Thank you for taking the time to attend The 2 Johns' webinar on Tuesday evening - we have had such positive feedback from parents. If you didn't get a chance to watch, a recording has been emailed to you via ParentMail this week. We might think this age group are more protected from online safety issues, but the guidance from The 2 Johns was eye-opening and made us think differently about how to keep children safe in this ever-changing technical world.

Thanks too for coming in to see the Year 1 and 2 children's books this week and for your kind comments. A number of you have asked whether we could continue to do book looks this way, which we will certainly do!

Dolphins' acrostic poem for Armistice Day

The children observed the two minutes' silence for Armistice Day this week and were very respectful. Year Two made us proud at the War Memorial on the green, where Humphrey in Dolphins laid a photograph of his great-great-great grandfather, who fought in World War I, and the children brought handmade poppies and read a very moving acrostic poem they had written. Thank you to the parents and families who joined us, we had some lovely comments from the public about how well behaved the children were at such an important and sombre occasion. We have published a gallery of images from the event.

On Wednesday afternoon some Year Two children took part in football training organised by the Chelmsford School Sports Partnership. The coaches were from Chelsea FC Foundation Soccer Schools and were very impressed with some of our budding young footballers!

I met with a member of the WISPA Committee this week to discuss the refurbishment of our library and I am so grateful for the offer of finance and project management! The School Council are currently surveying other children in the school for their ideas, but if any children would like to do a drawing of what the library could look like and bring it in for my attention I would be very grateful. It is so important for us to reflect the children’s views in our planning.

Can I remind you that important messages regarding pick up arrangements, absences and Covid tests must be emailed to parents@writtleinfantschool.com, not the class email accounts. This is because teachers cannot check emails during the day as they are with the children, so your message may be missed.

Next week is another busy one, with Reading Monday, the first of our weekly yoga classes with Mrs Easteal, flu immunisations on Wednesday and Children in Need Day on Friday. The children are invited to wear something spotty or stripy with their school uniform (such as a hairband, socks, or a badge) and a donation to Children in Need would be much appreciated. Mr Taylor has also written to Year 2 parents about induction meetings for the Junior School which are being held next week.

Finally, we have had a few complaints from local residents this week about cars blocking their driveways and inconsiderate parking. Please make sure that you park your car with care, giving access to residents, pedestrians and other drivers.

Have a good weekend.

Kind 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.
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.

Thanks again to the parents who came on Monday to read with their children in class. The children are really enjoying it and we hope you are too. We hope you found the opportunity to view the children’s books informative and it has given you a clear indication of the targets that were set in their termly reports. This half term’s priority will be increasing writing stamina and expectations.

What marvellous mathematicians we have in Year Two! They have particularly enjoyed the additional fun maths activities as part of National Maths Week. By far the most popular and exciting was The Bullion Heist which incorporated a wide variety of maths skills. Each day represented a different series of challenges - click the link to have a go! Our maths lessons have focused on subtracting two-digit numbers.

Our new topic ‘Frozen’ is based on our ‘Ice Bear’ book from our literacy scheme. ‘Ice Bear’ is written by Nicola Davis and is illustrated by Gary Blythe. The children have really enjoyed the initial exploration of this book and are very excited to find out more about the Arctic. We can’t wait to delve deeper into the text and are planning for the children to create their own Arctic non-fiction book.

Click here for this week's home learning.

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

We have continued our story ‘Pumpkin Soup’ this week and retold the story in our own words. The children persevered to build their writing stamina and were really proud of what
they produced. They used some wonderful descriptive words to describe the characters and the setting in the story. Well done Year One! In Maths, we have explored subtraction through
counting backwards and counting the difference. It has been super tricky but now the
children are able to decide what method works for them when subtracting, and which is
efficient for them. It has been National Maths Week, so we have completed some fun Active
Maths activities during our extra time. In P.E we have practised how to move equipment
safely and travel around using different shapes.

Click the link for this week's home learning.

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

This week our poem was called 'Cup of Tea' and we enjoyed learning about how tea is made! We also made our own tea outside (obviously cold water), thank you for all the teabags! Yesterday we learnt about why we wear poppies and Diwali. The children enjoyed learning about the festival of Diwali, we looked at some sweets that Mrs Giles was given by her neighbour in celebration of Diwali. We listened to the storytelling of the Rama and Sita story and found out how Diwali is celebrated. In maths we have been looking at number 3. We talked about triangles, 3 o'clock and used 2p's and 1p's to buy things for 3p. In phonics we have learnt the sounds m, d and g and the tricky 'to'. When practising the children's words and sounds, please remember the words as well. If they are on phase 2 they need to practise the phase 2 words too. 3 or 4 a week is great! Have a wonderful weekend.

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