Weekly News – Friday 6th December

Dear Parents,

Our Advent tree
The Writtle Schools' joint Christmas Tree Festival entry - Christmas Countdown!

Thank you to parents for attending our EYFS Cosy Christmas on Thursday morning, what a lovely festive atmosphere there was in the classrooms! The Christmas tree is looking wonderful in the church for this weekend’s festival, we hope you will all be voting for the Writtle schools’ entry!

Elfridges

The Elves were very busy in school today, helping the children choose and wrap presents for their parents at our Elfridges store. Thank you to our wonderful PTA for organising this event, it’s so popular with the children, we hope the grown-ups are all delighted with their special gifts on Christmas morning. No peeking! There have been mischievous elves in our classrooms too, we’re sure the children will tell you all about their antics.

Our wonderful PTA elves!

Notices for next week

We know how busy you all are at the moment, so hopefully the guide below will help with the next 2 weeks of events in school. In a change to our advertised dates, Year 1 will now be singing at the Link Club’s Christmas Party next Thursday, instead of Year 2. Also the Foxes and Squirrels Christmas party will be on Tuesday 17th December, as the Rainbow Theatre’s Christmas pantomime is now scheduled for the afternoon of Wednesday 18th December.

Year 1 will have their final Forest School lessons next week and we end the week with the PTA’s Movie Night on Friday, which finishes at 4.30pm. If you have bought a ticket, please ensure that your child is aware that they will be in the hall watching festive movies after school and that they will be happy to do so. The PTA volunteers and some members of staff will of course be supervising, but if children are unsettled they may not have their usual teachers and teaching assistants available to them.

Year 1 and 2 Performance Tickets

From lunchtime on Monday 9th December, additional tickets will be available for the Year 1 and 2 performances. If you would like to purchase an extra ticket, these will be sold on a first come first served basis.

Fundraising

We received a thank you card from the Royal British Legion yesterday. They are absolutely delighted having received over £600 from both Writtle Schools for the poppy collection last month. Thank you so much for your generosity! We will hold collections for The Children's Society at next week's performances.

We hope to see you at the Christmas Tree Festival this weekend!

Best wishes,

Tracey Wilson

 

PTA Update

Dates for your diary

Elfridges

If you were lucky enough to secure an Elfridges ticket, your little ones will have picked gifts for their grown ups today. They will bring home the wrapped present after school, you just need to pop them under the tree and no peeking!

Thank you so much to all the volunteers who helped us organise this event, we are so grateful!

Festive Movie Night

For those attending next week’s movie nights, collection from infants is at 4.30pm, and 4.45pm at juniors.

And don’t forget to sign-up and use your easyfundraising account to make sure all your Christmas spend counts towards donations to your PTA – see the attached flyer.

EYFS Tapestry Challenge

Ask your child if they would like to write a list for Santa. They may be able to draw a picture of what they want. Maybe they could write the initial letter of the item next to the picture. Or if you think they can manage, help them to write the words. At this stage we would always accept 'phonetically plausible' spelling. This simply means the children are trying to write what they can hear, so teddy might look like 'tdi'.

Have fun!

Home learning

Home learning passports have now been published for this half term. Please try to complete these activities over the course of this half term, and email any work or photos to parents@writtleinfantschool.com.

We have also published our topic maps for the half term, so you can see what the children will cover in all areas of the Key Stage 1 Curriculum.

Year 1 Half Term Plan - Autumn 2 2024

Year 1 Home Learning Passport - Autumn 2 2024

Year 1 Autumn 2 Weekly spelling

Year 2 Half Term Plan - Autumn 2 2024

Year 2 Home Learning Passport - Autumn 2 2024

 

Highlights of the week

Year 2

We've been busy rehearsing for our Christmas show this week - it's all coming together! We've also been using more than and less than in maths, done some amazing descriptive writing and created some beautiful pine-cone art.

https://www.georgeyard.co.uk/come-and-see-a-life-size-polar-bear/

There is a life sized polar bear coming to Braintree on the 14th December, which perfectly suits our topic for this half term!

Year 1

Year 1 have been getting into the Christmas spirit this week by creating lots of beautiful Christmas decorations for our classrooms and practising for our wonderful show next week. We also enjoyed creating freeze frames for the show and can't wait for you to see them next week!

EYFS

Thank you to all the parents for coming to our Cosy Christmas in EYFS. We are so proud of all the children!

Keeping Children Safe

  • Thanks to those parents who have supported us in protecting the children’s privacy by waiting on the path by the main entrance until 3pm.
  • 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.