Dear Parents,

I hope you had a wonderful half term holiday. I was so proud to see the number of families supporting the school for the celebration of 100 years since the first radio entertainment broadcast from Writtle. After the last two years, it was lovely to see both schools and the local community working together.

As you know we experienced some storm damage at school and a loose cable was repaired on Monday. Thank you for your patience on Monday morning. Unfortunately extensive damage to the canopy in the Foundation Stage garden has meant the children have played away from their garden this week. We are awaiting further updates from our insurance company.

We have written to you separately about the change in Covid guidance from yesterday. Although the legal obligation has ceased, in reality the public health advice to schools remains the same, that children who test positive should stay at home for at least 5 days, but can leave isolation after this time when they have had 2 negative tests 24 hours apart. We will have another update on 1st April, so the situation may change after the Easter holidays. As a result of the lifting of restrictions, we would like to invite our DBS checked parent volunteers to return to school. Please contact your child's teacher or the school office to arrange a time that is suitable to come into class.

Unfortunately two training sessions have meant I am unable to run the school choir this week and next. We will start in earnest on 8th March with a bit of ABBA! We were also unable to hold our celebration assembly but will resume as normal next week. Please send in details of the children's achievements outside school, we love to share them.

World Book Day

Next Thursday is World Book Day - please come dressed as a character from a book! The Usborne Book Fair will be on the playground before and after school if you want to bring your World Book Day vouchers to spend. You can also buy online here: https://bit.ly/3LXynDS. If you do wish to place an order please email it through to Kimberley at thebookhub2021@outlook.com or contact her on 07850431293. We have also sent home details of a competition to design a book cover, with prizes for the best designs! On World Book Day, Thursday 3rd March, we would like to invite parents in for story time in class, from 8.45 - 9.15. Parents are very welcome to come in costume if they would like - there may be prizes! As restrictions have lifted we would like to resume Reading Mondays from Monday 7th March. Please come into class to read with your child each Monday from 8.45 - 9.15.

Library Refurbishment

Once we've received quotes for the flooring and our centrepiece tree shelves, it will be all systems go with the library project! WISPA will be asking for a small monetary donation to support the library on World Book Day.

After school provision

If your child goes to after school childcare at YMCA or Ducklings please ensure you let them know if there are any changes to these arrangements on the day, so they know not to expect them. If you could let us know as well we can make sure everyone is aware. Many thanks.

Have a lovely weekend.
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.

The children have started our new topic "London’s Burning" with great enthusiasm. They will become historical detectives to discover when, why and how the Great Fire of London started, famous people of the time and make comparisons of London then and now. This week we have been fact finders learning about London landmarks. As the fire began in a bakery, the highlight of the week has been bread tasting! We found out where different breads originated from and described the texture, appearance, smell and taste of a range of breads. The delicious buttery croissants were the runaway favourite choice, although bagels, pitta bread and naan were enjoyed too!

This week we welcomed two new children to Dolphins class. Well done to them both for settling in so well to school, they have done brilliantly!

Click here for this week's home learning.

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

Welcome back Year One. This week we have started a new book called ‘How to find gold’. We went on a treasure hunt and followed clues and predicted the characters, setting and events that could happen in the book. We have been measuring length and height in maths using cubes and later using centimetres. We also have been learning stories from the Bible and what Christianity is.

Click the link for this week's home learning.

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

This week our poem called 'Carrot Nose' sparked our imaginations! We have been making lots of rabbits and snowmen (we wish it would hurry up and snow!). We learned how to draw a rabbit and a snowman and made our own snowman paintings. We learned the new phonemes oo, ar and or this week and we are getting better at writing our 'Super Sentences' every morning. In maths we have found all the different ways 8 can be made and how to write the number 8 correctly. In PE we enjoyed playing parachute games and a fun game with Frozen characters! Due to the storm, our canopy in the garden has broken so we haven't been able to go outside this week. We hope to get it fixed soon and will be going out in the playground next week. Have a lovely weekend.