Dear Parents

Click to see more of Year 2's memories of HM The Queen

It has been a busy week, including an assembly from our dear friend Reverend Tony at All Saints Church. Our new children have settled in well during their first full days in school - I am sure they will sleep well this weekend! Thank you to those who attended the coffee morning for parents of our EYFS children.

We have continued to support the children as we come to terms with the passing of The Queen. A reminder that this Monday 19th September is a Bank Holiday for the state funeral, so the school will be closed. The meeting for current and prospective parent volunteers will be held at at 9.00 on Tuesday 20th September in the hall. Please wait in the playground and I will let you in through the hall.

Reminders

If your child is absent from school, it is a legal requirement that you inform us of the reason by 9.15am. Failure to do so can result in a visit from me or a welfare check.
All items of clothing must be named, we already have a large pile of lost clothing and labelling makes changing for clubs and PE much easier.
We have lists of children who attend clubs, Ducklings or the YMCA after school. If your child is not attending their usual after school activity please inform us so that we are aware of the change in daily arrangements. This is a safeguarding matter, as we must ensure that all children are where they should be and who is due to collect them.
Reading Mondays start on Monday 26th September.

This week's attendance (until Thursday) was 92.7%, compared with our school target of 96%. We are already seeing cases of chicken pox, Covid and sickness / diarrhoea in school, which of course are very common in children of this age group. Please take a look at our page on common illnesses to read our guidance on any necessary absence.

We also have an e-safety guide on our website with lots of information for keeping children safe online. Websites such as Internet Matters, NSPCC and Parent Zone offer a range of resources for families to help them meet the challenges of the digital age, including specific guides on the latest digital trends and platforms.

It will be an historic and memorable weekend, however you mark the passing of Her Majesty. We will see you again on Tuesday morning.

Helen Castell

Please note that the daily snack must be fresh or dried fruit or vegetables. Small fruit that might present a choking hazard must be cut in half, e.g. grapes and cherry tomatoes.
As we have children in school with life-threatening allergies, please do not send products containing nuts into school, or egg-based foods such as egg mayo, scotch egg, omelette, frittata etc.
We do take children out in all weathers, so they bring a coat to school daily now the weather is turning.
Please take extra care when crossing the road as due to staff sickness we only have one School Crossing Patrol at the moment.
We welcome donations of spare joggers and white polo shirts aged 4-5/ 5-6 to keep in class as spare clothing. Boys and girls pants and socks are also always welcome.
Teachers cannot always check the class email during the day. Please send urgent messages to parents@writtleinfantschool.com.
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.

We all have a duty to safeguard the children in our care and if the school suspects or knows that a child is at risk of significant harm, we will make a referral to Social Services. The school does not investigate any disclosures that children may make, we are a referring agency. Procedures on safeguarding from the Government make it clear that all staff should operate with an ‘it could happen here’ approach to any concerns they may have. If you have any concerns about a child please telephone the Essex Child and Families Hub on 0345 603 7627.

SHARKS - Molly and Ruby D for inclusivity- checking all children who were playing alone at lunchtime and inviting them to join in.
Parker for perseverance, independence and inclusivity
Carter for honesty
Mae for inclusivity
Felix P for perseverance

DOLPHINS - Joe for perseverance in his maths and for feeling so proud of his work and Henry S for being so polite during lunchtimes.
Raury for politeness
Stanley W for politeness

PARROTS - Nilha & Dylan for always being polite and having fantastic manners
Alyra for politeness and inclusivity
Finley B for politeness
Leo C for politeness

TURTLES - Maria for inclusivity
Skyla for perseverance
Ayla N for independence
Annabelle J for independence

This week we have used the Great Fire of London text to look at features of non-fiction books. We have also spent time reading the text and discussing the contents and illustrations. In Maths, we have continued partitioning numbers to 100 in different ways using base 10, part-whole model and jottings. We have been using number lines to count in tens and ones and filling in missing numbers. The highlight of the week was our bread tasting activity! The children learned that the peasants would eat bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner in Tudor times and that only royalty would have feasts! Croissants were the most popular bread product and lots of children tasted naan bread for the first time.

Please click here for this week's home learning.

What have we been up to:
What a great second week back. The children have really begun to settle into their new routine and we have introduced whole class phonics sessions. The children have been fantastic at finding their next clean page and writing their phonemes neatly into their books. We have been representing numbers within 10 by drawing pictures to represent the numbers i.e. 10 = 10 flowers. We continued to develop our P.E skills of throwing and catching and it was lovely to have Mrs Gowers back to teach the children during P.E. Have a great weekend!

Please click here for this week's home learning.