Week 4...It's the PTA Winter/Christmas fair straight after school tonihgt, with the Brayton light switch-on at 5:15pm on the Green. The weather looks hopeful (not too cold!) for a lovely festive evening.
We also have the school Christmas Disco on Wednesday 18th December after school, with different timings for year groups. Please send cash in to your child's class teacher. Crisps and a drink are included, and there will be a tuck shop for sweets and other snacks.
Parents evenings next week The appointments on Tuesday are video calls, with Thursday being in person in the school hall. The system we have used before for online meetings has been moved over to a different package (which is why we had the delay setting up) and our server has been tested so we are very much keeping our fingers crossed! If there are any technical hiccups, we will still make sure that you have been able to talk with your child's teacher.
Privacy notices A reminder that all the STAR MAT privacy notices are available here https://web.starmat.uk/policies/ under GDPR policies.
Christmas Services at St Wilfrid's We will be heading to the church on Monday 16th December to share songs, readings and prayers. As usual we will go in 2 halves:
9:30am - Moon, Mercury, Earth, Saturn, Meteor, Pluto, & Nebular
10:45am - Galaxy, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, Asteroid & Constellation
Bags Please help us out with storing your children's belongings! Our space in school is very limited, and our cloakrooms and pegs just do not fit rucksack/backpack style bags as well as big winter coats! It would really help us if you would send bags that are smaller, and that either have a drawstring or a long strap that will hang down. We are finding lots of very bulky bags that take up more than 3 pegs' spaces, and have very little inside them! Thank you.
NSPCC Online Safety session for families The video from the online safety sessions held this week can be seen here if you were not able to make it https://youtu.be/MY5NDhvVkG4
School applications Applications are now open for children who are due to start school in September 2025. These should be made online at https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/education-and-learning/school-admissions The deadline for these applications is Wednesday 15th January 2025. Please remember, even if your child attends our nursery, you will still need to apply for a primary school place.
Reminder: start of the day The school day starts at 8:50am and children arriving after this time are marked as 'late'. The registers close at 9:10am which means that children arriving after this time are marked as 'U' ('late after registers') which counts as an unauthorised absence.
Attendance & illness In line with the new regulations around attendance, we are now having to share attendance information with North Yorkshire on a monthly basis. This includes where children have already missed a lot of time due to illness, and where we have reason to believe they may miss 15 days or more over the year (looking at patterns in the previous year) so the attendance team can pick this up. Obviously where a child has specific medical conditions or has had surgery we are mindful of this, but we do have children who have missed significant amounts of school through shorter blocks of illness which have added up to 20 or more days.
Contacting school Messages about absence, medicine, appointments & changes to after school picks ups must come through the school office either by phone 01757 704308 or email admin@bp.starmat.uk. Messages through Dojo don't work if a member of staff is absent, and also staff do not have their phones with them in the classrooms while they are working with the children so they can't always pick them up.
Term dates 2024-25 The term dates for this year are 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.
