Weekly News – Friday 28th February

Dear Parents,

The half term break already seems like a world away, as we delved straight into our new topics this week. A new half term means new topic maps and activity passports, so please take a look at the home learning section below to see what the children will be learning this half term. We love to celebrate your child‘s progress, so please email us their work at parents@writtleinfantschool.com. For our Foxes and Squirrels there is of course the weekly Tapestry Challenge. Please upload pictures and comments to Tapestry so that these can form part of your child’s learning journal.

Music workshop

We were lucky enough to welcome a very special guest to school today. Professor Martin Hathaway is a renowned jazz saxophonist and teaches at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music. He has joined us for the day to guide a group of children from both the infant and junior schools in the composition and performance of their own special song The children were blown away by his talent as he gave us a performance in assembly this morning and at the time of writing the new song is sounding amazing! Based around the theme of a beehive, the composition explores how everyone is important and brings their own unique value to a community. It will be performed to all the children this afternoon and we hope they can all learn it. Thank you to Martin for bringing this incredible musical opportunity to our school.

Parent Lunches

We hope our Squirrels parents enjoyed their lunch on Wednesday, despite the atrocious weather! It was lovely to see you all. The last of our parent lunches will be held next Wednesday for Foxes class, so if you haven't yet made your choice of a school dinner or packed lunch, please check ParentMail > Payments > Shop as soon as possible. Please remember our calendar of upcoming events is available at events.

Important Reminders

  • World Book Day is next Thursday, please ensure you have read our separate ParentMail regarding costumes and suitable clothing.
  • Please check our timetable for details of Forest School and PE lessons. As the weather is still unpredictable, it’s vital that your child has the appropriate clothing and footwear on these days.

Reading

We hope you enjoyed reading the e-books in your child's Collins Hub library over the half term break. There's nothing like the feeling of a real book however, so these will be sent home again from this week. We can't wait to enjoy more reading adventures next week for World Book Day!

Online Safety

Both schools are sharing this link today from our technology partners LGfL. There are lots of tips for parents on how to keep children safe online, which we know can be a daunting task in the ever-changing landscape of apps, games and streaming content. https://parentsafe.lgfl.net/#h.urzf6ssof8lv

Parking around the school

We have received a call this week from a local resident whose driveway was completely blocked by a parent collecting their child from school. We do our utmost to maintain good relationships with the local community, so please support us by being considerate of our neighbours when you park.

School Nurse Appointments

The school nurses are available in our library every Tuesday afternoon.  Please take a look at the flyer to see the list of health concerns they can help with and then book your appointment online.

Community Events

Our Community Links page has been updated with new information about local events and resources that you might find useful. It was a pleasure to see many of you at Messy Church last Sunday, we look forward to seeing you at the next one on Sunday 23rd March.

Have a good weekend.

Best wishes,
Tracey Wilson

Home learning

Home Learning Passports

Please try to complete this half term's passports and email any work or photos to parents@writtleinfantschool.com.

Year 1 Home Learning Passport - Spring 2 2025

Year 2 Home Activity Passport - Spring 2 2025

Spelling Practice

There is also some spelling practice for Year 1 and Year 2 below.

Year 1 Spelling Practice

Year 2 Spelling Practice - Spring 2, Week 2

Topic Maps

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

 EYFS Tapestry Challenge

This week the children have been learning about 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 being 5 and 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 more. Children, at home, can you build towers from 1 to 10 that show 5 being the same in all the towers (from 5 to 10) and the 'extra' ones being different.

Have a great weekend,

The EYFS Team

Forest School Update

Year 1 have had a lovely first week of forest school. Thanks to the rain we have had no trouble finding worms, we have been learning about them in more detail and very carefully measuring them using a ruler. There was such a range of sizes, the most impressive was a real-life SuperWorm, measuring an impressive 17cm!
The children were given the challenge of finding 50 sticks, this eventually lead to 100 sticks and beyond! We were impressed to see them counting them with ease.
Just a reminder that next Thursday is World Book Day, the children will need waterproof, warm clothing for their session outside as normal.

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.

Highlights of the week

EYFS

We have had a whole load of happiness in Early Years this week! Our Poetry Basket was called 'Happy' and the children have been busy thinking of different things that make them happy at school and at home. We have also been exploring a range of feelings and linking them to the 'zones of regulation', which is a whole school approach to learning about emotions. Add in phonics - revising the phase 3 digraphs and tricky words - and maths, working with numbers up to 10 , and you can see it's been a very busy, happy week!

Year 1

Year 1 had a brilliant first week back at school. We have made predictions about our new class text and drawn what we think the front cover might look like. We have also written some splendid sentences from stories involving gold!

Year 2

We've had a great week back in Year 2! We’ve worked hard on what makes a perfect sentence, started our multiplication and division unit, introduced ourselves to our new book for this half term and explored the 7 continents and 5 oceans.