Byfleet Primary Newsletter

Dear Parents/Carers,

• It was lovely to see our children dressed in their Christmas jumpers this week; everyone enjoyed their Christmas dinner, they pulled some crackers and sang some lovely carols. The day was ended with lots of fun and games at the class parties.

• A big well done to Year 4 who have been using Google Classroom this week to access their learning. We've had some terrific feedback from parents regarding our remote learning offer so a big well done to Mr Ney for keeping things going for the children.

• It's been another challenging week re staffing due to self-isolating or being ill. Inevitably, there have been many pupils off this week for similar reasons. It goes without saying that this has been an unusually pressing time for us all so thank you for all your kind words and support whilst we've tried to keep our school open, whilst putting safety first. We hope everyone is feeling much better.

• Today is Mrs Scipior's and Miss Hurn's last day at BPS. We wish them well in her future endeavours.

• All the children in school had a Christmas visit from Reverend McCabe, who spoke to the children about the Christian message behind Christmas and wished our community a very merry Christmas!

• Our club bookings for the Spring term have now gone live. We're excited to be offering 17 different clubs across the Spring term, such as Gym, Football, KS 2 Choir, Board Games, Lego Club, Book Club, Science Club and Jam Computer Coding. Please check your emails for more information.

• Inclusion Coffee Morning will be rescheduled for Thursday 20th January 2021 at 9am.

• Maths reminder: if you child uses Doodle Maths, there is a fun maths advent calendar competition currently running. Please take part for your child to earn a metal badge if they complete the competition. Please also encourage your child to continue using Doodle Maths over the Christmas break to keep up their fluency. Epic reading is also available on Google Classroom to select some new books to read.

• If you are interested in your child signing up for 1-1 or small group music tuition from Mr Gillani, our music teacher, please see the section below.

The Winter Mini Challenge 2021; encouraging children to be a 'Wild World Hero' this winter

The Summer Reading Challenge saw thousands of children reading and exploring nature and action for the environment as part of this year's Wild World Heroes theme.

Now things have started to get chilly and the winter holidays are coming, children can join the Wild World Heroes as they embark on an Arctic adventure.

The Winter Mini Challenge encourages children to keep up their reading habits over the winter holidays, with a free-to-access website featuring rewards for reading and reviewing books. To take part in the Winter Mini Challenge, children simply read three or more books – these can be any books of their choice. Every time they finish a book, they add it to their Challenge website profile and leave a short book review. Reaching their online reading goal will unlock a limited-edition virtual badge and a special Winter Mini Challenge certificate to print off and keep.

How can a child take part?

Taking part in the Winter Mini Challenge is simple. A child needs to read at least three books between 1 December and 16 January and add them to their profile on the Reading Agency's - Winter Mini Challenge website, to earn fun digital rewards! They will find loads of other great stuff on the website too, including games, book reviews, reading activities and content from the best children’s authors and illustrators around.

Visit the Surrey Libraries website for more details and don't forget to let your teacher know if you took part!

On Wednesday 23rd March 2022 our Key Stage Two pupils have the opportunity to take part in a music event at the SSE Arena, Wembley.

We currently have 22 children who have registered to attend.

Now celebrating its 12th year, Voice in a Million presents an opportunity of a lifetime for school children from all backgrounds throughout the UK to come together united in song and perform in front of their own family and friends in what has been billed as ‘The World’s most spectacular school concert.’ Voice in a Million inspires pupils with an important message that raises awareness of the plight of children in care and the importance of Adoption and Fostering. For further information please follow this link Voice in a Million .

For pupils to attend the event there is a small registration fee plus a cost for transport to the arema. A parent/carer would need to attend the event and be responsible for transporting their child home. Tickets for family members are £26.50. T’shirts are also available for the children to buy at a cost of £12.99, purchase of these is optional.

Pupils who wish to take part would need to commit to rehearsing regularly leading up to the concert so sign up for the Spring Term Choir club as this will be the perfect opportunity to rehearse the songs.

If your child would like to participate but has not already registered please contact Mrs Sopp at info@byfleet.surrey.sch.uk

Last week we sent out Covid guidance from Surrey, stating that children under 12 should not take a LFT test. This week the government announced new rules which contradicted the above statement, which we have now clarified with Surrey.

The new guidance, which is on our Risk Assessment (available on our website) is as follows:

From Tuesday 14 December, a new national approach to daily testing for contacts of COVID-19 is being introduced.

All adults who are fully vaccinated and children aged 5 to 18 years and 6 months, identified as a contact of someone with COVID-19 – whether Omicron or not – should take a lateral flow device (LFD) test every day for 7 days instead of self-isolating.

Daily testing by close contacts will help to slow the spread of COVID-19. Daily testing for contacts of COVID-19 will help protect education settings by reducing transmission and will also help keep pupils in face-to-face education. Once notified by NHS Test and Trace as a close contact, all eligible staff, pupils and students should take an LFD each day for 7 days and report the results through the Online Reporting System and to their setting. If they test negative, they can continue to attend their education setting. Outside of the education setting, they should continue to follow the advice set out in the Sunday 12 December press release. This approach should also be adopted over the winter break and on return in January. If they test positive, they should self-isolate and order a PCR test to confirm the result. If the PCR is positive, they must self-isolate for 10 days. If the PCR test is negative, they no longer need to self-isolate but should continue to carry out the remainder of the daily tests, and only need to isolate if it is positive.

We hope that you and your family keep safe and well during this festival break.

As you are aware, being fluent in your multiplication tables plays an important role in accessing higher level maths more easily. This year, the government will be finally running their MTC (Multiplication Tables Check) in Year 4 in order to improve the fluency of the country's children and as a school we have been putting provisions in place to aid our children.

Children need to know a select number of tables by the end of each year. They are as follows:

Year 1 - Count in multiples of two, fives and tens

Year 2 - Recall and use multiplication and division facts from the 2, 5 and 10 multiplication tables

Year 3 - Recall and use multiplication and division facts from the 3, 4 and 8 multiplication tables

Year 4 - Recall and use multiplication and division facts for multiplication tables up the 12 x 12

Year 5 and 6 - To become confident in multiplying larger numbers and deal with multiplying decimal numbers.

Throughout this term, we have been monitoring our children's fluency of their times tables by tracking their 144 club scores. Whilst there have been some progress, we would like to see more children reaching the next levels of 144 club and becoming more fluent in their times tables.

Below are the percentages of children we are currently on track to achieve their required level at 144 club by the end of the year.

Year 2 - 14% Year 3 - 43% Year 4 - 60%

Year 5 Blue - 34% Year 5 Indigo - 15% Year 6 - 59%

As a result, we are focusing on times tables next term. Our Year 2 - 4 children and some of our Year 5 children have access to Doodle tables through their Doodle maths account and this is something we are encouraging them to access in school but also at home. Below are some screenshots as to where you can find Doddle Tables. We would really appreciate parents spending some time over the Christmas period, sitting down with their child(ren) and finding Doodle Tables and giving it a go!

To encourage children to use Doodle Maths, we are starting a competition in January. Winners will be selected from those who show greatest effort and progress with their Doodle Tables.

Please continue with your Doodle Maths as well.

It's been a while since we've been able to invite you into school. We can't wait to invite you back into school to see your child's class assembly. We will continue to reduce the number of children we have together in the hall so will only move to 'whole school' assemblies once it is safe to do so. In the meanwhile, each class will host their class assembly to their parents and one or two other classes in the school hall. These will start at 8.55 - 9.20ish so please join us in the school hall on the day that your child's class assembly has been scheduled.

Reception - Wednesday 29th June Year 1 - Wednesday 16th March - London

Year 2 - Wednesday 23rd February Year 3 - Wednesday 30th March - Stone Age

Year 4 - Wednesday 22nd June Year 5 Indigo - Wednesday 2nd March - The Pharaohs

Year 5 Blue - Wednesday 25th May - Greeks Year 6 - Wednesday 9th March - The Heart