Dear Parents

Thank you for your continued supportive comments. They are much appreciated as our staff teach full time and provide remote learning for the rest of the school and I love to share the positives (and the things we can tweak!) with all of our staff. Over different days we have over a third of the school in total who attend and we are proud to support our key workers and vulnerable children.

Key workers, I would be grateful if you continue to only use the days you really need as in two bubbles we are at the absolute maximum on a particular day and will have to say no to any more children in those bubbles on the day concerned. Following my involvement with track and trace this week they also showed concern about the high numbers we have and I must do all I can to limit the chance of transmission.

We continue to offer a timetable that mirrors what is happening in school but please do not feel you have to complete it all, we understand that many of you are juggling work and childcare and home learning.

At the time of writing we are expecting delivery of lateral flow tests for staff to test for asymptomatic cases. Should there be a positive test the bubble will be isolated while the member of staff has to follow guidance and take a confirmatory PMR test.

A reminder that the office is not physically manned at the moment so please if you call leave a message, the email, parents@writtleinfantschool.com, is monitored constantly by the office staff working from home.

I have been asked about the free laptops for children being educated at home and due to the fact they are not offered below Year Three, our school allocation was precisely zero!

Thank you for attending my assemblies remotely. It truly makes me feel closer to you all as we miss you so much and I am grateful for suggestions people have made for example for books to share. I am sorry that some of you had issues signing onto this morning's assembly. We think it was a glitch as we had reports of you getting emails which said the time had changed and it had not. I will record the reading of the book and share it again another week. I have resent the invite for next week's assembly and suggestions for favourite books would be lovely.

Many thanks to one of our families who have donated fruit for the key worker children and sanitising stations for the school, we are so grateful as they are even safer than passing spray between one another.

I am delighted to say we have a new parent governor, Mr Yildizgoren who we thank for volunteering. We look forward to working with him.

Half term is the week commencing 15th February. We do not yet know if we will be returning after that as a full school, in response to a couple of queries it is our intention to fully close over half term to give our staff a chance to recharge, so if your child is currently in school as a key worker you will need to make childcare arrangements as usual for half term week. There will be no remote learning that week.

Stay safe

Helen Castell

Year 2 Remote Learning

You will receive your weekly plan the same as we did last week through your child's Google Classroom. You can access this from your dashboard when you you login to Wonde. We will post our remote learning packs for the week in Google Classroom under Classwork.

You will also receive the half term Home Activity Passport which includes some helpful life skills activities, this can be enjoyed and completed over the next few weeks.

Don't forget we have Forest School on Tuesday!

Please email your class teacher at dolphins@writtleinfantschool.com and sharks@writtleinfantschool.com or parents@writtleinfantschool.com if you are having trouble accessing this site.