What’s On – Friday 7th October

Message from Mrs. Castell

Open Days for parents of children starting school in September 2023 are now published on our website. Click the photo to sign up and share the link with friends and family!

Dear Parents

I was so proud of the Year 1 and 2 children on Wednesday at our Harvest Festival. The singing and narration was fantastic! Thank you to parents who supported us and also those that attended the EYFS Picnic and Play sessions this week.

Family Learning Time will take place first thing on Wednesday 12th October. For those new to our school, this is a chance for parents to come in and take part in a lesson in school. If you are planning to attend, please let us know via the ParentMail form so that we know how many to accommodate in the classroom and what is practical to teach.

Reading Mondays
Reading Mondays will continue weekly until the half term break, after which we will hold them on the first Monday of the month. This is following feedback that it can be unsettling for children who have no adult to join them. We hope that by having fewer sessions there will be less pressure on everyone's very busy lives. We continue to welcome your comments, please email us at parents@writtleinfantschool.com.

Parents' Evening
Our Parents' Evenings will be held on Wednesday 19th October and Thursday 20th October. Appointments can be booked via ParentMail. Year 1 parents are invited to look at their children's school books on Wednesday 19th October at 8.30am in the school hall. Year 2 parents are invited to do the same on Thursday 20th October at 8.30am.

Wanted: old Halloween costumes and school uniform! 
If your children have grown out of last year's Halloween costumes, please consider donating them to our WISPA sale on Friday 21st October, where you will hopefully be able to purchase a new one for the bargain price of £2! We will also be selling pre-loved uniform on this day, so if you have any spare items you would like to donate, please hand them to the school office. Many thanks for your support.

Eco Top Tip
We are working towards our Eco award and the children would like to share a tip with us every week. This week they recommend not letting taps run while your cleaning your teeth!

Attendance this week was 93.4% compared to our school target of 96%.

Finally, thank you to those of you who donated to my son's fundraising page for Make A Wish. I was a very proud mum as a first time marathoner he completed the course in 3 hours 44 minutes.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Best wishes
Helen Castell

Notices

  • Children go outside in all weathers, so it is essential that they bring a coat to school daily. Please label all belongings, clothing and footwear sent into school.
  • It is really helpful if you can write your child's name on bananas sent in as a snack!
  • 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.
  • 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.

Safeguarding

Parents may be considering after-school clubs, theatre groups or sports’ clubs. The DfE has a document that helps parents identify the safeguarding issues to consider when choosing a provider. Parents can access the guidance here.

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.

Awards

SHARKS: Claudia for persevering with her maths work this week, Amy for both perseverance and independence. Jacob for politeness, Frankie for inclusivity. Henry for amazing independence in his recount writing.
DOLPHINS: Isabelle for her brilliant inclusivity and encouragement towards her partner for a poetry recital. Cienna for politeness. Max for his lovely independent recount writing.
PARROTS: Finley for inclusivity, Adonise for independence. Henry for being polite and signing thank you to the lunch ladies. Jessica for persevering with the presentation of her work.
TURTLES: Charlie and Eva for inclusivity. Adley for trying her best in her learning! She has made great progress as a result of her perseverance! Artie for being so sensible and calm during the Harvest Festival, also for perseverance when learning high frequency words.
Isla for perseverance in learning to ride her bike! Ayla for being such an excellent role model to her friends, always following instructions and trying her best.

Year 2 News

It was so wonderful to see so many of you at our Harvest celebration. We are so proud of all the children who represented the school brilliantly and were very sensible walking to and from the Church. A huge congratulations to our brave narrators and small group singers who were fabulous! We have been continuing to learn about the Great Fire of London. They have been learning some songs that help to retell the story. Next week, we will perform them to each other and encourage the children to give positive praise and feedback to each other on how to perform better. They also had a group timeline challenge where they had to match facts with pictures and organise them in chronological order of events during the fire. For maths, we have used this week to consolidate our place value work. We have done some extra partitioning, reasoning and problem solving on the place value of numbers to 100. Everyone was treated to a Great Fire of London themed yoga session led by Sue Easteal.

Please click here for this week's home learning.

Year 1 News

This week we have worked really hard to learn our phase 3 phonemes and to write sentences using capital letters, full stops and finger spaces. We have learnt how to order objects and numbers to 20, emphasising the language of greatest and smallest. In Geography, we explored the four countries in England by using maps, which the children really enjoyed. Thank you to those of who were able to attend our harvest assembly at the church, the children were excellent! Have a brilliant weekend!

Please click here for this week's home learning.

EYFS News

We have had a brilliant week, the children really enjoyed welcoming their family members into their play this week. Thank you for attending and we really hope you enjoyed it! This week we have been learning about apples and reciting our poem ‘Falling Apples’. We have learnt about how they grow, peeling them and printing with them. In maths we have been comparing amounts and size. In phonics we have been continuing our Phase 1 activities, next week we start Phase 2. More information about phonics will be given at our online meeting next week. We have started going out in the big playground at lunch time this week too. We are looking forward to seeing you all on Tuesday at 7.30!

Have a great weekend.