Weekly News – Friday 26th January

Dear Parents

We are very grateful to have had a milder week this week! Thank you to Dolphins parents for joining us for lunch on Wednesday, we know how much the children enjoy being with you. It's Parrots' turn next Wednesday, please check our diary dates for future parent lunches. Apologies for the technical issues we have experienced with some payments on ParentMail - we are awaiting a fix!

As part of our ongoing monitoring and assessment, we have conducted a survey of all children to gauge their response to our new Little Wandle reading and phonics programme. The results have been very positive! The children overwhelmingly love their new reading books, are enjoying their lessons and feel they have got better at reading or phonics. We were also delighted to hear that most of the children read at home too, with over 91% saying that they read every day or sometimes with their parents. We encourage daily reading time for all children at home. It doesn't have to be a book - you can also read magazines, shop signs, food packaging, or subtitles on the TV, it all helps! The reading practice sessions are really helping with fluency, so children are reading aloud more confidently and with less hesitation.

We are delighted to say that our Spanish club has been so popular, Jodie Halford from BilinguaSing has offered a lunchtime club too, which will start on a trial basis after half term. This is a shorter club, running for 30 minutes during the lunch break every Wednesday for 4 weeks at a cost of £16.

Next Tuesday our cheerleading squad takes part in their first inter-school competition at Chelmsford Sport and Athletics Centre. We know they're very excited and wish them the very best of luck. It's become a very popular sport in our school and the lunchtime club will return after the half term break for all participants. Thank you to Mrs Scott-Simons, Miss Smith and Miss Wakeling for giving up 2 lunchtimes a week to prepare not only the children in our school, but also a separate team of children at WJS, for the competition.

Appointment booking for Parents Evening will be made available next week on ParentMail. These will take place on Tuesday 13th February 5.30 - 8pm and Thursday 15th February, 3.30 - 6pm. Please remember that you can discuss your child's progress or raise issues at any time with their class teacher in the first instance. Please contact us via the school office and they will arrange a phone call or meeting in person with your child's teacher. If further action is required, you are very welcome to make an appointment with me.

January's Messy Church will be held this Sunday 28th January at All Saints Church, starting at 10am. We hope to see lots of you there! A reminder that our Community Links page lists lots of useful resources for parents including events and activities, teacher training opportunities, SEND and NHS notices.

Have a lovely weekend.

Best wishes
Tracey Wilson

Essentials for next week!

  • Another reminder that children must stay at home for 48 hours after the last instance of vomiting or diarrhoea. We have seen some nasty sick bugs in school and they can spread like wildfire if we are not vigilant.
  • In cold weather, coats, gloves, hats, scarves and warm layers are essential for PE kits and Forest School. Even if they are not the school colours, we would rather the children were warm than have unsuitable clothing and be uncomfortably cold!
  • Please ensure every item of clothing and footwear is named!
  • Please check the diary dates for details of upcoming events.

Home Learning

Please follow the links below to access this week's home learning and topic maps for Years 1 and 2.
Year 1 Home Learning
Year 2 Home Learning

Highlights of the week

Year 2

We've continued our art activities this week by making clay dragons; the children loved modelling and sculpting their work! The children also produced some excellent writing using expanded noun phrases.

Year One

In maths we used blank number lines to estimate where a certain number belongs up to 20.  We have continued to make teen numbers using lots of manipulatives such as Numicon, beads, cubes and counters. In phonics we have learnt le (l), al (l), c (s) and ve (v).

EYFS

Foxes and Squirrels have been learning all about Winter and what clothes we wear to keep us snug and warm!

Forest School

The wet weather on Tuesday led to great fun playing in the mud. We built mud walls, mud pies and generally got very muddy indeed! On Thursday, the Parrots found a newt while clearing the pond of storm debris. We used the fallen twigs and branches to make little habitats around the pond. Look out for the first full moon of the year this week, called the Wolf Moon!

Keeping Children Safe

  • Emergency contact details must be up to date. Please email us at parents@writtleinfantschool.com if your details have changed.
  • Any food brought to school must not contain nuts or egg-based foods (e.g. egg mayo, scotch egg, omelette etc.).
  • We all have a duty to safeguard the children in our care. If you have any concerns about a child, please contact the school, the Chairs of Governors (if your concern is about a member of teaching staff), or the Essex Child and Families Hub on 0345 603 7627.