Dear Parents

Thank you so much for testing, we have had a record 26 children absent throughout the week with COVID, plus 5 members of staff and others awaiting tests, so it really helps us to protect vulnerable children and adults and keep the school running safely. Please continue to wear masks coming into school.

Great National Number Day costume, Stanley!

It was great to see the children dress up for National Number Day today. Thank you for your donations, we raised over £100 to support the NSPCC.

Messages on the door

We want to be approachable at pick up and drop off and understand that there are messages that we need to hear. For longer messages, so staff can be super vigilant to watch the children, please email the school office. We want to find the balance between being there for our families and safeguarding the children. It would also really help us if you could avoid crowding near the door areas so we can see the children clearly. Many thanks.

Library improvement project

We are in the final stages of getting quotes for our library refurbishment and are asking for your help with particular parts of the project. We are looking for a carpenter who could donate their time to make this lovely book tree, which will be the focal point of our new library. If you or anyone you know is able to help, please contact me. We would be enormously grateful for your help in creating something that will be loved by children for years to come.

Communication Week and Parade Details, 11th February

Next week is our theme week of communication, culminating in our celebration of Writtle's special place in the centenary of radio broadcasting. Today the children were taught the Floral Dance song and next week all classes will have storytelling sessions. It would be lovely to see lots of children join the parade on Friday 11th Feb. Full details are as follows:

Children will go home as normal and then if you wish to join the parade we will meet on the Junior School playground from 4.15.
Children must be accompanied by an adult, this is not a school event and while members of staff will be in the parade, children remain under your supervision.
The parade will walk from the school to the green where we will have performances from the children and then there will be exhibitions and activities in the village hall.
Exciting news - BBC Radio Essex will record the children singing for broadcast on 14th February.
Please note that the event will be filmed and while we will advise where is best to stand if you do not want your child to be filmed, there will also be a drone used while on the green. As this is not a school event we cannot be responsible for who is filmed. The Writtle Voice will also be taking photos.
Please remember 1920s style dress is encouraged on Friday 11th and as previously informed when booking, there is no Dance club on that day.

Please note I will be absent from school on Thursday 10th and the first part of Friday 11th February, but our deputy Mrs Wilson will be available if needed. If you have things to share for our celebration assembly, please save them until after half term.

Best wishes and stay safe.
Helen Castell

Our staff have asked that if children wear shoes with laces, it would be a huge help if you could help them to tie their own shoelaces. We've found this video to be very useful in school.
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.

It’s been National Storytelling Week this week, which has given the children plenty of opportunities to share stories they already know and use their imaginations to create new ones. During English lessons, they have carefully planned their own dragon stories. They also wrote some fantastic dragon poems. As it was also the start of the Chinese New Year, we had to find out about Chinese dragons. Everyone had lots of fun creating a dragon dance too. We were really impressed with the children’s drawing skills when they created their own dragon. We continued our Dragon Song work in Music and the children had the opportunity to make their own compositions.

We have learnt how to make tally charts, constructed pictograms and interpreted them. In some lessons, the children led the teaching! This is always a fun area of maths. Lots of problem solving and looking at maths in everyday life took place during the National Number Day.

Click here for this week's home learning.

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

This week we read an innovation of Little Red Riding Hood called The Wolf’s Story. The children loved hearing the story from the point of view of the wolf. They made predictions, and comparisons noting similarities and differences between the two stories.We have continued counting and representing numbers to 50 and have compared numbers using the vocabulary of more and less than. In Science we have continued to learn about different animal groups and sorted animals according to being a herbivore, carnivore and omnivore. Henri Rousseau and his work has been the focus of art this week and the children enjoyed creating their own version of a Toucan picture in his style.

Click the link for this week's home learning.

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

Happy Chinese New Year! We have had a great week despite lots of children and staff being at home poorly.
We have enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year and learning all about the year of the Tiger. We learnt a new poem called 'Chinese Dragon' and the 'Lion Dance' too in PE. We enjoyed a great art activity, exploring mixing paint to make new colours and creating firework pictures. We made our own fireworks too in a great science activity using oil, water and food colouring. This week in maths we have been exploring the number 6 and finding different ways to make 6. On Friday we supported the NSPCC Number Day by doing some exciting number activities. We have learnt the new sounds 'ai', 'ee', 'th', and 'ng' in phonics and the new tricky word, 'be'. Phew! What a busy week! Next week we are going to be finding out all about communication to get ready for our wonderful celebration day on Friday to mark Writtle's place in the birth of radio 100 years ago!