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Weekly Newsletter
Friday 22nd September 2023
This week in school
Starting school in September 2024 Applications will be open from 12 October. If your child is due to start school in September 2024 (if they will have their 5th birthday btween 1.9.2024 and 31.8.2025) then you need to apply for a primary school place for September 2024. Applications should be made online at https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/education-and-learning/school-admissions and the deadline is 15 January. You can still apply after this, but your application will be dealt with after all the others and you may not gte your first choice school.
Even if your child already comes to our nursery, you still need to apply for a place in Reception.
Extra-curricular clubs This week we sent out a Google Form to see the levels of interest in 2 possible clubs (dance and drama) for children in Year 1 and Year 2. Please reply if you are interested as we will need to confirm with the providers so these can go ahead. Thanks.
A message from the Parish Council
We need your voices and your input to make our community even better!
Join us for a Public Meeting on Thursday, September 28th 2023, at 6:30pm at the Brayton Community Centre.
Let's come together to address Anti-Social Behaviour concerns that have been affecting Brayton Community Centre and playing field, as part of a community conferencing approach.
Your opinions matter, and we want to hear from YOU!
This meeting is a fantastic opportunity for us to:
Share our concerns
Exchange ideas
Collaboratively find solutions
Strengthen our community bonds
Light refreshments will be available to keep us going as we discuss the way forward! Your presence can make a real difference. Let's make Brayton an even better place to live!
Y6 applications for secondary school September 2024 Information has been coming out about applying for secondary school places, and the local schools are having their open afternoons and evenings. We would definitely recommend that you go along to these with your child so that you can make your decision. The deadline for applications is 31 October 2023: applications after this date are treated as 'late' after all the others, and may mean that you don not get a place at your first choice of school.
Term dates 2023-24 The term dates for this school year are on the school website at https://brayton-cofe-primary-school.secure-primarysite.net/term-dates/
We have had to make a slight change to the training days in 2024: children are now expected back in school on Monday 8 January 2024 after the Christmas break, and there will be a training day on Friday 24 May 2024 instead of this.
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
The first set of attendance figures are out, showing a good start for us, but also reflecting the high amount of absence due to illness over last week. The poster shared on Dojo today has sound advice about whether your child should be absent, and how long for (in the case of illnessed such as chicken pox). Please remember, we will always contact you if your child is unwell during the day, so please make sure they are here as much as possible. With your help we made massive improvements in attendance over last year and this is now better across school than it has been in a very long time!
We would also remind you that, according to the new guidance for schools, ANY leave for holidays should be unauthorised: there is no longer the 'up to 5 days/10 sessions' which can be authorised at the Headteacher's discretion.
DIARY DATES
Monday 2 October - Open classrooms 2:45pm-3:30pm
Wednesday 11 October - School photographs (individual and sibling)
Thursday 12 October - Applications for Reception September 2024 open
Tuesday 17 October - Harvest at St Wilf's (am) TBC, please save the date
Thursday 26 October - School closes for half term
Friday 27 October - Training day (school closed to children)
Tuesday 31 October - Closing date for secondary school applications
Monday 6 November - School opens
Friday 22 December - School closes for Christmas
Monday 8 January - School opens
Friday 9 February - School closes for half term
Thursday 21 March - School closes for Easter
Friday 22 March - STAR MAT training day (schools closed to children)
Monday 8 April - School opens
Monday 6 May - May Day Bank Holiday
Thursday 23 May - School closes for half term
Friday 24 May - Training day (school closed to children)
Monday 3 June - School opens
Friday 19 July - School closes for summer
Monday 22 July - Training day (school closed to children)
Happy Birthdays!
Many many many many happy returns next week to.....
Annie Scott
James Smith
Macy Adkin
Alex Holliday
Alex Robinson
Evelyn West
Luca Cobbold
From St Wilf's
As autumn rapidly approaches it is time to think about the Autumn Fair.
The date has been set for Saturday 11th 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 last year.
If you are able to help in any way please let Pat Jarvis or Lis Middup know.
We will need volunteers for all the usual stalls; tombola, raffle, toiletries, nearly new children's things, along with a cafe.
If you have a new stall you'd like to introduce please let us know!
This week in classrooms
Nursery - Stars
We have had such a busy week! We have really enjoyed sharing the story of ‘Leaf Man’ and reading about Autumn in our nonfiction book. We have enjoyed looking at all of the Autumnal things in the tuff tray. We have fished for leaves in the water tray and used our ‘funky fingers’ to hole punch leaves. In phonics this week we have continued to focus on our listening skills and have been listening to the sounds around us. We have also continued to listen to lots of stories and sing lots of rhymes. Our nursery rhyme of the week is ‘Humpty Dumpty’. In Maths we have been learning some Autumn number rhymes and sorting objects by colour.
Star of the Week: Seth Fisk
Reception - Moon and Mercury
It has been so wonderful to have our Reception children full of excitement and curiosity once again. The children have settled in very well and they are really getting stuck into Reception life. We have introduced Dough Disco™ which consists of a variety of fine muscle exercises and it supports children who are struggling to write letters. Studies have found that our fingers are one of the last things the brain controls during child development. In phonics this week, the children have been taught ‘i, n, m, d’. We are thrilled to have so many children reading decodable books in just their third week at school. In maths we have been matching objects, matching pictures and objects and identifying sets. It has been an amazing week of playing and discovering, however, we are extremely mindful that the children are still familiarising themselves with the school rules and routines. Please remember to be kind to yourselves - we know that we will have some very tired children.
Star of the week
Moon - Mina Fash-Hill
Mercury - Daisy Mortimer
Year 1 - Galaxy and Venus
It’s another lovely week in Year 1. We’ve felt it getting colder and wetter but that won’t stop our superheroes in Year 1! This week in Science we continued to explore our senses, the children have tried a range of foods to put their taste buds to the test. Sweet, sour, salty, spicy (a mild spice) the children did brilliantly at giving things a taste and discussing what they could sense. In English, we’ve been looking at our latest book, Superworm by Julia Donaldson! The children have been able to sequence the events of the story and write some fantastic sentences retelling the adventures. We have been blown away by their use of capital letters and full stops in their writing as this is a key year one skill. In maths, the children are increasing their place value knowledge by counting both forwards and backwards from numbers within 10.
Star of the week
Galaxy: Leo Willis
Venus: Mila Firth
Year 2 - Earth and Mars
We have had another hard working week again in Year 2. In English we have been continuing to learn how to write effective sentences in our sentence stacking lessons around Pirates. We are enjoying learning lots of new facts. In maths we have been continuing our work on place value and flexibly partitioning numbers to 100. In music this week, we have used instruments to find the pulse in a sea shanty and kept the pulse whilst playing the instruments. In history this week we have been learning about Felicity Aston, a famous explorer of Antarctica. In RE we have been learning about how Muslims pray. In Science we have been identifying and discussing the use of everyday materials and the properties of the materials used to make certain objects. In Art we have continued to learn about the works of David Hockney and explored different techniques using watercolours. Well done everyone - keep up the hard work!
Star of the Week
Earth: Dale Russell
Mars: Isla Harris
Year 3 - Jupiter and Saturn
It’s been a slightly unusual week for half of the children in Year 3, with Saturn relocating to the Hive due to a leaky roof in their classroom! A big well done for adapting to the sudden change of environment. In preparation for our independent writing next week, the children have planned their version of the ‘Stone Age Boy’ by creating detailed sentences that include the grammar features covered during our sentence stacking lessons. In Science, we continued learning about ‘Animals, Including Humans’, using laptops in pairs to research the habitats and diets of different animals. Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic were the buzz words in our History lesson this week - the children gathered as many facts as they could about each of these eras of the Stone Age which they will be adding to the timelines they created last week. In Maths, the children have been finding 1, 10, and 100 more/less than a given number and have learnt how to work out the missing numbers on number lines to 1000 using the start point, end point and number of intervals (quite tricky!).
Another busy week of learning! Keep up the good work, Year 3s. :)
Stars of the week
Saturn: Hazel Smith
Jupiter: Michael Knight
Year 4 - Neptune and Meteor
Wow, what another fantastic week from Year 4! The children have been hard at work yet again, finishing their different learning chunks in writing. This has culminated in their very own independent write, surrounding their own dreams. The children needed to incorporate lots of the different elements we looked at and had to use a checklist to tick these off as they went along. In Maths, the children have continued to look at Place Value and have targeted identifying and estimating numbers on a number line up to 10,000. In our Guided Reading, we have looked at a large chunk of our text ‘Treason’ this week and have loved getting further into the book and seeing what ends up happening to our main character. In History, we have focussed on ‘The Battle of Bosworth’ and ‘The War of Roses’, where we have looked at why the different roses are significant to the Tudors. In Music, we have continued to look at the different instrument sections in an orchestra and have looked at Brass this week. We were even lucky to have two virtual performances from two very special guests! In Art, we have looked at the work of ‘Henri Matisse’ and have even had a go at creating our very own versions of his work, by using collaging techniques!
Keep up the brilliant work Year 4, we are very proud of you all!
Stars of the week:
Meteor: Evie McKenzie
Neptune: Iris Miller
Year 5 - Asteroid and Pluto
The pace is picking up in Year 5, and the children have really started to understand the expectations from now on. So first of all, well done to you all. We have seen how much effort you are putting into your work, especially in your English writing. It has been a bit of a jump from Year 4 writing, to Year 5 writing, where it is more independent than they realised. However, once these children have been taught an objective, they have used it as their mission to try and use it in every piece of work. We were happy with their setting descriptions, and we certainly can not wait to see how good their character descriptions will be next week. We have nearly finished our Place Value work in Maths. We have been comparing and ordering numbers up to a million this week, and have introduced reasoning challenges, for those who finish their White Rose book. We have seen some minor issues with recalling their multiplication, so it looks like we will have to start a year group battle between the classes again!
Stars of the week:
Asteroid - Jack Major
Pluto - Ellie Cooper
Year 6 - Nebular and Constellation
This week in year 6, the minutes, seconds and hours have flown by and we cannot believe it is Friday already! In maths we have completed our work on place value and moved on to the operations of addition and subtraction, factors and common multiples - remember to keep practising those times tables everyone. This knowledge is vital! In English, we have completed our persuasive texts and presented them to a level even White Star Line would be proud of. They are so convincing that the staff are disappointed that there isn’t a cruise like this available for them in the near future. In Science, we have completed our work on light; understanding how it travels, how it helps us to see and why shadows appear to get bigger or smaller. The scientific diagrams that have been created are technically perfect. In guided reading, our characters are on board the Titanic - but poor Patrick couldn’t make it as a trimmer, so he is the Demigod of Spit! What a job to find himself doing. We have also created annotated blueprints of Titanic which display where the different classes were located and what facilities they had access to. One would rather fancy First-class over steerage any day! We are slowly becoming the year 6 children we need; well done! Enjoy a restful weekend.
Stars:
Constellation: Freddy Barrett
Nebular: Oscar Dyson