Weekly Newsletter
Friday 7th October 2022
School Vision and Values
Working with the Governors and the Church School group, we felt that the Bible extract still works for us as a school: "Let your light shine before others, so that they may see the good things you do and praise our Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). We have updated our motto from 'Together we Shine as One' to 'Let our Light Shine' as we feel this is clearer and closer to what we are aiming for as a school.
We have also chosen to focus on 4 key values as a school instead of seven as some of the seven were not very easy for children to relate to. These are now Compassion, Courage, Forgiveness and Thankfulness.
We will be talking about these with the children over the next week, and exploring what the values mean to us through Collective Worship and in class.
This week in school
School meals We have had a really positive response to the new STAR Eats menu & meals since they started in September. Last week we served over 150 more meals than in the same week last year, so they are very popular! We know that the increased choice, with a main and vegetarian option as well as either a jacket potato or a cheese melty, has been very well-received. Families can either opt for their child(ren) to have a school dinner every day, or can choose according to what is on the menu, or depending on what is in the fridge/cupboards at home.
Behaviour policy At the Governors' meeting last week we reviewed the school Behaviour Policy and some small changes to this. Most of the changes are around being really clear about the sort of behaviour we expect around school, and the clear steps that will be followed where there are low-level disruption or more serious behaviour incidents. We have also replaced the 'red slips' with a 'behaviour slip', where a copy will be sent home with a space for any comments from home when an incident has been discussed. Where we have sent home a behaviour slip, it is also recorded on our school electronic system so we can track any patterns and report higher level concerns. The policy is on our website at www.braytonprimary.com (linked below).
School letterhead & logo You may have noticed we have updated the school letterhead to reflect the new website address; we have also swapped the colour of the text on the school logo too. Please don't worry: we are not making any changes to the uniform: the change from yellow to blue just means that it is easier to read against a white background. The uniform embroidery will stay the same as the yellow stands out against the blue jumpers. Thanks to Joel Albyn (our vice chair of governors) for his technical wizardry with the image!
Book look session and parents' evenings this term We are having a book look/open classroom session this half term on Monday 17th October from 2:45pm to 3:15pm. Come along and see your child's teacher, classroom and some of their work from the new school year!
School photos Wednesday 12 October Reminder: next week the photographer is here to take individual and sibling photos for the start of the year
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 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.
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: 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
We are tracking attendance closely and if we see a pattern that we are worried about, such as children missing lots of Fridays, we will be contacting you directly to follow this up.
Please support your child's learning and friendships by keeping their attendance as high as possible. We understand the pressures on families but when school is open for 190 days out of 365 over the year, children need to make the most of that time, and it still leaves 175 other days for breaks, holidays and days out.
DIARY DATES
Monday 10 October - NSPCC Online Safety workshop, Monk Fryston Primary School, 6-7pm
Tuesday 11 October - Open session for September 2023 admissions 1:30-2:30pm
Wednesday 12 October - School photos (individual & siblings)
Monday 17 October - Book look/open classrooms 2:45-3:15pm
Monday 17 October - NSPCC Online Safety workshop, Tadcaster Grammar School, 6-7pm
Thursday 20 October - School closes for half term
Friday 21 October - Training day
Monday 31 October - Deadline for secondary school applications
Tuesday 22 November - Open session for September 2023 admissions 1:30-2:30pm
Thursday 1 December - Christmas wreath making workshop (evening)
Tuesday 13 December - Christmas Services at St Wilf's
From St Wilf's...
As autumn rapidly approaches it is time to think about the Autumn Fair. The date has been set for Saturday 12th November between 10am and 1pm. There will be time to set up late Friday afternoon or earlier in the morning.
The format will be very similar to pre Covid times. If you are able to help in anyway please let Pat Jarvis (churchwarden) or myself know.
We will need volunteers for all the usual stalls; tombola, raffle, toiletries, nearly new children's things, along with a cafe.
I know Craft group are getting organised and hope that Mother's Union will be able to provide another delicious cake stall.
If I have missed anything or you have any ideas for other stalls or activities please get in touch. Maybe some entertainment?
Best regards
Lis Middup
07770440214
Happy Birthdays!
Many many many many happy returns this week to.....
Alfie Butler
Jaxon Booth
Frankie Phillips
Thomas Rowley
Samuel Jarvis
Poppy Berridge
This week in classrooms
Nursery - Stars
The children have continued to enjoy learning about the changes that Autumn brings and what that means for animals too. We have been finding out about hedgehogs and have created leaf hedgehogs and given our hedgehogs spikes using forks to print with. We have even baked hedgehog shaped bread rolls. We have made lots of different soups in the mud kitchen with Autumn leaves, conkers and acorns. On Monday we celebrated Harvest Festival with Rev Pete. We enjoyed singing the song Big Red Combine Harvester and joining in with all the actions. For PSD we have shared a book called ‘What I Like About Me’ which highlights that we are all different but special.
In phonics this week we have continued to focus on our listening skills and have been listening to the sounds we might hear in our own homes. We have also continued to listen to lots of stories and sing lots of rhymes. In maths we have been learning about circles and have practised giving a small number of objects from a group.
Star of the Week -Riley Smith
Reception - Moon and Mercury
On Monday we welcomed Rev Pete into school for our first Harvest festival and he explained to the children how it is a time to celebrate God’s goodness and to help others. We were very proud, the children were fantastic at listening and thoroughly enjoyed singing ‘Big red combine harvester’. Thank you to everyone for sending in your donations for the Selby Foodbank. This week the children in Reception have read the story Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper. The story explored the friendship of a duck, a cat and a squirrel and their fondness for pumpkin soup. By the end of the story the characters learned the important lesson of working together and why it is important to be a kind friend. Many of our challenges this week involved having ‘kind hands’ that could make something for a friend. Friendship cards and friendship bracelets were gifted to friends and even the teachers too. We explored the texture, shape, colour and smell of pumpkins first. Then we enjoyed scooping the inside of a pumpkin ready to make pumpkin soup. We watched the story this time and made our own. We chopped, sliced, mixed, cooked and then ate the soup. It was delicious with our freshly baked bread! We also enjoyed re-telling the story with props and drawing our own story maps. In phonics this week, the children have been taught ‘ck, e, u, r’. We have continued focusing on the importance of forming letters correctly and read lots of sentences! In maths we have been learning how to use the words ‘big’ and ‘little’, ‘more’ and ‘fewer’, ‘taller’ and ‘shorter’, ‘longer, longest, shorter and shortest’ correctly. There was a lot to remember!
Star of the week
Moon: Evelyn West
Mercury: Leon Szafranski
Year 1 - Galaxy and Venus
What a busy week we have had. We were very excited to meet our special visitor on Thursday afternoon - Pepper the therapy dog! As well as getting lots of cuddles and strokes, we learnt the importance of animals and how they can help people in different ways. We have been busy celebrating Black History Month, sharing the beautiful story of Sulwe written by Lupita Nyong’o. We have written a letter to Sulwe, inferred her thoughts and feelings and written a simple retell of the story. It has been wonderful to listen to the children’s positive comments and opinions. In Maths, we have continued to compare number and ordered numbers using the language ‘smallest’ to ‘greatest’. In geography we have been learning about human and physical features.
Galaxy - Ruby Corbally
Venus - Isla-Mae Roberts
Year 2 - Earth and Mars
This week we started preparing for our next English writing project by diving under the sea. The children thought about and shared lots of fantastic ideas about what we might see, hear and touch in an underwater habitat and we had fun making ocean bottles. We have then been looking at a setting description and identifying its key language. This also links with our work in science and geography looking at different habitats around the world and how animals are suited to their habitats.In RE we have continued learning about what Muslims believe about prayer and their holy places. In computing, we began using programs to create digital art and in music we listened to part of Elgar’s Enigma Variations and drew what it made us think of. We also started learning about Black History Month by sharing and discussing the book Amazing Grace.
Stars of the week
Earth: Hazel Smith
Mars: Harper Wrigglesworth
Year 3 - Jupiter and Saturn
This week in English we have been concentrating on sentence stacking. We have focused on the craft and construction of our sentences which the children are using to produce their own alternative versions of a fairy tale. In Maths we have been adding and subtracting 1s, 10s, and 100s as well as continuing to develop our problem solving and reasoning skills. In history the children created some fantastic information texts full of interesting facts about what rationing was like in World War 2 remembering to use subheadings and organising their writing into paragraphs.
On Wednesday in our computing lesson the children began to create their own digital storyboards using https://www.storyboardthat.com
It’s been another fun filled and hard working week in year 3.
Stars of the Week:
Jupiter: Conor Young
Saturn:Samuel Holmes
Year 4 - Neptune and Meteor
We’ve really hit our stride this week in Year 4 and the children have been hard working and been excited to explore more. This week, we’ve had the opportunity to learn about the finer things of Viking life, by designing and making our own Viking brooches. Nothing but the finest has been handcrafted by Year 4. Their work is well and truly worth raiding. In Science, we have continued to look at animals including humans by classifying animals by their bone structures or physical qualities. The children applied their scientific knowledge to group and categorise questions into an identification key. Fabulous questions such as “Is it a mammal?” or “Is it a carnivore?” helped them classify a range of animals. In maths we’re moving away from our first unit Place value and progressing to our new unit Addition and Subtraction, children have already made a positive start using a range of manipulatives working with ever increasing 4 digit numbers.
Stars of the Week:
Neptune: Franklin Clowrey
Meteor: Jonah Grafton
Year 5 - Asteroid and Pluto
In Maths this week in Year 5, we started our addition and subtraction unit. As column addition and subtraction are methods introduced in previous year groups, it’s been a great opportunity to practise and master the methods. We will continue using these methods next week as we tackle multi-step problems! The children are thoroughly enjoying our class text ‘Street Child’ and can’t seem to wait for Guided Reading each day when we read the next chapter and find out what’s next for Jim, a character we are all rooting for! Children have practised the skill of inference this week and have shown some great understanding of what’s not actually said within the text. In Art, we used our observational drawings to develop a final design. There are some stunning final designs ready to be copied onto a polystyrene tile next week ahead of printing our William Morris inspired wallpaper. In History, children finished off researching Victorian punishment methods that they first heard about during our trip earlier in the half term. We are going to use our historical knowledge to write an information text in English during our final two weeks of the half term- look out for some particularly gruesome facts coming your way!
Stars:
Pluto- Evelyn Hare
Asteroid- Charlie Corbally
Year 6 - Nebular and Constellation
This week in year 6 we have been building our resilience and stamina when creating extended pieces of writing. We drafted, edited and presented writing from the perspective of one of our characters in Dangerous Waters. The grammar conventions required were included, as were lots of other precision edits. Great work everyone. We experimented with light, and looked at whether we could bend it round corners using angles of incidence and reflection. In maths we have focussed on factors, multiples and prime numbers. More and more children are reaching the investigation questions. This is something that all adults are thrilled about. Our skills also continued to be improved with an art lesson that focussed on shading and texture. We will then apply them to our upcoming Titanic themed art lessons. Dangerous Waters (our guided reading text) continues to keep us in suspense, with twists and turns aplenty, while we wait for the inevitable to happen!
Stars:
Nebular: Oscar Miller
Constellation: Isla Heslop