Weekly Newsletter
Friday 17th June 2022
This week in school
Book look session The book look session before Easter was so well attended, with so much positive feedback, that we will be running it regularly. The one for this term will be on Monday 11 July from 2:45-4:15pm. The same arrangements as last time: come along either just before the end of the day or when you collect your child(ren) and have an informal look at the work they have been doing this term. We know that some of the feedback suggested a choice of dates and times but the diary is so busy up to the end of term that it hasn't been possible this time round.
Diary dates We have updated the diary dates below and as you can see there is a LOT happening over the next few weeks! Please be aware that things may be subject to last minute changes due to unforeseen circumstances and we always do our best to manage these.
Swimming Next term we will be starting with school swimming lessons again after a very long break. Children in Y4 (the current Y3s) will have a block of 5 45-minute lessons across 1 week in November for some intensive swimming. The cost of the swimming lessons and part of the transport will be subsidised through school and the PE & Sports Grant. As costs have risen so much we cannot commit to sessions for another year group at this point, but if the PE & Sports Grant continues (we should hear by the end of term) we will be able to send another year group.
School structure from September Now that we have organised where all the teachers will be working in September, we are starting work on the class lists. This is so that we can make sure that each class has an even balance of different needs, personalities and even boys/girls. For some of the older children, we will be asking them about social groupings so there will definitely be some familiar faces for them; but as we do only have 2 classes per year group they are never going to be far from the others!
Leave of absence during term time & attendance We are getting more and more requests for leave of absence during term time due to families having booked holidays. Please can we gently remind you that, unless the circumstances are genuinely exceptional, these will not be authorised. Lower prices are not an exceptional circumstance, and the guidance is very clear that Headteachers would not be expected to class any term time holiday as exceptional.
The government is currently consulting on approaches to improving school attendance with updated guidance and new legislation coming with effect from September 2023. This is likely to lead to much quicker involvement from the Local Authority where a child's attendance is showing their education to be at risk. Currently if a child's attendance is below 90% we send an initial warning letter, which can be followed by more formal processes if attendance does not improve.
If your child's attendance is below 90% they will have missed at least 20 days over the year: this is like missing a whole month of school. On the annual reports we will be adding how many days of school your child has missed, as well as their % attendance.
Free school meals: save up to £450 a year With so much in the news about the cost of living and now energy prices going up, you can check whether your child could be eligible for a free school meal, whatever school year they are in. All the information is on the NYCC website at https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/free-school-meals
If you would like any advice or support with this, please contact the school office. We treat these matters with complete confidentiality and are always happy to help if needed.
Thank you for your continued support.
Allyson Buckton- Proud Headteacher
Whole School Attendance
The graph below shows our school attendance since the start of the school year up to the end of last week (we are the pink line).
An amazing 334 children have had 100% attendance this week: well done!
DIARY DATES
Monday 6 June-Friday 24th June 2022: Y4 Multiplication Tables Check
Friday 17 June 2022: Y5/6 football tournament
Monday 20 June 2022: Y5/6 football vs Riverside
Tuesday 21 June 2022: Y6 trip to Scarborough
Tuesday 21 June 2022: Whole school music day
Wednesday 22 June 2022: Open the Book visit
Thursday 23 June 2022: Y6 bowling & lazer tag
Thursday 23 June 2022: Information evening for Reception September 2022
Friday 24 June 2022: Y5 Selby High experience day
Saturday 25 June 2022: PTA Summer Fair 12pm-3pm
Monday 27 June 2022: Y5/6 football vs Sherburn Hungate
Tuesday 28 June 2022: Year 2/3 trip to Bridlington
Wednesday 29 June 2022: Y6 Leavers Service at Selby Abbey
Thursday 30 June 2022: Y5/6 football vs Barkston Ash
Wednesday 6 July 2022: Nursery sports day 2-3pm
Wednesday 6 July 2022: Open the Book visit
Thursday 7 July 2022: Sports day
Monday 11 July 2022: Book look session 2:45-4:15pm
Wednesday 13 & Thursday 14 July 2022: Transition visits for new Reception children 10-12
Wednesday 13 July 2022: Y6 Bradford Media Museum visit
Thursday 14 July 2022: Asteroid class at Song For Selby day at Selby Abbey
Thursday 14 July 2022: STAR MAT athletics competition (Y5), Tadcaster Grammar
Friday 15 July 2022: Transition day for Y1-Y6
Monday 18 July 2022: EYFS balance bike day
Friday 22 July 2022: School closes for summer holiday
Happy Birthdays!
Many many many many happy returns this week to.....
Lucas Richardson
Chloe Riley
Charlie Coltman
Amelia-Grace Jackson
Valentina Smith
Samuel Elwood
Imogen Herring
Cooper Glover
This week in classrooms
Our school values
Nursery - Stars
This week we have continued to explore animals. We have enjoyed the stories ‘Dear Zoo’ and ‘The Selfish Crocodile’. We have enjoyed learning about crocodiles as well as the importance of looking after our teeth and how we go about doing that. We have also enjoyed finding out about zoos and creating our own zoo maps. In provision the children have had a crocodile swamp, have used bucket balances to weigh animals and made handprint zoo animals.
In maths we have looked at ordering numbers and their positions. We have also talked about the language of weight – heavy and light. In phonics we have continued to practise identifying the initial sounds in words by shopping for initial sounds.
The N2 children have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the Reception outdoor area and are already quite at home there!
Star of the Week: Beau Wanless
FS - Moon and Mercury
This week we have undertaken a range of new roles, we’ve gone from being designers to builders, lighthouse keepers to menu developers.
We have been reading ‘The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch’ written by Ronda and David Armitage this week and the children have been fascinated to find out more about how lighthouses work and how important they were in the past. Mr Grinling the lighthouse keeper unfortunately had his lunch stolen by three cheeky seagulls so we thought we should develop a delicious sandwich with instructions for how to make it so he wasn’t hungry when he was at work.
We discussed that stories tend to have a beginning, middle and an end and the children produced some fantastic writing retelling the story using some amazing adjectives.
We also designed and built our own paper cup lighthouses and carried out an experiment to identify items around the classroom that float and sink.
Moon - Teagan Dos Santos
Mercury - Willow Laverack
Y1 - Galaxy and Venus
We have been continuing with our new theme for this half term - Ahoy there! We have read and sung some sea shanties and had fun writing our own. In geography we have been learning about the physical and human features which can be found around the coasts in the UK. In RE we have been thinking about and looking at the wonderful natural things in our world and creating our own to understand how precious God's world is to him and needs to be looked after. In maths we have been very busy problem solving and working with numbers to 100 and beyond. Science has been focussed on objects and the materials from which they have been made.
Star of the week:
Venus- Finley Hoyle
Galaxy- Olivia Dudley
Year 2 / 3 Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune
What another busy week! In English this week, we have continued with our class novel, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark. We have picked apart two more key plots in the story and learnt how to use personification. In RE, the children explored the golden rule of treating others how you want to be treated along with paying forward kindness through good deeds. In Maths, we started our next unit, Measurement, by estimating and measuring length in metres and centimetres. In PE, we ran our Friday Mile and took advantage of the glorious weather by holding a water relay race between all three classes! Not only was this extremely good fun, albeit slightly wet, the children used their knowledge of litres and millilitres to compare the results.
Stars of the week -
Jupiter- Rocco Lea
Saturn - Demi Wyrill
Neptune- Matthew Ward
Year 4 Mars and Earth
It’s been a very exciting and busy week for Year 4. After a recap of previous learning, half of Year 4 went to the Education Exchange in Knottingley to share our knowledge about krill and debate with other schools that krill are the most important animals which was the theme of The Great Science Share. While we may not have been successful, everyone pitched in fabulously and all of the children took part in helping prepare for the presentation. How could we not mention the official Multiplication Times Table check that all of Year 4 took part in on Thursday morning. All of the year 4 adults were blown away by how calm and sensible the children were, they well and truly gave it their best effort, well done all! Following on with our topic themed guided reading we have also started reading a Greek classic by Homer, The Odyssey. The children all seemed to really enjoy changing things up by acting or narrating parts of the first two chapters to further our understanding of the text.
Stars
Mars - Isaac Tweddle
Earth - Peter Vickers
Year 5 Asteroid and Pluto
What another exciting week in year 5! As we read more of our class reader- Jaguar Stones, in English, we have continued writing our Maya adventure stories demonstrating a wide range of writing skills. Our teachers are looking forward to next week when we will be independently planning and writing the final adventure- we’re expecting some page turners! In maths, we’ve done a fantastic job measuring and drawing angles with a protractor. This could have been a tricky week as there’s a lot involved to use this skill, but all of year 5 have risen to the occasion! A stand out from the week was learning about the Maya writing system and having a go at writing our name using glyphs. This was a tricky job as the Maya did not have all the letters we use and their glyphs represented sound units and syllables! We used the art skill of printing and were all delighted when we revealed the successful print- the class codex looks really striking. Well done, Year 5, for another brilliant week.
Stars
Asteroid - Jacob Triffitt
Pluto- Dexter Griffiths
Year 6 Nebular and Constellation
To say that the year 6 have been absolute troopers, and persevering with our constant demands of writing, editing, improvement, is an understatement. However, following the moderation of their writing this week by the City of York Council, we can honestly say that it has all been worth it! The sample of writing that was chosen, contained everything that they had hoped to see. Very well done for all your hard work year 6 - this, and every other week! We also participated in our Pause Day. The pentecost themed day, looked at the prejudice that Christ and christians endured during that time. The classes then created art-work to follow the theme. The children have also practised their leavers presentation, which we will share the date of today, and enjoyed additional PE sessions with the teachers: Football, Cricket and Tennis were the main activities. Not long left everyone. Enjoy what remains of your time with us. Believe it or not, you will miss us!
Stars:
Constellation: Joshua Smart
Nebular: Jayden-Lee Smith
Who has the most hive points so far?
Jacob Whitby (Mars - Yellow) and Matthew Richardson (Mars - Blue) are the top scorers this week: well done!