Weekly Newsletter
Friday 25th November 2022
This week in school
Christmas Fair Thank you so much to everyone who attended the Christmas Fair yesterday. There was a wonderful festive feel to the evening and the PTA raised over £750! In the new year we will be looking at how we can use some of the funds to make improvements around the school. Watch this space!
Welcome this week to Mrs Caroline Wilson, who has joined Asteroid class and the Y5/6 team as a teaching assistant with us.
Mr Close's drama club is CANCELLED next week due to the Parents' Evening on Wednesday, but will be back on the following week.
Parents' evenings If you have not yet booked an appointment please check your texts or emails for the link. Very limited appointments are left as over 300 people have already booked, so it may be that you cannot have your preferred time, or you may need to take a video appointment. Reminder that appointments are 10 minutes long and that video calls will finish automatically. We will be working to keep the in-person appointments to this length so we ask you to respect the people whose appointments follow yours, and to arrange a follow-up call if you feel that you need more time.
For families attending the in-person session (Wednesday 30th December) all appointments will be in the Main Hall and the Hive (at the back of the Hall), not in classrooms. Tables and chairs will be set out for teachers, with some additional seating while the next families are waiting. As space will be limited, we ask that you arrive as close as possible to your appointment time(s), and that your children do not come along. If childcare is difficult and your children come too, they will need to wait quietly with you as we are not able to supervise any children playing in and around school.
Starting school in September 2023 If you have a child who turns 4 before 31.8.2023, you will need to apply for a school place in the Reception year from September 2023. Applications should be made online at www.northyorks.gov.uk/apply-place-primary-or-secondary-school
The deadline for applications is January 15 2023: applications after this are treated as 'late' which means they are considered after all the others and you may not get your preferred school.
Even if your child attends our Nursery, you still need to apply for a primary school place.
Term dates 2023-24 The term dates for the next school year are now on the school website at https://brayton-cofe-primary-school.secure-primarysite.net/term-dates/
Year 6 SATs Tests 2023 Due to the additional bank holiday on Monday 8th May, the Y6 SATs Test week will run from Tuesday 9th May to Friday 12th May. Details about the timetable and which tests are taking place on which days will be shared by Mr Close and Miss Rushworth after Christmas.
THIS WEEKEND Brayton Christmas Lights Switch On will be on Saturday 26th November at 3:45pm on Brayton Village Green. There will also be refreshments supplied by the Swan.
Jewellery No necklaces, bracelets, rings or other jewellery should be worn to school. If your child has earrings, these must be removed for PE sessions, or earrings can be left at home on PE days. Earrings for school should be small stud types so they don't get caught and cause any injuries.
Leave of absence during term time & attendance Please can we gently remind you that, unless the circumstances are genuinely exceptional, holidays in term time 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.
Where our replies to requests for holidays have included reference to Fixed Penalty Notices, the paperwork for these can only be sent through when you have returned from the holiday and after a certain number of weeks have passed. We send through summaries to North Yorkshire County Council who then make the decision around proceeding with fines.
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.
Under this consultation, as many of you will have seen, 1 single session of unauthorised absence will generate a Fixed Penalty Notice, and this shows how seriously the Government is taking attendance as a key part of education recovery.
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.
Free School Meals
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 Some of this information may be out of date, especially around eligibility, so please get in touch if you are unsure.
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 (Headteacher) & Mel Walmsley (Deputy Headteacher)
Whole School Attendance
DIARY DATES
Tuesday 29 November - Parents' evening 3:30-5:30pm (virtual)
Wednesday 30 November - Parents' evening 3:30-6:30pm (in person)
Thursday 1 December - Christmas wreath making workshop (6-8.30pm)
Monday 5 December - Reception Nativity 2pm
Tuesday 6 December - Reception Nativity pm 2pm
Wednesday 7 December - Nursery Christmas sing-along 2.15pm
Thursday 8 December - Christmas Jumper Day & Christmas Lunch
Tuesday 13 December - Christmas Services at St Wilf's
Friday 16 December - School closes for Christmas
Tuesday 3 January - Staff training day
Wednesday 4 January - School opens for spring term
Sunday 15 January - Deadline for primary school applications for September 2023
From St Wilf's...
Hello all
Our annual Christingle service for families at St Wilf’s takes place on Sunday 4th December at 3pm.
This is a lovely, atmospheric service that really helps us begin to get into the spirit of Christmas!
At this service we collect money for The Children’s Society charity, which does amazing work supporting children and young people across England and Wales who are struggling in all sorts of ways.
Along with this we invite those who come to the service to bring a wrapped Christmas present to be distributed to children and young people in the Selby area whose families are struggling financially at this time.
Please would you label the gift: girl or boy or both, and the age range the gift is suitable for.
It’s great to have the whole age range covered, but often we don’t have enough gifts for teenagers donated, so if you are able to donate a present for a teen that would be good!
Thanks very much, and we really look forward to welcoming you to St Wilf’s on the 4th December at 3pm!
Happy Birthdays!
Many many many many happy returns this week to.....
Hazel Smith
Albert Whisker-Taylor
Isla Harris
This week in classrooms
Nursery - Stars
We have been learning all about pattern this week. The children have enjoyed searching for patterns in the nursery environment. We have looked at patterns on animals and have been learning words to describe patterns. The children have been recognising and creating ABAB patterns in the provision, including putting a pattern of jewels on paper crowns and painting animal patterns. We have enjoyed the stories ‘My Mum and Dad Make Me Laugh’, ‘We all Went on Safari’, ‘Patterns Everywhere’, ‘Pitter Pattern’ and ‘Pattern Bugs’ which are full of pattern. We even made patterns with words and sounds in phonics (eg clap, pat, clap, pat).
Star of the Week- Tommy Young
Reception - Moon and Mercury
In Reception we have been reading the traditional story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. The children have really enjoyed telling the story with props, especially enjoying playing the part of the big bad troll! There have also been some wonderful drawings of the troll.
The children have also been developing their construction skills, making bridges for the billy goats to cross. It was great to observe the thinking skills needed to ensure that the bridges were strong enough.
In maths, we have been thinking about finding 1 more and 1 less than a number. Learning number rhymes helps greatly with this mathematical concept. We have been singing ‘1 elephant went out to play’ to help understand 1 more. We have also been singing ‘5 green bottles’ to help understand 1 less.
In phonics we introduced the new sounds ai, ee, igh and oa. We have practised how to form the letters correctly for each of these digraphs, using the mnemonics and we have been blending and segmenting words containing these sounds. It was exciting to learn that a sound containing 3 letters is called a trigraph.
In our RE work we have thought about what precious means and talked about something that is precious to us. We then listened to the story from the bible, of when Jesus blessed all of the children. This helped us to understand that we are all precious in our own ways and so the children then wrote about what they are proud of on a ‘proud cloud’.
Our nativity rehearsals are becoming more and more exciting! The children have all worked incredibly hard to learn the songs and it is sounding beautiful.
Stars of the week:
Mercury - Sienna Mangan
Moon - Poppy Berridge
Year 1 - Galaxy and Venus
In Year 1 we have been reading the super story of the Bear and the Piano. We have written our predictions, made a poster to persuade people to go and hear him play in concerts and thought about his thoughts, feelings and motives. In maths we have continued our topic of addition/subtraction, focussing on finding a part and subtraction.
We have evaluated our handkerchiefs in DT and have started to explore Christmas decorations ready to design one. In science we have been investigating the senses of touch and hearing. In RE we have been looking at why Christmas is important to Christians and discussing the signs that show Christmas is coming.
Stars of the Week:
Galaxy - Ruby Corbally
Venus - Jack Carmody
Year 2 - Earth and Mars
We are so proud of year 2 again this week. They have worked incredibly hard on some new maths skills in both addition and subtraction learning about exchange. In English, we have planned our own stories based around the themes from our class text of The Building Boy. Thankyou for some amazing creative ideas, Year 2. We can’t wait to read your stories when they are finished. In RE we have started our new topic looking at Why does Christmas matter to Christians? We started by identifying all the characters in the story of the first Christmas, and discussing who knew that Jesus was God. Our Science this week has been learning about different food groups and what we need to make up a healthy diet. In History, we have loved learning about Shackleton’s third expedition to Antarctica. The adventure in the story has really captured our imaginations and we’ve enjoyed looking at some photos from the actual expedition. We’ve continued our topic in music too, composing some music inspired by Polar regions. Our PSHE has been looking at how to recognise bullying and what we can do about it if we experience or see it. Year 2, you have worked so hard again. Well done!
Stars of the week
Earth: Connie Lonsdale
Mars: Khloe Lane
Year 3 - Jupiter and Saturn
This week in Year 3 we have started our new class text ‘The Incredible Book Eating Boy’ by Oliver Jeffers. In English we have spent the week focusing on the craft and construction of sentences. We have started our next unit in maths which covers mutliplication and division and the children have been investigating equal groups and how they can use arrays.
In science the children have been learning about the different layers of soil which are beneath us and in computing they completed the digital art unit and mastered how to copy and paste an image and flip it.
Finally in geography the children used an atlas to identify the different rivers located in the United Kingdom and where they originated.
Star of the Week:
Jupiter: Mabel Waugh
Saturn: Sam Elwood
Year 4 - Neptune and Meteor
In Neptune class this week we began planning our independent write. The children began by developing plot points based on How to train your Dragon, with their own twists. They created their own Viking characters and plotted their journey to find a dragon. Using our success criteria, the children have planned some imaginative sentences which include some grammatical features they have learnt this term.
In science the children have been using their identifying skills to dissect a flower and label the different parts. They showed great teamwork and used what they had learnt last week to help them identify the parts. In history, the children have done some fantastic research using the chromebooks to find out even more about the Vikings to create a fact file poster! This week in maths, the children have applied their knowledge of multiplication to multiply three numbers together.
In Meteor, we’ve had such a busy week. This week the children have really shown off all of their best Brayton qualities and I’ve been so proud of how brilliant they’ve been. We have been taking part in a 5 day swimming program. Every day, they have given it their all. It’s been so fantastic to watch them swim stronger and better each day and really push themselves.
Also this week, we’ve been planning out our independent write. The children are now slightly tweaking the storyline of How to Train your dragon. Rather than Hiccup creeping into the cave, the children have been adding their own ideas using a fabulous range of grammatical features that they have learned about from earlier in the term. I can’t wait to see the final product! In maths we have continued to build upon those all important multiplication and division skills. We’ve moved on from exploring times tables to delving into more complex division skills.
Finally, I would like to thank all of the adults who’ve helped Meteor class this week by washing swim kits and helping them remember all of their towels. You really have helped the children have a fantastic week.
Star of the week
Meteor: Aniela Nycek
Neptune: Agnes Heslop
Year 5 - Asteroid and Pluto
This week in Year 5, we have finished our class text ‘Street Child’. The children have thoroughly enjoyed this story and we’ve all grown fond of Jim. It’s been a real pleasure reading this book together, seeing and hearing the excitement, joy, frustration and sadness the children have experienced as we’ve read on. Next week, we are going back to Mr Dickens and getting into a festive mood by starting our final text of the Autumn term- A Christmas Carol. We teachers are exceptionally proud of the persuasive letters that have been written by children this week in English- a huge array of writing skills on show and such cleverly woven ideas and language that we have no doubt would have driven prison reform forward during the Victorian Era! Moving onto some Geography, we started to understand how 6-figure grid references work and find the 6-figure grid reference of a map point. This proved to be tricky but there was some great perseverance shown across the year group and we will continue to build on this map reading skill next week. In Maths, children have worked hard on our fraction unit this week, again there’s been the need for determination especially when converting improper fractions into mixed numbers. Whether your child has worked on fluency or problem solving, they’ve been determined to secure this skill. On this note, the children are starting to see just how many areas of maths, the accurate recall of times tables is needed in. Please, continue to practise these at home using TT Rockstars. Well done on another great week, Year 5.
Stars of the week:
Asteroid- Niamh Jones
Pluto- George Walker
Year 6 - Nebular and Constellation
What, Friday again? Already? It must be because we have been so very busy - even more so than normal. In maths, we have been working on the order of operations - BIDMAS. We then completed the week with strategies for mental calculations - who knew there were so many? In English, we wrote our letter of complaint to White Star Line for the devastating losses we incurred, both with family members and personal possessions. Thank goodness J.Bruce Ismay is not with us any more to receive them! He would be in for a torrid time replying to them. In Science, we have continued our work on electricity and the creation of simple circuits and how to draw them. We were also lucky to have 2 guests from Drax Power, who brought a huge model to show and discuss how power stations generate electricity (a huge thank you to Mr Nicholson - Frankie of Nebular’s Dad - who helped to facilitate the afternoon). The children loved it! In PE, the children have really thrown themselves (quite literally) into our topic of Tag Rugby. It looks like we may have some future Owen Farrells or Sarah Hunters on our hands! Another (yet again!) great week everyone.
Stars of the week:
Nebular: Amelia Albyn
Constellation: Ava O’Brien