Dear Parents

Thank you for your kind support of our Mini Marathon last week. Please send any further sponsorship money into school and WISPA will announce the total raised in due course.

Today the whole school is taking part in a therapeutic art project, based around the theme “Same Sea, Different Boats”. With the kind support of the Lars Windhorst Foundation, the children are spending the day exploring their feelings in the wake of the pandemic and expressing them through their artwork. The "same sea" is the situation we have all been presented with during the last year, and "different boats" refers to our individual responses to that challenge. There will be a gallery for you on our website, so you can see the wonderful work that has been produced.

A reminder that we break for half term next Friday 28th May and return on Tuesday 8th June. Monday 7th June is a non-pupil day. After half term we propose to let the children play with the other class in their year group only at lunchtimes. In particular it is important for our Year Two children to get to know each other again before the transition to the Junior School. We want to work with parents every step of the way, so please do contact me if you have any concerns.

On Tuesday we will be saying goodbye to Mrs Gannicott, who is leaving us for a new challenge at a different school. Many children and families have had the benefit of her speech and language expertise and also her support for well-being across the school.She has been with us for 21 years and is simply irreplaceable. She will be deeply missed by us all.

Click for this week's Forest School Gallery!

I have been asked by the staff to remind you that children should wear trainers and joggers/leggings to school daily, so that they can participate in PE activities without getting changed. As well as our PE sessions we also participate in the Daily Mile and other spontaneous activities and it is much safer for the children to do these in sportswear. Children cannot wear earrings for PE activities and gone are the days when we could simply tape over them with plasters, so they should not wear earrings to school at all if possible. If your child does wear earrings, they must be able to remove them themselves for PE, so that they can be sent home in an envelope. New ear piercings should not take place during term time as the earrings cannot be removed for 6 weeks, so please arrange appointments for start of the summer holidays to allow sufficient time for them to heal before September.

Just to remind you that we like to celebrate activities that the children have achieved out of school during our Friday assemblies. Recent achievements we have shared include personal bests at Park Run, becoming a Beaver, karate badges and learning to ride a bike, so please do email me with others!

Finally, I am sure you have seen in the news that there are cases of the Indian variant in Chelmsford. Essex County Council is urging all residents in the Chelmsford City Council area to take a lateral flow test at home. Lateral flow tests are for adults without symptoms. The advice regarding symptoms has not changed since last March; if someone in your household has symptoms, you must isolate the whole household and arrange a PCR test. All adults are able to access free kits for twice-weekly testing at home and we would strongly recommend that you test at home regularly if you aren't already doing so.

Have a lovely weekend.

Helen Castell

Well done to the following children who have been awarded Shooting Stars for setting a great example to others this week.

Sharks: Myra for settling in so well to her new class! Luke M for growing in confidence this term and really trying with his reading!

Dolphins: Iris for her enthusiasm in telling the time accurately and with confidence! Baden for amazing us with his knowledge and interest in music!

Turtles: Luca for using some fantastic adverbs in his writing! Lola for fabulous letter writing when practicing her alphabet!

Parrots: Zara for persevering with her instruction writing and working hard to include adverbs. Georgia for her amazing knowledge of left and right when following instructions!

Foxes: Erol for amazing writing skills and writing during his play! Stanley for always being cheerful, keen to learn and super progress in reading!

Squirrels: James for writing a super story with only a little help from me!
Ruby D for really working hard at writing super sentences!

The children have applied their knowledge of fractions this week to help them tell the time (o'clock, half past, quarter past and to the hour). They also practised telling the time in 5 minute intervals.

Both classes have been working on improving their writing skills. We have been pleased with their effort and determination. The highlight of the week was the pirate themed science lesson where they investigated how to make their treasure shiny. It was a fun way to learn about chemical reactions. We're sure that your children could demonstrate this for you.

Remember that next Friday is our pirate themed day and children can dress up if they wish!

Please click here for this week's home learning.

Our email addresses are dolphins@writtleinfantschool.com and sharks@writtleinfantschool.com.

This week we have completed our instruction writing for how to take care of a bird. We used bossy verbs and included adverbs too! In Maths, we have been learning about position and direction. We looked at left, right, forwards, backwards and whole turns, half turns, quarter turns. It was very tricky but we persevered and worked hard! We have continued to learn our song 'In the Groove'. Sorry adults, it is very catchy! We had such a fun day with our art project 'Same Sea, Different Boats' and we spoke about how we have felt throughout the pandemic.

Please click here for this week's Year 1 Home Learning.

Our email addresses are parrots@writtleinfantschool.com and turtles@writtleinfantschool.com.

This week we enjoyed our new poem, 'Five Little Peas'. We listened to the story of 'Supertato' who defeated the Evil Pea. We made our own playdough Evil Peas and enjoyed squashing them. We wrote sentences about peas, practising the 'ee' sound in 'green' and using our new tricky word 'have'. We explored the number 14 in maths in many different ways using ten frames, cubes and Numicon. In PE we rolled and fetched balls and played a funny game of rabbits and foxes. Don't forget to check Tapestry for this week's Tapestry challenge! Have a lovely weekend!

Our email addresses are foxes@writtleinfantschool.com and squirrels@writtleinfantschool.com.