Dear Parents/Carers,

• We can't believe that we are already half way through our first half term at Byfleet. As the season is turning, there have been an above average number of children with coughs and vomiting that have caused them to not be well enough to attend school. Our whole school target for attendance is 97% and unfortunately we are below this at 96.01%.

• Attendance:

Reception: 98.7% Year 1: 95.2% Year 2: 94.4% Year 3: 95.3% Year 4: 95.5% Year 5 Indigo: 93.6% Year 5 Blue: 98.5% Year 6: 94.8%

• Just a quick reminder: if you wish to speak to your child's teacher, please do so at pick up time or you can write a note in their reading diary. Our office is open so you are welcome to pass a message to Mrs Sopp or Mrs Creswick in the mornings or send us an email (info@byfleet.surrey.sch.uk) too. Please be mindful of asking to speak to the teacher or TA in the mornings as unfortunately they are unavailable at this time.

• Start of day gate opening: Reception may come into school from 8.30. Year 1 - Year 6 stagger their start with our 'slow start' to the school day between 8.35 - 8.45. We have noticed that most parents/carers arrive for 8.35 resulting in this time of the morning being congested. Between 8.40 - 8.45 there are only a small minority of parents/carers opting to arrive at this time, making it less congested. If you feel that 8.35 is too busy, please opt to arrive between 8.40 -8.45 as the registers are still open during this period.

• At the end of October, we say goodbye to Mrs Griffiths, our School Business Manager, who moves on from Byfleet. We would like to say a huge thank you to her for helping us balance our budget and saving us money along the way, which has afforded us some of the great improvements brought about recently, like our new music lessons, outdoor climbing equipment and some new chromebooks. We welcome Mrs Frampton as our new SBM after half term.

• It has been lovely to see some of the homework projects coming into school for your child to share with their peers. Please continue to add any photos of homework projects on Google Classroom or feel free to send the projects into school - we'd love to see what your child is getting up to at home.

• Breakfast Club and After School Club is available if this is something you are considering for your child. Please liaise with Mrs Sopp in the school office for further details.

• Some parents/carers have enquired about music lessons for their child(ren). Surrey Arts provide peripatetic lessons for a range of instruments, which can be taught during the school day or after hours. Please click on this link to visit Surrey Arts website for more information, and liaise directly with them if you are interested. They will be in touch with us at Byfleet if you have registered your interest so that we can make arrangements in school.

• Our school cleaning company, Busy Bees Cleaning Company, has a vacancy for a school cleaner to work at Byfleet Primary Monday – Friday, 4pm – 6.30 pm for 12.5 hrs per week, £9.00 per hr. A DBS will be required (BBCS will apply for this on their behalf). If you are interested, please contact Mobile 07973 353074.

Big thanks to Mr Bostock, our PE lead, for organising a fun morning full of activities for the whole school.

This Wednesday, we celebrated National Fitness Day to further our learning on why it is important to keep fit. The children spent half an hour in the morning partaking in one large circuit which was supported by our amazing Year 6 children. We loved to see the smiles on the children's faces as they were getting involved in jumping jacks, the Fresh Air Fitness, the Climbing wall, sprints and more!

Each class then spent some time discussing why it was important to keep fit and how they can make simple changes in their lives.

For more information about National Fitness Day, please visit https://www.nationalfitnessday.com/

A final reminder.............A message from the Rotary Club of Woking......

On the 10th October we will be holding the annual Woking Swimathon at the Pool in the Park, Woking, raising funds for local charities.

It is a non competitive fun event made up of teams of up to 6 swimmers who take it in turn to swim just one length at a time. It isn't necessary for each swimmer to swim the same number of lengths but on average each swimmer does approx. 10-20 lengths during just under 1 hour. Each team member gets sponsorship for the teams total number of lengths swum, anything up to 100 lengths or more.

Each team member who takes part will be given a commemorative medal. Several local schools normally take part in the event, sometimes entering more than one team.

If you think that any particular year groups at Byfleet Primary School would be interested in participating in the event, please arrange this via your class Whatsapp groups and keep us informed so that we can do a 'shout out' for our children.

For any further information, please contact our chief organiser Terry Smith MBE on 01483 762832 or: terry@wychstar.co.uk

Keith Tatlock, The Rotary Club of Woking on 01932 349803

It's been brilliant to see how quickly our Reception Rainbows have settled in. Here's some of the writing they've been doing.....

• At Byfleet, we use a 'mastery' maths approach, which focusses not only on getting the correct answer to calculations or problems, but specifically emphasising 'how' they solved the problem by describing 'why' they have chosen a particular route. We follow a scheme called 'Maths No Problem!'

• Many children are able to find the correct answer to questions however they aren't always able to explain how they solved the problem. We are having a big focus this year on deepening children's understanding of solving problems using more than one strategy; this is called reasoning.

• We will be focussing on children using the correct mathematical vocabulary to explain their reasoning.

• We have invested in new 'concrete' resources (unifix cubes, Numicon, place value counters etc.) to help us embed the use of CPA (concrete, pictorial and abstract); most children divert to the 'abstract' stage so we are now encouraging them to use 'concrete' resources and 'pictorial' drawings to deepen their understanding. Please see the illustration below for examples of how CPA is used.

• If you wish to use our Breakfast & Afterschool Club please ensure you have made a booking online using our online system. Please remember that there is an advance booking requirement of 48hrs. This week we have had an additional 20 pupils turn up to use our clubs which obviously affects our staffing ratios.

• From Monday, children turning up to Breakfast club without a prior booking may be turned away should our staffing ratios not allow for them to be accommodated. Children without an Afterschool Club booking or prior agreement with school office to attend, will no longer be accepted directly into our After School Club. From a safeguarding point of view, we have a duty to make contact with parents/carers and understand why they haven't been collected at the end of the school day. Any children in this situation, will be taken to the school office where a phone call home will be made.

• Should we have the space, the children may be able to join the club at this point by mutual agreement, but again due to staffing ratios, we are not able to guarantee this. Should space not be available, your child will need to wait in the office to be collected. We thank you for your understanding and support in tightening up on our procedures.

Tax-Free Childcare

• We are pleased to confirm that the issues with our HMRC account have finally been resolved and we are now able to receive payments for ASC and BC sessions through the scheme again. The school code for making payments has however changed.

• Please ensure all future payments are sent to Byfleet Primary School with the code 147671.

• For parents/carers that might be interested in taking advantage of the scheme, more information can be found at https://www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare