Weekly Newsletter
Friday 24th March 2023
This week in school
STAR MAT pupil survey Years 4, 5 & 6 The STAR MAT are carrying out a pupil survey across all pupils from Y4 upwards. This is being done through an organisation called Edurio, and the survey was released this week via emails. All the schools have been asked to schedule time for this to be completed within the school day as this reduces some of the variables and will ensure consistency of approaches (there is a set of agreed communications). If you have seen this in your child's school email, it is legitimate and safe (it is fully anonymous) and does not need any action.
PE kit A reminder please that children should be wearing a plain white or royal blue T shirt and plain dark coloured hoodies...no logos, designer gear or football kits please. Thank you.
We have noticed this week that quite a few children have not had trainers to change into for PE: please make sure these are in school both for safety (a good grip) and to save a lot of cleaning!
Parents' evenings next week The on site appointments next week (Thursday) will be in the main hall again, with access through the door at the school office. All the teachers will be in the hall, with our head cook, Kim Whitehead, in the Hive with some tasters from the STAR Eats menu for families to try either before or after appointments. There will also be some seating in the Hive area where you will be able to wait but please be aware it may be a squeeze at busy times!
Just like in the autumn term, teachers will be sharing the most recent assessments with you; they will also be talking though where there are concerns around punctuality and/or attendance to work to improve this.
Work on site Finally the new fencing panels have been delivered and installed this week following the removal of the hedge between both buildings. The contractors also removed all the safety fencing, which means that the outdoor multi-gym equipment is now available at breaks. This has been incredibly popular so far with all ages of children (and staff!) and we will definitely look at adding more.
Governor vacancy: can you help? The STAR Multi-Academy Trust is a thriving community trust based in the Selby area, with 11 schools in both primary and secondary phases serving nearly 4500 students. Our mission is simple: to deliver an outstanding education for every young person such as they can flourish and achieve their full potential.
Now, more than ever, community schools and community Trusts such as STAR need the skills, insight and knowledge that governors from the wider community can bring.
The Governors at Brayton Church of England Primary School are looking to recruit a new member of their Governing Body and would be delighted to hear from our wider community, most especially those who may have backgrounds in finance, education, or HR.
Support and training for the role is provided: no experience of governance is needed
For more information please visit: https://web.starmat.uk/governance/governor-information/ or contact our Co-Chairs, Anna Pearce and Wendy Thompson, at cofg@bp.starmat.uk to arrange an informal discussion.
Please do share this information with family, friends and community contacts—unfortunately, the Board are unable to accept any applications from parents/carers but wider family members are welcome to contact us for more information
Contractors on site Work continues over the school site while we are (still) waiting for the new fencing delivery. Access around the site has been challenging at times and we are doing our best to manage this so thank you for being patient.
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/
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.
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
As we were expecting, attendance recovered last week to higher levels again, and we are really starting to see the difference this is making with learning and progress. We know that other local schools, particularly secondary, are struggling with attendance, so it is great for us to be in a positive place with this: thank you again for your support.
DIARY DATES
Wednesday 29 March - Parents' evening (video calls)
Thursday 30 March - Parents' evening (in person appointments)
Friday 31 March - School closes for Easter
Monday 17 April - School opens
Happy Birthdays!
Many many many many happy returns this week to.....
Emily Richardson
Albie Cooper
Riley Smith
Beatrix Horgan
This week in classrooms
Nursery - Stars
This week has been focussed around the well known story of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle. We have enjoyed reading the story lots of times, so that we know it really well, and we have watched an animation of the story too. The provision has mainly linked to our core text. We have made caterpillars and butterflies in the creative area, had a minibeast haven in the tuff tray, hole punched leaves in the finger gym and completed lots of threading challenges. We have talked about the life cycle of a butterfly and learnt a song called ‘ The Caterpillar on a leaf’. We have been observing the beans that we planted last week and have noticed that they are already starting to grow.
In phonics we have been looking at the initial sounds in words and matching objects that start with the same sound. In maths we have carried on with the number 4. We have done lots of subitising this week, using our fast eyes rather than our counting finger.
Star of the Week - Tommy Young
Reception - Moon and Mercury
Our week began with the first day of Spring. What a joy to be able to explore our school grounds and look for signs of Spring. We were all very excited to discover flowers, buds and blossom, as well as spotting several bird’s nests. Some children attempted to build a nest with sticks and twigs. We are now in awe of birds and how they manage to build nests with a beak!
During phonics we have continued to review the sounds that have been taught. The children are now working with so much independence and this is having such a positive impact on their reading and writing.
Our maths has involved thinking about number bonds of ten. Using numicon has really helped to develop our understanding and we have even started recording our maths, using mathematical symbols.
Bird-watching has been a firm favourite outdoors. We have even built our own bird hide! We have also experienced a range of weather while being outdoors, including the sighting of a rainbow!
We have continued to consider the importance of Easter during R.E and the significance of the cross as a Christian symbol. We compared how the bridge that helps the billy goats to eat the grass is similar to how the symbol of the cross is a bridge between Christians and God. We then decorated pictures of crosses.
We are extremely proud of how the children are progressing, thank you for your continued support.
Star of the Week
Moon – Evelyn West
Mercury – Rosie Durnin
Year 1 - Galaxy and Venus
What a busy week we have had in Year 1. We have continued our topic of ‘Beyond the Sea’, where in English we have written and shared shape poems based on a range of sea creatures, using powerful imaginative description, and in guided reading we have studied the text ‘The Brilliant Deep’ by Kate Messner, a beautiful text based on The Great Barrier Reef.
We continued this theme in science and geography, exploring fish habits and climate change, and its impact on ocean habitats. We travelled around the globe to Australasia, exploring human and physical features, as well as learning The Haka in P.E. In dance, showing unity and strength.
Through maths, we have revisited addition and subtraction with numbers to 20, whilst in history we have explored how family holidays have changed in the past 100 years.
A new chapter has begun in Galaxy, with the addition of Mrs Scoffin to our teaching team. She has made an excellent impact already building lovely relationships with the children.
Can we also take a moment to celebrate the pride we have for Venus’s first class worship to the rest of the school! The children continue to excel, and make us proud every day with their efforts and achievements.
Stars of the week
Galaxy - Arthur Skelding
Venus - Oliver Brown
Year 2 - Earth and Mars
Year 2 have been writing their own diaries of The Great Fire of London this week and we have been impressed by the detail they have remembered, the mature language they are using and their careful handwriting. Looking back through their books, you can really see the progress they have made so far this year. In History, we have been comparing firefighting in 1666 with the present day; there is a huge difference between a leather bucket filled in the river and our shiny red fire engines which can hold 400 buckets of water inside. We continued the fire theme in PSHE when we learnt about fire safety in the home and what to do if there was a fire. We learnt that it was not a good idea to stop to save your possessions like they did in 1666. In Music, we produced a class piece based on ‘The Great Fire of London using body percussion and instruments. The week ended on a high in DT when we began to make our Tudor houses with moving parts.
The children were excited to finally learn about fractions this week in Maths; they now know how to write a half as a fraction ( ½ ) as well as recognising it in shape and number. In Science we continued to investigate scientific questions, making predictions and carrying out our own tests. This week we wanted to know what made a feather fall slowly. We continued the theme of Easter in RE by discussing which part of the Easter story was most important to Christians today.
Star of the Week
Earth- Sofia-Leigh Pentland
Mars- Riley Cooke
Year 3 - Jupiter and Saturn
This week in English the children have been sentence stacking with a sharp focus on the craft and construction of sentences. During these lessons they have used a range of features such as Cause & effect language, sound similes, Technical language and dialogue. On Friday in our experience lesson the children watched clips showing different inventions and loved creating their own i-Robot dog which they have labelled with technical language and animal-specific language. We are really looking forward to reading the children’s independent explanation texts next week.
In maths the children have been adding and subtracting mass, measuring capacity and volume in millilitres and looking at equivalent capacities and volumes in both litres and millilitres.
In history the children have begun to create a timeline focusing on the achievers and inventors they have been researching this term. The children were also researchers again in science on Tuesday finding out about how the skeleton protects the body and how invertebrates are supported.
Star of the Week -
Jupiter - Nathan Younger
Saturn - Samuel Holmes
Year 4 - Neptune and Meteor
In history, the children have continued to learn more about Anglo-Saxons. We focused on how Anglo-Saxons devoted their artwork to Christianity and developed stone crosses for churches, some of which can be seen today. The children looked at photographs of traditional Anglo-Saxon stonework before designing their own crosses and making it. In English, the children have begun planning their independent writing where our Anglo-Saxon character will chased down a mysterious silhouette. Is it Grendel? Could it be the sea hag? Or perhaps the death dragon of the deep! We’ll need to wait and find out. In Science, the children were amazed in their latest experiment investigating different materials to discover which materials are conductors or insulators. In this lesson the children were incredibly excited to see which conductive materials would light their bulb proving it was a conductive material.
Star of the week
Meteor - Hadia Mirzakhel
Neptune - Savannah Swift-Lampitt
Year 5 - Asteroid and Pluto
Another good week in Year 5 this week! During Guided Reading, we have finally finished reading Cosmic, discovering Liam and Florida’s fate. What a totally brilliant read, that has inspired a number of great writing pieces this term from biographies to explanation texts to narratives to a newspaper report. In Maths, children concluded their learning on fractions, decimals and percentages and have started their new unit of learning on perimeter. We have found the perimeter of rectangles and rectilinear shapes, the latter proving challenging as we had to work out missing lengths and add a many number of sides to find the perimeter. In English, children have practised the skills (relative clauses, subordinate clauses and fronted adverbials to name a few) we are hoping to see within their newspaper report next week. Drafting has started, so we look forward to reading your final drafts- I wonder if any of you will have some juicy exclusives on the events running up to the rocket launch? In Science, children used the skill of questioning to identify and classify teeth ( teeth in gears or teeth in the human mouth?) and create a dichotomous key. Well done all, one more push until the holidays- keep up the effort and focus as we still have a whole lot of learning to do!
Stars of the week
Asteroid- Zack Jeffreys
Pluto- Chloe Riley
Year 6 - Nebular and Constellation
Wow! The weeks are flying by now, just one more week to the Easter break. Year 6 have had another incredibly hard working week and have tackled everything we have given them to do. In English we have spent this week completing our expert guide to mummification - including all the details of the intricate gory bits, I'm sure the Ancient Egyptian priests would be proud of these instructions to see their beloved pharaoh to their well deserved afterlife. The texts include all the relevant grammar conventions and some pictures to complete these well presented information guides. In maths we have been continuing our way through the topic of algebra and they are nailing it - well done everyone, we can now not only write expressions and equations but also breeze through a number of 2 step problems, even those with the 2 values to find. In our science this week we have been taking an enquiry skill approach to investigating ‘Which exercise affects our heart rate the most?’ The children all know how to take both a radial and carotid pulse reading as well as which activities are going to keep our hearts healthy. Finally, in our guided reading, we have come to the end of our exciting and adventurous journey with Lil, Tulip and Oz to Egypt at the time of Howard Carter and his amazing find of Tutankhamun’s tomb, thankfully, we now know his heart remains with his beloved friends back in the desert, basking in the morning sunlight. Keep up the effort everyone, you are doing well and there’s loads more to come.
Stars:
Nebular - Frankie Nicholson
Constellation - Billy Wright