Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Letter from the Director of Public Health COVID-19

  Wed 09 Sep 2020

  Director of Public Health

  Prof Jim McManus, FFPH, CPsychol, FBPsS,

  CSci, FRSB, CharteredFCIPD Hertfordshire County Council Public Health Service County Hall CHO231 Pegs Lane Hertford SG13 8DE
  Date:	8th September 2020

  Dear Parents
  COVID-19 CASES IN YOUNG PEOPLE
  We are writing to you about the recent rise in cases of COVID-19 in young people under 20, with several outbreaks linked to young people who have attended house parties where people from more than one household have mixed, and as a result have spread the virus.
  We are taking a number of measures to reduce the rise in infections. But we need your help with these. If the current spread continues, it is likely that we will need to close schools with high numbers of cases for a period of time, and this risks causing disruption at a time when we wish to avoid this. Schools and colleges continue their efforts to ensure we remain COVID-19 secure.
  There are five key actions for you and your children to take if we are to avoid this situation getting worse, which may mean some schools may have to close, along with further disruption:
  1. Do not allow your children to attend, host or organise parties or gatherings which bring together a) multiple households (more than 2) or b) more than thirty people ( 2 households only) unless the event has been formally sanctioned by the School or Local Authority or is exempt1;
  a. You should only2 meet people you do not live within 3 types of groups:
  i. you can continue to meet in any outdoor space in a group of up to 6 people from different households
  ii. single adult households – in other words adults who live alone or with dependent children only – can continue to form an exclusive ‘support bubble’ with one other household
  iii. you can also meet in a group of 2 households (anyone in your support bubble counts as one household), in any location ‒ public or private, indoors or outdoors. This does not need to be the same household each time.

  Private parties must follow the guidance set out above. Weddings or and similar type events are allowed to go ahead with up to 30 people with Covid-19 secure planning and measures in place. Gatherings which go beyond these guidelines remain illegal unless authorised or exempt. We can and will take enforcement action on events which contravene the current regulations.
  2. Wash your hands regularly with soap or use sanitiser;
  3. Wear face coverings when required ESPECIALLY on public transport, shopping centres and shops. Enforcement action including the use of fixed penalties where people refuse to comply with these measures will be taken;
  4. Maintain social distancing at all times with people outside your household (2 metres as standard, ONLY 1 metre IF you are taking additional measures like wearing face coverings.)
  5. If you develop symptoms ring 119 and self-isolate immediately. The self isolation guidance is here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance/stay-at-home-guidance-for-households-with-possible-coronavirus-covid-19-infection;
  6. Ensure you and your children get any vaccinations for which you are eligible, especially seasonal flu vaccination. This will prevent us having outbreaks of other diseases at the same time as outbreaks of COVID-19.
  House Parties and gatherings
  A number of cases have been linked to events where multiple households mix. Events of over 30 people which do not fall into the categories mentioned above WHETHER indoors or outdoors without proper risk assessment or approval, remain illegal. We will be taking enforcement action on illegal events and this can include fixed penalties of up to £10,000 on those organising them and penalties on everyone attending. We ask you to do everything you can to stop house parties or events. Enforcement action can also include the seizure of sound and other equipment.
  Failure to comply any Directions or Notices issued regarding such an event is a criminal offence.
  Self-Isolation
  One of the ways we are seeking to curb the rise in infections is by asking people who (a) test positive, (b) are symptomatic, or (c) are defined “close contacts” of people who are infected,3 to self-isolate. The period of time varies but advice on this is attached to this letter. The majority of people have self-isolated well.
  If you have been asked to self-isolate, having a negative test does NOT mean you can cease self-isolation. You must continue to self-isolate until the end of the period you were advise.

  to take or until a public health official informs you that you can end self-isolation. There are no exceptions to this and enforcement action including directions and fixed penalties can be issued to people who refuse to self-isolate. The link to the Government’s Self isolation guidance is above.
  We want to avoid a situation where Hertfordshire has to take more restrictive measures. We can only do this if we work together and everyone takes the measures they need to take. We ask you to help us.

   

  Yours Sincerely

   

  Jim MacManus

  Director of Public Health

   

• Out of Hours Contact - COVID-19

  Wed 09 Sep 2020
  If you need to inform us of a COVID-19 test result, out of school hours, please email admin@wheatfieldsinfants.herts.sch.uk.  This email address is continuously monitored.

• Letter to parents for half term

  Fri 22 May 2020

  Dear Parents and Carers,

  We hope you have all been enjoying the beautiful weather.

  We can't believe how quickly another half term has passed. Next week is half term and school will be closed to children but staff will be in, making sure that the rooms are ready for a wider opening on June 1st.

  We hope you all have a happy holiday although it may not feel any different to the previous week!

  Although the numbers of key worker children attending school has steadily increased, it is strange not to have the usual noise, hustle and bustle and excitement in school and that is why we so enjoy your emails with messages and pictures showing us what you have been doing. We look forward to the time that we are all back together and can have that Global Families Carnival!

  You will have now received Miss Cockburn's letter with details of the proposed opening on 1st June 2020 and a map that will give you the directions of how to arrive and leave the school site. Children who are attending school from June 1st will also receive a letter in the post detailing which group your child will be in, their  new classroom base, staggered start and pick up times and who their staff members will be.

  With Reception and Key worker children returning, the school will be full and all of the teaching teams will be deployed teaching and planning learning full time. This means that we will not be able to offer online learning as some parents have enquired of us. However, we will continue to send the weekly year group emails with resources and suggestions for learning at home and this learning will mirror that being delivered to the children in school.

  Each week we will send (obviously the format for Reception and Nursery children will look slightly different);

  English- differentiated reading comprehensions and writing tasks 

  Maths – differentiated challenges and worksheets along with top tips for how we would teach the skill in school and links to the Oak national academy. (We will also resend the visual reminders which support the children’s learning in school)

  Science/History/Geography/RE – links and suggestions to meet a skill in this subject area which could be presented as a fact file, a poster or a drama/hot seating or oral presentation.

  Of course don’t forget to read with your child and remind them to use their phonics skills, play phoneme spot together (ai in rain) and tricky word snap (we will resend these after half term, they are words where phonics doesn’t work such as we, he, the).

  Please don’t think you need to complete all the comprehensions and maths worksheets, there will be different questions to match different skills levels and you can help your child to find the right one from them.

  The weekly email will continue to give you the learning for the entire week as opposed to daily tasks, which is the practice in some schools. This reflects the way we work as a school and gives you the flexibility to engage in the learning when it is convenient for your family.

  The online resource ‘Purple Mash ‘has been made free to parents.

  As a staff team we have not had training so we will not be setting learning tasks but it is a safe place for children to explore different aspects of computing through games, art, music, number, literacy and science. Inside there is ‘Mini-Mash’ which has lots of Early Years resources. If you would like access to this resource, please contact Mrs Pratt by email and she will set up access for you.

  Mrs Pratt can be contacted on epratt@wheatfieldsinfants.herts.sch.uk

  We are really hopeful that this phase of opening will lead to a further widening of provision for our school community. Unless the government changes its guidance and allows us to increase numbers each class, we currently do not have the capacity for any more year groups.  However, we only hear of the government’s plans at the same time as you, so please bear with us.  If we are advised against opening on 1st June we will let you know our revised plans. Even if we do not open for Reception children, key worker and vulnerable children will still have a place with us from 1st June onwards.

  Stay well and keep safe,

  Keep Smiling

   

  Miss Clare Cockburn and the staff team

• News from Today

  Mon 11 May 2020 Miss Clare Cockburn

   

  Monday, 11^th May 2020

   

  Dear Parents and Carers,

   

  I hope that this letter finds everyone safe and well and that you managed to enjoy the warm sunshine over the weekend and had a drink to commemorate VE Day.

   

  I am sure that following the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday evening that you, like us, will have many questions. At this point in time, schools have no more information than the general public and we await further clarification on the announcement that we may be open to both Reception and Year One pupils from June 1^st, after the half term break.

  In the meantime, we continue to follow the existing guidance and school will continue to be open for the children of keyworkers whose work is critical in the COVID 19 response. This has been working very well so far.

  We expect that the Department for Education will be issuing more detailed information in the coming days.

  Please be assured that we will be doing our utmost to be as well prepared as possible to ensure that any return to school is as safe as possible for children and staff. 

  As always, we will keep you informed but for now, please try not to worry. In the meantime, we plan to continue to provide the suggested home learning activities as we have been via the weekly emails, keep in contact with our school community and support each other through these very challenging times.

   

  Stay Safe,

   

  Kind regards,

   

  Miss Clare Cockburn

  Headteacher

   

   

• News from this week

  Fri 01 May 2020 Clare Cockburn

   

  Dear Parents,

  A quick note to all our families and friends from our school community to let you know that you are not far from our thoughts and we are hoping you are managing to stay safe and well during these strange times.

  Where has the sun gone!! I have gone back to my warmer clothes particularly when walking my dog Copper.  It is lovely to see some of you whilst I am out walking by myself or with my family. I am out each Thursday night clapping and cheering for our NHS workers and I know my sister who is a Nurse really appreciates all the support.

  Next Friday it is 75 years since VE day. An opportunity to do some history (Miss Matthews will be pleased) to discover why it is a day to celebrate and may be raise a glass in remembrance.

   

  Staff have been really enjoying seeing all the pictures, emails and video clips you have been sending in. Please do keep them coming in and feel free to email your class teachers if you need any further help or support.  We have been advised by HCC  to move away from using Zoom and therefore we will be looking to set up using Microsoft Teams instead. This is a new piece of technology for staff so please bear with us whilst we train ourselves in setting up this new system. I will keep asking staff to update the website class page regularly, and to continue with their stories through this platform in the short term.

  Many thanks to all of you who entered the Easter Egg competition. As always it is hard to choose winners from such fantastic entries. The winning designs fro each group were Ella in Nursery, Charlie in Reception, Emilie in Year 1,Vinnie in Year 2  and Amelia in the Juniors. We will shortly be putting all those children entries on the website under the FOWI page. Well done

   

  For those children who like colouring you could enter a design a bear competition. The closing date for this competition is 5pm on May 8^th 2020. So not long!!!

  https://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/media/press/y2020/jl-and-wr-launch-soft-toy-design-competition.html

   

  I hope you will enjoy reading some of the poems from the Poetry Book that Miss Morgan has collated for you all. This has been sent to all families via email. There will be some hard copies of the book in the library once we return to school. Perhaps you will be inspired to write some more of your own!! We would love to read them if you do write some.

   

  Keep saving those crisp packets as we had an email this week saying that not only were we helping our environment by reducing landfill but we had also raised £50. Thank you!

   

  Thinking of you all

  Take Care and Keep Smiling

   

  Miss Cockburn and the Staff Team

• Sports Day Friday 21st June

  Thu 20 Jun 2019
  The weather forecast looks promising and all parents are warmly welcomed to Sports Day tomorrow which will start at approximately 9.15/9.30 am!
  Reception and Nursery children will have races first whilst the years 1 & 2 Children have their Multi Skills activities. Later in the morning the children will change round. Please can all children come to school in their PE Kits with their coloured house T shirt and bring a named water bottle? The children need to wear trainers in order to take part. There will be tea and coffee on sale so please remember to bring some change. FOWI will also have a small second hand book stall. We are lucky enough to have Turner Class from the Junior School coming to help us with the multi-skill activities

• Wheatfest

  Thu 20 Jun 2019

  WHEATFEST
  The Wheatfest countdown has begun! Look out for the Information packs which will be sent home to all families who have brought tickets, either to come along on the evening or to camp overnight.

  Please note that this is a ticketed fundraising event and if you have not brought tickets please do not come along, even if you are not eating or camping. For safety reasons we need to know the numbers of people who will be on site.

  If you do wish to come along, to visit other family members or friends who are camping or just to enjoy the evening you can still apply for a ticket, the final deadline is today, Thursday 20^th June.

• Felt Workshops

  Thu 07 Feb 2019

  Further to our recent felt making workshops in school by visiting artist, Heidi, we are looking forward to our felting house challenge!

  The children will be using the skills that they learned in the workshops and applying them to design and create felt banners collaboratively in their house groups.

  Thank you to everyone who has made a donation towards the materials the children will be using, if you have not done so already you can still contribute via School Gateway.

  We are also appealing for donations of water spray bottles, washing up liquid and bubble wrap which the children will use to make the felt as well as some rigid cardboard tubes that the children can use to roll the felt.

  If you are able to help, please can you send in any donations by Monday at the latest! 

  Thank you for your help.

• Year 1 & Year 2 Disco

  Mon 21 Jan 2019

  Years 1 and 2 are invited to enjoy music, disco lights and games in the school hall on Wednesday 6^th February, 5-6pm.

  Doors will open at 4.50pm, with the disco starting at 5pm. A drink and snack are included. Please do not bring any food.

  Please note we will NOT be distributing paper tickets for this event. Children will be on a ‘guest list’ and you will be asked to confirm your pick-up arrangements on entry (please note these on School Gateway). All tickets must be bought in advance of the event.

  Due to safety reasons, we have to limit the number of children at this event. Places will be booked on a first come, first served basis so please make payment on School Gateway soon to avoid disappointment. The closing date will be 30^th January, unless all places are sold out beforehand. Previous discos have sold out before the closing date.

  Class reps will be asking for volunteers to help at the disco. Please do volunteer if possible, as without parent helpers this event will be unable to run. Unfortunately, siblings not in Years 1 or 2 are unable to attend.

• Year 1 Phonics Meeting

  Wed 09 Jan 2019

  We would like to invite you to a Year 1 Phonics Information Meeting on Thursday 17th January 2019 from 2.00pm - 3.00pm.

  This meeting is to explain how we are helping your child to consolidate their knowledge of phonics and use it to help their reading. We will also be sharing strategies and resources with you which will help you support your child’s learning.