What’s On – Friday 4th November

Message from Mrs. Castell

Dear Parents

I hope you all had a lovely half term. We really enjoyed our Halloween Hullabaloo on Monday - the costumes and pumpkins were absolutely magnificent! The winners of the pumpkin competition were Milo in EYFS, Jack G and Poppy (joint entry) in Year One and Eden-Rose in Year Two. Thank you to WISPA and WJSPA for organising this, the first of many joint fundraisers. We have sent details of our WISPA/WJSPA Christmas Fair and future events in a separate letter today. Both schools will support Children in Need with a dress down day on Friday 18th November with the children encouraged to wear something spotty or something yellow for a suggested donation of £1.

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!

We had the first of our open days for prospective parents on Wednesday. If you have children due to start school in September 2023, please sign up via our website and pass the details to friends and family as appropriate. Year 2 parents should also be aware that the same deadline of 15th January 2023 applies to their application for a Junior School place in Year 3. Writtle Junior School has sent home details of their upcoming induction meetings.

We received a number of queries about club dates this week. We are more than happy to help but your first port of call should be our website where you can find the answers straight away.

Our new monthly Reading Monday will take place this coming Monday 7th November, and the first Monday of the month thereafter.

The Year One parents coffee morning takes place in the school hall on Tuesday 8th November from drop off at 8.45 until 9.30am. We look forward to seeing you there.

I will continue to sell poppies on the playground each morning next week. The school will hold a 2 minute silence to remember the fallen at 11am next Friday. Year 2 will hold their silence at the War Memorial on the green, you are welcome to join them if you wish.

Avia’s mum thanks everyone for their kind wishes, Avia is out of hospital and hopes to visit the school next week.

Attendance this week was 96.6%, exceeding our school target of 96%.

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

The children had a firework safety assembly this week led by Neil Soanes at Essex County Fire and Rescue Service. Some key advice on this topic can be found at:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/34710746

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

DOLPHINS  - Thomas for fabulous independent work. Erol for persevering with the presentation of his work. Teddy & Sophie for independence.

SHARKS -  Carter and Jude for amazing independent maths investigation! Franklin & Zara  for independence.

PARROTS -  Leo & Samuel for independent writing and always improving their presentation.

TURTLES - Rosa for independent writing and fantastic effort! Eva for trying her best and showing good listening.

Year 2 News

Welcome back! We hope everyone had a well-deserved rest during half term. We kicked off the week with our Halloween themed day. Both the children and their pumpkins looked amazing! We wrote some Halloween sentences including some fabulous adjectives and completed some Halloween-themed maths. We then moved onto a firework-themed carousel morning creating some wonderful firework poems, some dazzling marble art and completed a firework-themed maths investigation.

The children have been introduced to our new chilly topic on the Arctic and have really enjoyed and engaged with our new topic book ‘Ice Bear’ by Nicola Davies.

Reminders:
It is beginning to get very cold. Please add jogging bottoms, leggings and hoodies/fleeces for outdoor PE lessons.

Next Friday 11th November, we are planning (weather permitting) a visit to the war memorial on the green to observe our 2-minute silence as part of Remembrance Day. You are welcome to meet us there. We hope to arrive about 10:50am in time for the 11am silence.

Please click here for this week's home learning.

Year 1 News

Welcome back! We hope you had a lovely half term. This week we have introduced our new topic book ‘Pattan’s Pumpkin’. We explored some facts about India and made inferences about the text. In maths we have introduced the part whole model and explored our number bonds for 10. We have also looked at human and geographical features such as rivers, buildings and mountains. We explored different materials and their properties and went on a material hunt in the class.

Please click here for this week's home learning.

EYFS News

This week we have enjoyed dressing up on Monday and on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we learnt about Diwali and today we have found out about Bonfire Night! We also have been learning about the number 2 this week. We have been learning how to write it and how to recognise two objects straight away with a fun game- 2 or not 2? We looked at 2ps and practised repeating patterns again. We also worked out that double 2 is 4 and 2 can be made from 1 and 1 more. In phonics we learnt the phonemes o, c and k and some of us started to write simple words that had those sounds in them. Soon we will start practising for our Christmas show! We will send some information on Tapestry soon. Have a great weekend.