seen lots of progress being made, so it's a huge well done to them all. Thank you to all the staff in the classroom for their dedication and to our Forest School team who have introduced our Foxes and Squirrels to their wonderful outdoor activities this half term. This will continue after the half term break.

Work Experience Placements

We were lucky to have some students from ARU Writtle in school this week, as they undertook their work experience placements. Thank you to them all for their hard work. We will also be welcoming students from the Anglo European School after half term, as we hope to inspire the next generation to work with children in the future.

Next Half Term

We look forward to the next half term which is always a busy one, as it includes the Phonics Screening for Year 1, more transition activities to prepare children for the next academic year, school trips, Sports Day, the Summer Fair and our celebration events for our Year 2 Leavers. Please ensure you keep an eye on the weekly newsletter, ParentMail communications and the school diary to stay up to date.

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. Look out for Messy Church this Sunday, as well as a Play for £1 event at Mace Playce for our children in the week after half term!

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.

Enjoy the half term break. We hope it's both restful and full of family fun! Please remember we have a non-pupil day on Monday 2nd June, so we will see you again on Tuesday 3rd June at 8.40am.

Best wishes,

Tracey Wilson

Forest School Update


We have had a lovely week celebrating one of the most important creatures on our planet that need our help - BEES! We had so much fun on World Bee Day with bee crafts and lots of bee facts. The children were fascinated by some of the facts and will hopefully gain an understanding on how important they are. We observed bees working hard in the forest school area, especially on our lavender plants.
We also found a stag beetle on Thursday. Stag beetles are protected by law as they are almost extinct, so we will be doing some conservation work when we return. What a great week and how lucky we are to have an area so abundant and rich in wildlife!

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 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

Please have a look at the nature scavenger hunt we have posted on Tapestry. We thought this might be a nice activity for when you are out and about in half term. We also always love hearing about all the fun you have had so don't forget to post on Tapestry for us to see. Have fun! x

PTA Update

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.

We still have a lot of stalls that we are unable to run without volunteers. If you are able to help please let your PTA class-rep know, email wispacharity@gmail.com, or drop by and see one of us at the refreshments stall this afternoon (thanks to everyone who has already offered their help).

There are lots of stalls to help on, and 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.

We hope you have a lovely half-term break – we’ll be back from 3rd June with details of funds raised during this half-term’s activities, how your donations have been spent, and plans for the last half-term of the year.

Highlights of the week

EYFS

We have had a great week enjoying the sunshine. On Wednesday it was National Numeracy Day and we set up as many maths games as we could fit in the classrooms and the garden! The children loved them and it really helped to motivate and inspire the children to enjoy playing around with numbers.

We can't believe that half term is here already. We are all so excited for our last half term together and we have lots of exciting activities to help the children with their transition to year 1.

Year 1

Year 1 have had a busy wonderful week! We enjoyed celebrating 'National Numeracy Day' on Wednesday and used our measuring skills to bake moon rock cakes (although they do look like cookies). The children have also wowed us with their phonics knowledge in class and we greatly appreciate all the reading you are doing with your children at home to support them.

Year 2

What a week! We've been learning about statistics in our maths and have applied this learning to our computing by creating bar charts based on our bug hunt in science last week. We've also created some lovely stories in our English and celebrated National Numeracy Day with a pretend shop. Have a great half term team!

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.