What’s On – Friday 21st 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,

As we come to the end of a very busy and rewarding half term I would like to thank you all for your support and also our staff for their hard work. The children have settled so well into their new classes and we look forward to the exciting events ahead as we come into the (sorry!) festive season.

Thank you to parents for attending our open evenings and book looks this week. We have received some lovely comments about the progress of the children - I am very lucky to have the team I have.

The vast majority of our children received their flu immunisation today. If your child was not able to be vaccinated today and you would like them to receive it, we have published details of the flu immunisation catch up service on our website.

Click for more photos of our library!

Our school library is finally finished and I thank everyone, staff and parents for their support in what has been a long project. Particular thanks go to our interior designer Liz Murrell, Lizzie Phillips and the WISPA team, Victoria Hewitt for arranging decoration, Joan Gentle for organising seemingly endless piles of books and finally Stuart Brick for the fantastic graphics which now adorn the walls. The room really will enhance the children’s love of reading and we are so glad to open the library to parents in this, our reading theme week.

School closes for the half term holiday at 3.10pm today. Don't forget there is a sale of Halloween costumes on the Junior School lawn!

After Half Term
We return from the half term break to our Halloween Hullabaloo on Monday 31st October. WISPA are holding a pumpkin carving/decoration competition and we would love to see your entries lining the path to the school in the morning. There will be prizes for each year group! Children are also invited to wear Halloween fancy dress if they wish, but please ensure that this is still suitable for learning and active play outside. Naturally we also expect that Halloween outfits for this age group are neither gory nor scary, as many children will be rightly sensitive about such costumes.

As previously advertised, there is no tennis club on 31st October. We will remind you again on the day, but please ensure you make arrangements to collect your child at 3.10pm on this day.

WISPA will hold their AGM on Thursday 3rd November in the school hall from 9.00 - 9.30am. All parents are welcome to attend this review of fundraising activities for the previous year and the appointment of new committee members.

Reading Mondays will be on the first Monday of the month next half term, so the first one is Monday 7th November.

Applications for primary school places starting September 2023 must be made online between 7 November 2022 and 15 January 2023. This includes Year 2 parents applying for Junior School in Year 3 - please submit your application online to Essex County Council.  Our Open Days for parents of reception-age children will be held in November and December.

Parking
Unfortunately we have had further complaints about drives being blocked by cars used to drop off/collect our pupils. Please help us to keep good relations with our neighbours by parking considerately. Thank you.

Our Eco Warriors tip for the week: only fill the kettle as much as you need or if you have overfilled the kettle, pour the excess into a flask or use it in the washing up bowl!

Attendance this week was 93.8% compared to our school target of 96%.

Have a lovely half term break.

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

As part of our wider safeguarding duties, we recognise that it is essential that we are able to identify children who may be vulnerable to radicalisation, and know what to do when they are identified. All relevant staff undertake online CPD provided by the Home Office on identification of children vulnerable to radicalisation and the PREVENT strategy.

If you are concerned that somebody close to you is expressing extreme views or hatred, which could lead them to harming themselves or others; please report your concerns on
https://act.campaign.gov.uk

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.

Year 2 News

It’s been lovely to meet all of you at Parents Evening. We hope you enjoyed looking through your children’s work. We are incredibly proud of the quantity and progress the children have made in such a short time. We hope you are too.

This week the children have enjoyed reading theme week. We have been practising echo and choral reading to recite an Autumn poem. The link has been sent so you can listen to it. We have started reading comprehension skills and used the Pawsome Gang to focus on Retrieval with Rex and Vocabulary with Victor.

We have completed our topic by creating our own artwork to depict a scene of the Great Fire and learnt about the monument and the rebuilding of London. We have been amazed at the children's enthusiasm for this topic and how many facts they have remembered. We think they’re going to love their next topic too! It’s one of our favourites.

Please click here for this week's home learning.

Year 1 News

It was so lovely to see those that attended parents' evening and the book look. We hope you are as proud of your children as we are. It has been theme week and the theme is ‘reading’. We’ve looked at reading comprehension and discussing what our favourite books are. We designed a new version of our favourite book cover. In Maths, we explored parts and whole numbers. We also discovered what the past is and things that have happened in our past.

Please click here for this week's home learning.

EYFS News

This week we have been loving our poem 'Leaves are Falling'. We have been learning all about leaves and Autumn. We have been leaf printing and making leaf animals. We all really enjoyed our first yoga session with Sue Easteal, some of the children said it was the best day ever! We will do it again after half-term. This week in phonics we have learnt about the letters m, d and g and the word a. In maths we have been looking at the numbers 0 and 1. We hope you enjoyed coming into school and chatting with us about how your child has settled into school. We have had such a lovely half-term with the children, they are a super year group and we can't wait until next half-term and the run up to Christmas!! Have a great week everyone.