Weekly Newsletter
Thursday 25th May 2023
This week in school
Annie Jr One of our highlights of the year so far has to be the performance of Annie Jr by the drama club last night! It was amazing to watch the children shining in their role(s) and to be able to share this with family and friends. We were so very proud of all the young performers who have worked so hard on their singing and learning their words: I might have had a tear in my eye at a couple of points...
Huge thanks of course to Mr Close for his producer/director skills and to Mr Warner for his singing skills, and all the other helpers who have supported the children and given up their time for this.
Staffing update We have been busy this week with the interview process for 2 new teachers and have successfully appointed new members for the team in September. At the moment this is subject to all the pre-employment checks so we will let you have more information once these are all through.
Access to school You will have seen that the barrier has been installed and is closed to all except emergency vehicles between 8:30-9:15am and 2:45-3:30pm. The barrier will NOT be opened within these times for any reason.
SAVE THE DATE Summer Fair Our Summer Fair will be on Thursday 6 July, running straight after school from 3:30-5:30pm. We are planning for lots of stalls and activities, with each class taking charge of a stall, as well as visiting stalls, refreshments, bouncy castle/inflatable and the ice cream van.
Drinks in school As the weather is finally getting warmer, please remember to send your child with a water bottle to school. We do ask that children only have water to drink during the day, as this is the best way to stay hydrated as well as saving their teeth! We also don't want anything that may be sticky or coloured being spilt on any books or equipment.
OMG Healthy Start Scheme for families This is a scheme to support families who are expecting a baby or have a child aged under 4. It includes financial support to help with buying healthy foods and milk. You can find out more at https://www.healthystart.nhs.uk/what-youll-get-and-how-to-shop/
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
Attendance figures dropped again last week, mainly due to holiday-related absence.
The DfE's attendance target for schools is 96%, and as a school we need to be working towards this. With your help there have been massive improvements in attendance over this year and this is now better across school than it has been in a very long time!
As we get into the summer term there has also been an increase in requests for leave due to holidays: we will be putting a much higher number of these forward for Fixed Penalty Notices in May and June than any months so far. Taking your child out of school has a significant impact on their learning, especially where we have seen requests for leave at the very start of the new school year. At this time, children need to be settling into their new classes and routines, and getting to know their new teachers.
DIARY DATES
Friday 26 May - Training day (school closed to children)
Monday 5 June - School opens
Wednesday 28 June - Sports Day (details and timings TBC)
Thursday 6 July - School Summer Fair, 3:30-5:30pm
Tuesday 25 July - School closes for summer holiday
Happy Birthdays!
Many many many many happy returns over half term and the following week to.....
Violet Durnin
Zachary Foulger
Sienna-Rose Stewart
Reuben Evans
James Thackery
Penelope Durnin
Persephone Hay
Finlay Donaldson
George Walker
Jonah Grafton
Katie Adams
Harley Robinson
Amos Barker
Amelia Albyn
Monty Waugh
Mabel Waugh
Logan Gibbard
Isabella Rampling
Joshua Littlewood
This week in classrooms
Nursery - Stars
his week in Stars we have continued our minibeasts theme, as the children have been so engaged and eager to learn more. We have focussed on bees and the story ‘The Bumblebear’ by Nadia Shireen. Bumblebear tells the story of Norman, the honey loving bear, who decides to be a bee in order to get more honey. In this story, Norman soon realises he loves being a bee and the bees love the giant bee Norman. The children have painted bees, made bees out of pine cones and created playdough bees. Our rhymes of the week have been ‘The Ants Go Marching’ and of course ‘The Bees Go Buzzing’.
In phonics we have continued to look at the key skill of oral blending and the segmenting of sounds in words. In maths we have recapped 3D shapes and looked at their properties using words such as straight, flat, round, curved.
Thank you for all your support. We hope you have a lovely half term break.
Star of the Week - Evalyn Rushton
Reception - Moon and Mercury
What an exciting week in Reception! On Monday we began with ‘People who help us and emergency vehicles. The children have been learning about the police, firefighters, and people who help us at school. We used Ipads and non-fiction books to help us find out what they each do in their role. Then we looked at some of the equipment they use and identified how it might be used. We also wrote questions which we wanted to ask the firefighters and police. Unfortunately, Selby fire crew had to cancel because they were so busy. We can’t wait for it to be rearranged! On Wednesday, we had an exciting visit from a Police Officer. She told us about her police uniform and how the Police help the community. We were able to ask lots more questions and we even got to see the Police van. Thank you for visiting us!’ In phonics we focussed on adding -er and -est, for example: long, longer, longest. As we are fast approaching our final half-term holiday in Reception, please may we ask that you try to support your child to learn those harder to read spell words and share their decodable book on Oxford Owl. In Maths we continued to practise counting accurately (to 10/20). We also revisited shape, using mathematical vocabulary to describe different 2d shapes and the children created their own shape picture. Next, we explored the different arrangements and shapes that we built using a tangram.
Thank you for continued support and have a lovely break.
Star of the week
Moon: Reggie Russell
Mercury: Sienna Mangan
Year 1 - Galaxy and Venus
Wow, what a brilliant week for Year 1! We have had a fantastic time exploring our final text of ‘The Lorax’. In Writing, we have looked at creating our own comic strips based on the story and have focussed on questioning and dialogue between characters throughout this. The children absolutely loved being able to draw their own characters and utilising bold colours in their comic strips. Once these had been completed, the children were able to act them out and specifically perform the speech they had included between characters. In Maths, we have recapped previous topics and consolidated anything we may previously have struggled with, including finding quarters and halves of shapes and amounts. The children have found this pretty easy and have really built on their confidence with these specific topics. In PE, we have continued to practice our cricket skills and have recently applied these into playing a full game of cricket. The children absolutely loved this and were brilliant! In Science, we have looked at differentiating deciduous and evergreen trees and this involved the children going on a tree hunt to try and find some examples of each of these. In Music, we were able to perform our final pieces based on graphic notation using a selection of instruments. The children performed it beautifully, maintaining their composure and ensuring they focussed carefully on the different sounds they were producing.
Well done for another fantastic week. We are so proud of how well you have all worked this half term and can’t wait to see you all next term! Have a lovely break all and we shall see you in a week!
Stars of the week:
Galaxy - Harry Hardy
Venus - Isla Harris
Year 2 - Earth and Mars
We have had another fantastic week in Year 2 to bring the half term to an end. The children have continued to work really hard. In English we have written our own poems - “If I Were in Charge of the Country’. There are some fabulous ideas and the children have used their skills from our sentence stacking lessons to create their own version. In Guided Reading we have created a story map around the text we have been reading ‘A New Home’.
In RE we have been looking at places of worship in our community. The children looked at the websites of our local church, St Wilfrid’s and of York mosque to create posters to share with the community about what these places have to offer.
In Geography the children have been tasting and evaluating foods from China - the prawn crackers proved to be very popular! Luckily the children have also written instructions for How to Clean Your Teeth in PSHE so they are experts at this now!
In Science we have been observing and evaluating all that we’ve been growing and thinking about why they have grown, or not! We were amazed to learn that plants can still start to grow without light and soil!
We have also enjoyed playing cricket in the sunshine outside in PE this week and maintaining our fitness levels.
We hope everyone has a lovely break and enjoys the well deserved rest!
Stars of the week:
Earth - Reuben Shooter- Slack
Mars -Jemma Richardson
Year 3 - Jupiter and Saturn
Another very busy and productive week in Year 3! This half term has truly flown - time flies when you're having fun! Our class text ‘Flood’ has continued to be the focus in both English and Guided Reading. On Tuesday, we had our first ‘Flood’ experience day, where we channelled our inner actor by stepping into the panicked shoes of the four family members, as they hurriedly gathered their belongings ready to evacuate before a monstrous storm engulfed their home. All the children thoroughly enjoyed creating the script and then performing within small groups to the rest of the class; it’s clear to see we have some budding actors in our midst! In PE, the children enjoyed playing cricket for the final week, putting into practice the batting and fielding skills they have learnt throughout the term from the Yorkshire Cricket Board coaches. Charcoal stole the show in art this week, the children recreated Rembrandt's Elephant for a second time using an alternative medium to graphite - they were mesmerised by the tactility and effects of charcoal. In Maths, the children developed their understanding of days, weeks, months and years. They also learnt how to find the duration between given start and end times on a numberline.
We hope everyone has a lovely break and enjoys a well deserved rest!
Stars of the week:
Saturn: Lewis Nicholson
Jupiter: Oscar Betteridge
Year 4 - Neptune and Meteor
This half term has well and truly flown by. Where is our time going in year 4! Another productive week for us. The children’s hard work over the past few weeks has come to its finale and all of their practice has paid off. Our ebook fact files look fantastic and are bursting with details about our chosen Greek God. Equally, we’ve spent weeks finessing our painting skills to produce portrait paintings of our chosen Gods, the progress that everyone has made has really been evident, week on week the detail is finer and the control of the paintbrush that much sharper. In English, we have launched into our newest unit. We will be looking at poetry for our next piece of writing, inspired by the poem The River by Valarie Bloom. We’ve explored a range of vocabulary which will be extremely useful when we move on to write our own poems.
We also have logged into the Practice Official Multiplication Check, we are counting down the weeks until it’s the real deal! I hope everyone has a lovely restful week off to fully recharge their batteries, we can’t wait to see you after the half term!
Stars
Meteor - Elise Catton
Neptune - Savannah Swift- Lampitt and Jessica Loose
Year 5 - Asteroid and Pluto
This half term has flown by and we have worked hard right up until the very last minute! We have just finished Holes. The children were pleased to discover how everything worked out right in the end for the characters involved. It’s been another really enjoyable class read this half term. I wonder what text Miss Goddard and Mr Fash-Hill have planned for next half term? As we finished Holes, we spent some time in Guided Reading summarising the story by rewriting a sentence of Sachar’s blurb. We added our blurb sentences to a Year 5 padlet. In English, we have completed our balanced argument discussing whether the campers should dig daily at Camp Green Lake. We have spent time this week drafting and editing to ensure our final piece demonstrates our full writing potential. In Maths, we have completed another unit- shape. We have worked through coordinates, translation, symmetry and reflection over a line. While we move onto decimals after the half term break, we will revisit this new shape learning in our FB4s. In RE, we have completed our first section of learning on Islam and concluded this week learning about Hajj. We discussed why Muslims go on this pilgrimage and what they gain from this journey. There were some thoughtful responses that demonstrated consideration and respect. We have enjoyed using the laptops and the padlet app this week to record our learning- look out for a dojo message for the opportunity to continue adding to our Year 5 Geography one over the half term. All of the adults in Year 5 wish you all a safe, restful and happy break. Happy holidays!
Asteroid: Niamh Jones
Pluto: Rhys Knight
Year 6 - Nebular and Constellation
Oh my word, what a week! We have continued to work as hard as we always do. Maths has covered the measuring and calculating of angles, we are all now proficient in using a protractor having built on our skills and knowledge from year 5. Our English has focussed on the mysterious man in the crate as we continue to use our class text Dog Head. We will continue to see how Jack copes with his little problem - the fact he is turning into the God of the Underworld even though he feels like a werewolf at this point in the story. He’s also got the prospect of changing schools to contend with - I wonder what advice we might have for him? We have written some excellent words of encouragement during RE as we have discussed what religions have to say about when times are hard. We particularly enjoyed using the laptops and the padlet app to produce these. In PE we have continued to enjoy competitive games of cricket, the lovely weather has helped too.
A good week everyone; it’s time now to enjoy a well deserved break before coming back for that all important final term of primary school.
Star of the week
Constellation- Summer Claydon
Nebular- Vivienne Foulger