BPS Newsletter

Please report absences using the absences@byfleet.surrey.sch.uk email by no later than 9am.

• We continue to seek two parents to join our BPS governor team as Parent Governors. Previous experience is not a prerequisite. We are looking for two enthusiastic parents who are keen to attend a handful of meetings in the evening, a year, to help our Governors and Headteacher, Mrs Meyrick, continue to improve our school. Please email Mrs Scott (info@byfleet) to arrange to meet informally with our Chair of Governors, Joy Considine, who will provide you with some information about how you can make a difference at BPS!

• We hope you found your child's Parents' Evening useful last week, and the information sheet provided for you to take away is helpful

• Eid Mubarak to all our Muslim families!

• Our annual Spelling Bee was another hit this year. Read more below to find out who this year's winners are...

• The children have loved taking part in National Football Week again this year. Read more below...

• We've had several trips take place this fortnight: Year 2 trip Hampton Court & Year 3/4 trip to ACS to watch Matilda

• Our library refit has been a focus this half term, with staff working hard to reorganise the space.  All non-fiction books are now catalogued by subject and are colour coded, so that the children can put them back in the right place on our lovely new shelves.  The picture books have a new home in lovely kinder boxes, so the children can see the covers as they choose their books.  Fiction for older readers is being organised by authors surname, meaning the children can find the book that they want more easily.  The finishing touch is our beautiful book shelf wallpaper, which really brightens up the space.  A massive thank you to the Friends of Byfleet for funding this work and to Mr Hagen and the teaching assistants for all their help with this project.  We can't wait for the children to begin using their new look library, next term.

• On Thursday 24th April Mrs Mumby will be running a phonics workshop for parents of children in Year 1.  The aim of this session is to share information on the upcoming phonics check, which all children in Year 1 will complete, and to offer practical ideas for ways that you can support your child at home.  Year R parents are also welcome if they'd like to know more about helping their child with reading.

• We look forward to everyone returning to us safely on Tuesday 22nd April. We wish all our families a wonderful Easter break. Doodle Maths and Spelling Shed remain open for the children to use during the holiday. 

• If you are interested in hiring our school hall, a classroom, our outdoor hive or swimming pool (summer term only for the pool) for an event you may have in mind, don't hesitate to speak to Mrs Scott in the office who will be able to share our pricing details. 

On Friday 28th March, Year 1-6 had their Spelling Bee Final: this saw two finalists from each year group go head-to-head in a spellathon which tested them against not only their current year group's spelling words, but against spelling words from the year groups above them as well. 

This final was the result of all children's participation for Spring 2. All children were tested against their Spelling Bee words, before the highest scores went through to a semi-final, and eventually the final two went into the final. 

Thank you to all parents/carers at home who have supported children in learning these spellings. 

We want to give a huge shout out to all our Spelling Bee finalists: they each demonstrated our values of 'Ready' and 'Respectful' independently with them congratulating each other and standing in front of an audience to spell some very tricky words.  All staff at BPS are incredibly proud of them. 

Please see the finalists for each year group below, with the winner from each year group underlined:

Year 1: Neo & George S                         Year 2: Juno & Emily                      Year 3: Tom & Eva

Year 4: Sienna & Ezra                             Year 5: Isabelle & Ana                   Year 6: Jack & Diana

A tremendous well done to Miss Partridge for hosting this highly organised event.

All children from Reception to Year 6 took part in NFW this week.  At Byfleet Primary School, we think all children having the opportunity to be active is really important and NFW is always a fun way to do this. 

On Monday, all classes were visited by Ash Randall, who showed children how to do some tricks with a football.  It was great to see all children getting involved! 

Tuesday - Thursday was our annual inter house football tournament. Each class represented their house to win points for their team.  We believe that teamwork is key and all staff were pleased to see children in their classes demonstrating this. 

Year 2 had a wonderful trip to Hampton Court last week, to support their work on The Tudors.  At our Tudor Times workshop the children explored Tudor artefacts and learnt a Tudor dance.  We spent time exploring the Tudor kitchens, the apartments where Henry VIII lived and we even had time to squeeze in a visit to the maze.  Luckily, everyone made it out safely!   The children behaved beautifully and were a real credit to BPS.  A big thank you to the parents that helped on the day.  

This week, Year 2 have been busy finishing their animal themed glove puppets.  They used their plans to help them;  sewing ears, tails and buttons for eyes.  Staff were so impressed by the independence and perseverance shown by all of the children.  There are certainly some natural sewers in Year 2!

The children all donated a red item for our Red Nose Day hampers in exchange for a mufti day. We think you'll agree that the hampers look fantastic - thank you for your generous contributions. We then sold raffle tickets for each year group and the winners were drawn in today's assembly, the proceeds of these tickets will go to Comic Relief. We hope the following children and their families enjoy these goodies over Easter. 

Reception - Felix

Year 1 - Clara

Year 2 -Theo

Year 3 - Zach

Year 4 - Amelie

Year 5 - James

Year 6 - Fin

Our lovely school library is ready for all the children to enjoy from Summer 2025!!

A new lunch menu is available via Scopay for parents/carers to pre-order their child's lunches for the Summer Term 2025.

Chartwells now have sandwiches available to order!!  There will be two additional lunch options available - either a Cheese Sandwich or Ham Sandwich.

Further details can be found on our school website along with the new menus : Lunches Summer Term 2025

As a reminder school lunches must be pre-booked a week in advance.  If a school lunch is not pre-ordered, a packed lunch will need to be provided prior to 11:30am on the day.

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. The issue of a Penalty Notice will also be actioned where a pupil has incurred 10 or more unauthorised sessions during the preceding 10 school weeks. These also included 'lates' after the register has closed. 

**Changes to the National framework for Penalty Notices came into force for Penalty Notice Fines on 19th August 2024**

• First offence within a 3 year rolling period will incur a charge of £80 per parent, per child if paid within 21 days, Increasing to £160 per parent, per child if paid within 28 days.

• Second offence within a 3 year rolling period will incur a flat rate of £160 per parent, per child if paid within 28 days. 

• The third time an offence is committed within a 3 year rolling period for term time leave or irregular attendance the case will be presented straight to the Magistrates Court. 

Please view our Attendance Policy here for further information.