Thank you for attending the first of our Reading Mondays this week. We will continue these sessions every Monday unless circumstances change. I have had very valid and understandable queries about why some things in school can go ahead, but others were changed before half term. It depends on the number of positive cases within the school in the week concerned and we risk assess before each event.

We are so proud of our EYFS children, who told us they were ready for the big playground this week! They have really enjoyed having the playground to themselves for the first part of lunch, before they are joined by Years 1 and 2.

We held the first of our open days for prospective parents on Thursday and very much enjoyed meeting families of children starting school next September. Applications for primary school admissions open from Monday 8th November and the deadline is Saturday 15th January 2022. If your child is in Year 2 you must apply for their Junior School place in Year 3 by the same date. Please don't be late! Details have been sent to parents by ParentMail today.

Today "The 2 Johns" were in school to give a presentation to each year group about e-safety. As advertised in our diary dates at the beginning of term, they will also host a virtual meeting next Tuesday 9th November at 8pm for parents, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Following the sessions with the children today, at which some surprising revelations were made apparent, both the 2 Johns and our staff feel that every parent would benefit from attending this meeting. We tend to think that this age group are protected from internet safety issues but the 2 Johns' information is always eye-opening and every parent who has attended in the past, even the most internet-savvy, has said that the meeting was invaluable and raised issues they had not previously considered. Information has been sent to you all via ParentMail.

Next Thursday we will be observing the 11am silence for Remembrance Day. Year Two will go to the village war memorial. I will be selling poppies and other related items on the playground in the mornings, as well as at Year 1 and 2's Book Looks on Tuesday and Wednesday morning in the hall.

Our amazing WISPA team raised £600 from the Halloween activities before half term. which will go towards much needed items including the 2 Johns event and the Christmas pantomime for all children. My thanks go to the team for their fantastic support. They are currently orchestrating lots of fun activities for the Christmas Fayre and would love to hear from people who would like a stall - please email them at wispacharity@gmail.com.

Just to remind you we love to share details of successes out of school. These can be in the form of certificates and trophies but an email is also fine. There will not be a Friday assembly next week, as we have another of our prospective parent meetings.

Enjoy the fireworks this weekend - stay safe!

Warm regards
Helen Castell

We have lots of spare uniform for children who might need a change of clothes during the day, but we are missing the following items - girls' underwear, tights and boys/girls socks. If you are able to donate anything from home we would be grateful!
We encourage healthy lunches for all children. Please support us by not including sweets or chocolate in your child's packed lunch and reserving those treats for home.
A reminder that we love to share awards, medals, trophies, even anecdotes from children’s achievements outside of school. Please hand them to me or email parents@writtleinfantschool.com for assemblies on Friday.
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.
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.

Welcome back! We hope everyone had a well-deserved rest during half term. It was lovely to invite parents in to listen to the children read and share books on Monday. We’ve had a lot of fun with our firework-themed week. Our activities included a description of a fireworks display (virtual of course!), writing their own firework poems, firework maths challenges and word problems, firework safety and firework art. Now the children are fully settled into Year Two, we will be focusing on writing this half term. In Maths, we have been adding two 2-digit numbers using mathematical resources, drawings and learning how to use a column method. This BBC Bitesize video will give you an idea of how we teach this - get your children to show you! The e-safety children talk from the Two Johns was very interesting. Look out for the parental version of this which is taking part virtually on Tuesday 9th November at 8pm. Your children should be exhausted today as they had a whole afternoon of cheerleading and dance led by sports providers CMXSC, who provide some of our before and after school clubs.

Click here for this week's home learning.

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

This half term we are looking out our new topic book ‘Pumpkin Soup!' Delicious, nutritious
pumpkin soup. This week, we listened to the story and created storyboards for each part of
the story. We also looked at what a verb is. In Maths, we have explored subtraction through counting what is left by taking objects away and crossing out pictures. In the afternoons, we have continued to play but have also been designing our very own pumpkins! We then evaluated what we liked about them, and what we would change next time. Parrots had a fantastic time at Forest School and are looking forward to more sessions this half term.

Click the link for this week's home learning.

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

The children came back to school after having a wonderful holiday and most seemed to have enjoyed Halloween. This week our poem was 'A Pointy Hat'. We loved the 'rat-a-tat-tat'. We have also talked about Bonfire Night and why we celebrate it. Next week we will be finding out about Diwali! In Maths we have found out about number 2, we looked at 2p and had to buy things from a witch's hat. We have been really enjoying 'Dough Disco' this week and are getting good at doing the moves. We have also introduced 'The Zones of Regulation' to the children. Each week we will learn about our HIPIP values. This week we learnt about Perseverance, the children really enjoyed talking about this value and understood it. Please look at the Tapestry post about this. Don't forget about Bug Club, it's a fabulous resource for reading but make sure you answer the 'Bug questions' as that will let us know that you have read the book. Have a wonderful weekend.

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