Lola, our Pets As Therapy dog, comes to read with the children on Friday mornings. This half term she's with Sharks, but everyone will have a turn!

Dear Parents,

We continue going back to normal life at WIS this week, with the introduction of clubs and piano lessons after 19 months. We are so happy to be able to reintroduce aspects of school life that we took for granted before. There are still places on the clubs run by our brilliant sports professionals. If your child would like to try multi-sports, tennis, gymnastics, rugby, yoga, football or dance, please follow the links or take a look at the clubs timetable on our website and book with the provider directly.

Our EYFS children completed their first full week today and we hope they will sleep well this weekend! It was so nice to meet our new EYFS parents on Monday, as well as our parent volunteers who had safeguarding training this week.

Thank you for your continued vigilance with regard to Covid and for keeping your child at home and arranging a PCR test if they have symptoms. We encourage all households to test asymptomatic adults twice a week at home using lateral flow tests. Following a webinar with Clare Kershaw (Director of Education, Essex) and Mike Gogarty (Director of Public Health, Essex), we have been advised to request that all parents attending a face-to-face school event undertake a lateral flow test on the day of the event. Therefore, we would be grateful if you would follow this request for events such as the Harvest Festival which takes place on 6th October.

Please ensure that your child’s daily snack is either fresh or dried fruit or vegetables. To protect children with life-threatening allergies, we cannot have any products containing nuts within the school.

Now that everyone is arriving and leaving at the same time, we have had complaints from local residents about obstructive parking and even people driving up on the pavement. Please park safely, or consider parking slightly further away and making a short walk.

There has been a very noticeable uptick in items of school uniform being lost since we reverted to changing clothes for PE and clubs. We will encourage the children to look after their possessions, but please help us at home by naming absolutely every item of clothing, footwear and belongings that might be sent to school.

A reminder that teachers cannot easily check the class email account during teaching hours. They also have meetings and club commitments after school 3 days a week, so may not be able to answer your email promptly. If a matter needs attention during the school day, it must be sent to parents@writtleinfantschool.com.

Have a lovely weekend.

Helen Castell

Please ensure that you are aware of the symptoms of headlice and threadworms and treat your child promptly if necessary. You can follow the links to NHS advice. Both conditions are very common and easily spread, so it pays to be vigilant! Thank you for your support.
Our school meals page has been updated with the current menus for you to download if you wish.
Diary dates and school events can added from our website to the calendar on your phone. Click on your chosen list of dates from the Links section and then click export at the bottom of the page.

Well another fun week has swung by! The children are really familiar with their new classroom routines. They have been trying really hard in all aspects of their school life. In Maths we focussed on numbers up to 100 and looked at place value. The children have identified and represented numbers in lots of different ways and even played some games involving numbers up to 100 and looking at how many tens and ones a two-digit number has. Once they've mastered this, it will really help with all aspects of arithmetic.

Reminders: Please can your children bring in their book bags and reading book daily, as we are listening to them read during the week. They also need to bring in their library books each week (Sharks - Tuesdays, Dolphins Thursdays) as this is the day we change our library books. Numerous items of clothing seem to have gone missing - please check that you have your child’s clothes and that all items are named!

Click this link for this week's home learning.

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

In Phonics this week, we revisited oo (short & long) and ar. We learned how to form the letters correctly and read them in words. In English, we practised our handwriting and letter formation, looking at ‘long ladder letters’ and how to write on the base line. We rehearsed our class poem ‘Chop, Chop’. We counted in steps of 1, 2 and 5 in Maths and found one more or one less than a given
number. We also focused on correct number formation and checking that our numbers
are written the right way round. In the afternoons, we've logged into Seesaw and
our Wonde accounts. We also had the pleasure of Mrs. Gowers teaching us ball skills in P.E, as well as completing circuits to build up our fitness. We have had lots of play too! Great perseverance Year 1!

Click the link for this week's home learning.

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

The children have had their first full week in school, we think they will sleep well tonight! There has been lots to learn and explore. This week we introduced Poetry Basket (see the Tapestry post). The children learnt the poem well and we talked about different types of vegetables. We have been enjoying the weather this week! We loved being outside in the rain and collecting the rain water. The children also enjoyed being outside in the warm September sun. The sandpit, swing and climbing frame have been very popular! We have enjoyed sharing the children’s treasure boxes. If you haven’t done one there is still time. Have a restful weekend.

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