Byfleet Primary Newsletter

Can you believe, we are only 2 weeks away from being half way through the academic year. We are pleased with the children's progress. This term we have had a big focus on 'Writing' and the teaching staff have undertaken CPD on teaching grammar, writing for a purpose and teaching how to edit and improve their draft writing. We can't wait to show you the rapid rise in quality seen in the children's writing during next term's Tray Day, which is just around the corner.

• Next week we will be raising funds for NSPCC through a Maths Day - see details below.

• Thank you to the families who supported our Scholastic Book Fair. We raise £879.61 which will help us earn £503.00 worth of books for our school. Thanks to the staff who volunteered their time to run this book fair. 

• Don't forget to get your thinking hats on for your World Book Day ideas. Details below.

• I met with the Friends of Byfleet today to discuss the schools' fundraising priorities. We are looking forward to developing an outdoor area for our children and potentially fundraising for a mini bus to allow us to access many more trips and experiences for our children. 

• Mr Bowman, our Maths lead has been upskilling staff on developing maths 'reasoning' so that we can provide more opportunity for our children to rehearse their deeper maths thinking. Here are some excellent reasoning resources for you to use at home. 

• Do you love maths challenges? Don't forget to join the online Maths Family Challenge online for Year 5/6. See below. 

• Year 3 and 4 collaborated with the American School Cobham during their visit to BPS this week. Read about it below. 

• Year 4 enjoyed learning how to stay safe in their Bikeability lessons this week. 

• As part of PSHE, the children enjoyed the SCARF Life Bus this week. Read more about it below. 

• We are busy reviewing our playtime and lunchtime Play Provision. There are lots of new (and old!) equipment that we have invested in like tyres, mud kitchens and sheets to make tents etc. to encourage our children to be more creative during their free time in school. We're looking for more items so please see below for our wish list if you can help in any way, or contact Mr Bowman via the school office if you have something we might be able to use.

This week the Scarf Life Bus visited BPS.  The 'bus' is now an interactive tent that the children from each year group visit to enhance their PSHE learning.  

Well done to the following children for being recognised for doing something brilliant this fortnight......

We'd love to get as many of our families involved with our Midweek Maths series........from ExpertEd.

ExpertEdLive is a cross-sector partnership between leading universities, independent schools and MATs aiming to provide educational enrichment and opportunity which is accessible to all children. 

This is for the whole family! 

Mrs Meyrick would love it if you could tweet @byfleetprimary on Twitter (X) if you're taking part so we can give you a shout out. 

• Feb 28, 2024 07:00 PM

• Mar 6, 2024 07:00 PM

• Mar 13, 2024 07:00 PM

• Mar 20, 2024 07:00 PM

Reception Class have been busy during their outdoor continuous provision time exploring transient art. Items such as shells, pebbles, coloured sticks, beads, wooden slices and coloured stones have been used to make self portraits, patterns and beautiful landscapes. Using our imaginations to 'think outside the box' and create ideas with objects allows us to explore shape, space, pattern, overlapping and positioning with no right or wrong. We love seeing your super art work Rainbows, well done! 

With Online Safety Day just around the corner, there's no better time to share some advice with parents. 

Online Safety Advice for Parents can be found here.

Year 2 are having a fabulous time learning to play the recorder with Mrs Cosentino.  Ask your children to tell you all about the pitch notes they have now learned - they have a little mnenomic to remember the notes on the stave. Later on in the year, we are hoping to perform to the rest of the School.

The American School Cobham collaborates regularly with us at BPS. This week some of their students visited Year 3 and 4 to share a lesson about 'Plastic in our Oceans' for Year 3 and 'Biodiversity' for Year 4.   Games and quizzes were enjoyed, Year 3 went on a plastic hunt and Year 4 created ocean creature art.  One fact the children enjoyed is that plastic is made from crude oil and crude oil comes from dead plankton.

Our science quiz club team worked extremely hard and put all of their science knowledge together for the National Quiz Club Science semi finals. Over 6 rounds, they answered questions all about far away galaxies, classification of dinosaurs and nuclear reactions to name just a few.

Out of 42 other schools, they finished in an amazing 15th place!

Well done to Daniel, Lilly, Ethan and Jack!

Our attendance target is 96%. Well done to Year 2, Year 3 and Year 4 for exceeding our target! 

Year 5 and Year 6 are almost there! 

It is important that our families of our youngest children in Year R and Year 1 keep an eye on their child's attendance as both classes are lower than the average. We know this is the season for illness but if your child's temperature is between 36% - 37%, then we have been advised they can come to school (where possible) when they have a cough or cold. Thank you for working with us on this. 

This week we issued 4 'late' letters for children who continually arrive late for school. Please remember to arrive before the 8.45am cut off. 

Our whole school target is 96%. December and January were tricky months with lots of colds and sniffles so we sadly missed our target!

Currently our whole year attendance is 96.08%! We're clinging on to our target of 96% so keep coming to school to help us keep it up!

Please remember to provide medical evidence after day 3 of absence related to illness for absences to be authorised. 

Just to remind parents/carers that if they take their children out of school without authority for 5 or more days (which do not have to be consecutive) , they will be liable to receive a penalty notice.

Currently the amount payable under a penalty notice is £60.00 per parent/carer per child if paid within 21 days. Thereafter the amount increases to £120.00 if paid between 21 and 28 days. If the penalty notice remains unpaid after 28 days, the Local Authority will consider a prosecution in the Magistrates Court. Please note that penalty notices are issued per parent/carer per child so a family of two parents and two children will receive 4 penalty notices.

Please view our Attendance Policy here for further information.

All things phonics!

We are nearly half way through the year and the children in Reception and Year 1 are making excellent progress on their Little Wandle journey. 

Reminder: It is important for your child to read their decodable reading book at home. What a great opportunity for children to 'show off' what they have been learning during their decoding, prosody and comprehension reading sessions in school! Also, making time to share their reading for pleasure book is an excellent way to promote a love of reading.

Did you know? There can be few things as powerful as regularly reading to a young child. It has astonishing benefits for children: comfort and reassurance, confidence and security, relaxation, happiness and fun. It builds self-esteem, vocabulary and feeds their imagination. The earlier parents can start, the better, as it allows the maximum time for their child to grow up with reading and for the love to take root, grow and become part of their life. And what an enriched life that will be!

Don't forget to login to the Ecollins website to access your child's reading book online when the hard copy has been handed back into school!

Taekwondo lessons are available via our externally run club London TKD on Mondays from 3:20pm to 4:20pm in the school hall.  Bookings can be made via their website : www.london-tkd.co.uk/get-started.

Here are the links to Ultimate Coaching's half term camps coming up in February 2024:

Monday 12th  February (Football) https://ultimate-coaching.classforkids.io/camp/325

Tuesday 13th  February (Multi Sports) https://ultimate-coaching.classforkids.io/camp/326