Weekly Newsletter
Friday 8th September 2023
This week in school
Welcome back It stills feels like summer for us this week! Everyone has settled into their classroom routines so well this week and, despite the heat and the tiredness, the children have done really well in their new classes.
We will be holding our informal open classrooms/meet the teacher session again in early October and we look forward to seeing you in school then (see diary dates below for date and time).
Staff Welcome too to our new staff: Mrs Victoria Goodall (Y5 Asteroid) and Mrs Rebecca Rowley (Y1 Venus); they have been enjoying getting to know the children and settling in. Congratulations too to Mrs Alison Clayton, who has returned as Mrs Mead following her wedding this summer.
Wraparound care Our breakfast and after-school clubs are very busy as a result of the sudden closure of Phazers over the summer break. Mrs Mansell and Mrs Mulvey spent a lot of time during the break sorting out amendments and new bookings, and we have had to work quickly on setting up the staffing to cover the sessions. After this first week everything is now settling down, with regular staff and routines being established.
Please be aware that we cannot accept any children without th booking form as we are so busy, especially for breakfast club. We are setting up a waiting list system in case of last minute cancellations but we understand this may not be all that helpful when you need to get to work!
Phazers after school provision has been taken over by Sparkles Day Nursery in Selby, and they are collecting children from school. Their website is https://sparklesdaynursery.org.uk/ for further information.
RAAC Following on from my Dojo message about the school buildings, please see this further communication from the STAR central team:
Following the widely reported issue of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in schools across the UK, as the Responsible Body we wanted to communicate and provide an update regarding the status at our Trust.
Earlier this year the Department for Education (DfE) requested that all Trusts with buildings constructed between 1930 and 1990 complete a questionnaire. This was fully completed and returned on time.
On receipt of our completed questionnaires, external surveys for relevant STAR MAT schools were commissioned through Hibbert Smith Consulting Ltd, concluding that the ‘likelihood of RAAC panels being utilised as part of the building structure at the schools in question is considered to be very low.’ The DfE confirmed that no further action was required by the Trust. Despite this response from the DfE we have conducted additional inspections in our schools during training day closures - all of which concluded with the same outcome.
We continue to monitor the situation and the ongoing risk assessment in line with all guidance around this and all other aspects of compliance, Health and Safety. The safety and welfare of our students, staff and families is paramount.
If you have any questions regarding this matter please contact enquiries@starmat.uk.
Y5 & Y6 children If you feel that as your child is getting older, they are able to either walk home independently or meet a family member on the Green, please let us know at the school office so that we can update your consents and let staff know.
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 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
No up to date attendance figures are available yet as this is the first week back, but we ended last year just below 95%. Although this was higher than national and regional figures, there is still plenty of room for improvement as the DfE's attendance target for schools is 96%. 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!
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 26 October - School closes for half term
Friday 27 October - Training day (school closed to children)
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.....
Sam Coltman
Seth Fisk
Taylor Sheldon
Bettie Hanson
Scarlett Mead
Ruby Corbally
George Watson
Evelyn Hare
Charlotte Broadbent
This week in classrooms
Nursery - Stars
What a fantastic first week we have had; we are so proud of the children, they have walked in with smiles on their faces and settled into their new setting brilliantly. Well done Stars!
This week, the children have explored their nursery environment, both indoors and outdoors, and have enjoyed accessing all the different provisions available. Throughout the course of the week, we have focused on settling in and getting to know each other, learning nursery routines and structures, for instance story times and phonics.
Star of the Week: Arthur Hazell
Reception - Moon and Mercury
It has been a real pleasure to meet all of your children at last and to welcome them into our school family.
The children have had a fantastic first week at school. They all look so smart and grown up in their new uniforms and have made a super start to settling into Reception. They were so excited to see their old friends from Nursery as well as meeting new friends who have just joined our school this academic year.
We have been getting to know your children and finding out what their interests are. They have explored the provision and are learning how to access it independently. The children have baked biscuits and they made afternoon snack much tastier. They have even done an amazing job of tidying up and putting all of the resources away at the end of the morning / afternoon.
We can’t wait to have lots more fun this half term in our new learning environment. We are looking forward to another brilliant week next week - Thank You Reception - you are superstars!
Star of the week:
Moon - Beau Wanless
Mercury - Skylar Leasley
Year 1 - Galaxy and Venus
It’s been a fantastic first week! The children have grown so much over summer and all made an excellent start to Year 1. We started the week settling into class and working together to produce some lovely artwork in the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo. The children creatively used vegetables to help them produce vegetable styled portraits before drawing their own vegetable themed examples. The children have been able to show off their fabulous phonics knowledge from last year and have made a great start to their ELS work this week, exploring the graphemes ay, ou and ie. In PSHE, the children used the classic Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney to help them consider how they are loved and who their support networks are.
Star of the week:
Venus- Blake Shaw
Galaxy- Piper Hartley
Year 2 - Earth and Mars
Welcome back! What a fantastic first week! We are so proud of how the children have settled into Year 2 and are coping with new routines. We have talked about our own class rules and have written stories about a magic key. We have practised our handwriting and recapped our knowledge of vowels and consonants. In maths we have been working on place value, and have been counting and describing numbers in tens and ones. Our RE topic this half term is learning about what Muslims believe. This week we learned they have 99 names for God and thought about ways we can describe God. In art we have started learning about the artist David Hockney and enjoyed experimenting with painting techniques. In PE we began our unit of work on hockey and enjoyed using the equipment. We have had a really busy week!
Star of the Week
Earth: Anna Sorrell
Mars: Ryder Varley and Jaxson Noble - Burns
Year 3 - Jupiter and Saturn
Welcome back! What an extremely warm and humid start to Year 3 we’ve had! Despite the hot weather, the children have worked incredibly hard this week, showing us that they are ready for the ‘slightly faster’ pace of Year 3. On Tuesday, we launched our history-based topic ‘Stone Age to Iron Age’ by stepping into the shoes of an archaeologist searching for signs of early humans inside the stone age caves in our classrooms. Excitedly, the children looked closely at an assortment of prehistoric art inside the caves, then created their own cave art, inspired by what they had seen. The children then went on to read and analyse our new class text ‘Stone Age Boy’, written and illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura, and wrote sentences linked to the first two plots of the story in our writing lessons, focusing on adjectives and precise verbs to communicate clear meaning to the reader. Place value is our first unit of learning in maths – this week we have recapped representing and partitioning numbers to 100, as well as identifying numbers on a number line. In Computing, the children began learning how to create a digital comic strip using the content editor in the online software at https://makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/. In French, the children learnt how to count to ten and identify the corresponding French number words. In PE, we are learning how to play hockey; this week we introduced the hockey stick to the children alongside the safety rules that go with using it. ‘Foods for Growth’ and ‘Foods for Energy' was our learning focus in Science this week – can your child tell you the foods that fit into each category?
Well done, Year 3, a fantastic first week of learning! We are very proud of you - keep up the good work!
Stars of the week
Saturn: Grace Short
Jupiter: Penelope Wood
Year 4 - Neptune and Meteor
Wow, what a fantastic first week back it has been! It has been a pleasure getting to know all your fantastic children. Although it is only the first week, that hasn’t stopped us from getting straight on and being incredibly busy. In writing, we have started looking at our first text of the term ‘The BFG’ written by Raold Dahl. We had a fantastic day on Thursday having an experience day. We got to eat lots of fantastic ice cream and had to use gobblefunked adjectives to describe different components of them e.g. what they tasted like, what the texture was like. In Maths, we have been looking at Place Value and specifically numbers up to 1,000. The children have eased through this and have even got onto a number of different challenges set for each lesson. In Guided Reading we have focussed on our text for this term ‘Treason’ and the children have really loved getting stuck into the first few chapters of the book. In RE, we have looked at Hinduism and specifically the many different Gods and Deities in this religion. The children had a task to compare two different ones of their choice and to draw their pictures in their books.
This week has really made us look forward to the coming weeks and we cannot wait to get going with the next week! Keep up the amazing work Year 4.
Stars of the week:
Meteor: Harry Grey
Neptune: Esta Heslop
Year 5 - Asteroid and Pluto
The children have really hit the ground running this week in Year 5. Some children have really taken to the challenge, and others - despite being surprised at the expectations - have been working their hardest to impress us. We have started reading ‘Viking Boy’ in Guided Reading, a story about a boy called Gunnar, whose family steading is set alight by a family friend. The children have shown a huge interest in the book, which is fantastic as it will want them to know more. We are also going to be using the book and our History lessons to write character and setting descriptions over the next couple of weeks, so we look forward to see how creative they can be with their writing. In Art, the children started looking at William Morris paintings and understanding why and how he created his work. Next week, the children will be drawing plants and will be working towards their own ‘William Morris’ creation.
Stars
Asteroid - Martha-Mae Barker
Pluto - Savannah Swift-Lampitt
Year 6 - Nebular and Constellation
The year 6 team could not have asked for a better start to a new year. The children have begun with focus and all worked with a willingness to learn. We have successfully ‘launched’ our Dangerous Waters topic, learning about the RMS Titanic and why it was so important for Britain at the time, the range of passengers it carried, and also many numerical facts relating to the vessel (Who knew that it carried 40,000 fresh hen’s eggs!)
In maths, the children have been learning about all things place value, and we have begun to delve into our class text - a thief, a mysterious old book, and an as yet unknown millionnaire; where could this possibly be going?
Our first English topic will be persuasive writing, so we used modal verbs to affect degrees of possibility. In Maths, we have been all about place value to 10,000,000 and much to the children’s chagrin, writing numbers as words! That was some hard going for day three - so much writing! : )
Keep doing what you are doing everyone, and you will have two happy teachers.
Stars:
Constellation: Charlie Corbally
Nebular: Evelyn Hare