What’s On – Friday 11th September

Dear Parents,

We are at the end of the first full week since March and the children have continued to impress me with their return to school. They have all adapted well and settled into their new routines and the additional measure we have put in place. Our new Foxes and Squirrels have visited in small groups and it has been lovely to see them.

Thank you again for cooperating with our new drop off and pick up arrangements, which we continue to tweak where necessary. As we approach cough and cold season it is inevitable that you will receive notifications across the school about people being tested. We are very grateful to you all for being so vigilant about symptoms and will always keep bubbles informed.

As a school we are required to prepare for the possibility that a bubble may need to isolate. We have a learning-from-home programme ready to go, although we hope not to have to use it! With this in mind, year groups will now provide a simplified plan of the next week's learning with our Friday newsletter. Previously we told you what the children had been doing that week, but from now we will prepare you for the week to come instead.

We were delighted to start Forest Schools again with Parrots class this week. The children have a whole half day of outside learning and we are lucky to have a trained forest schools specialist in Mrs Winsley, ably assisted by Mrs Stobbie. I am lucky that I can see what they are doing from my office and it is clear that the children hugely enjoy their outside learning.

We are sorry to say that one of our Parent Governors, Suzy Newman, has resigned her post. She has been a fantastic support to us all and has been responsible for several areas in the school including English. She will be much missed and I thank her for the time and commitment she has given us. We will need a new parent governor and will be seeking nominations shortly. If you think you would be interested, please call me and I can discuss the commitment involved. Another regular visitor to school, the wonderful Reverend Tony from All Saints’ church, sends his virtual best wishes to us all, as we are currently unable to welcome him into school.

Sadly at the moment we cannot make any definite plans for the year ahead in terms of parent events, so I am unable to send home a list of dates for your diary. We will look at how to do things differently to ensure that the children do not miss out. I will keep you informed and we look forward to resuming the normal school events as soon as we can. In the meantime I am meeting with WISPA next week to talk about possible fundraising opportunities. Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Finally, I am pleased to say that orders can now be placed for school uniform through our new supplier, One Stop School Gear. Their website is onestopschoolgear.com/writtle-infant-school.

I hope you have a nice weekend and that after a full week your children sleep well!

Kind regards
Helen Castell