Byfleet Primary Newsletter

Dear Parents/Carers,

• A big congratulations to Mr McLaughlin and his wife - they are proud parents of Dorothy Rose, who was born last week. They are all doing well and smitten with their new bundle of joy.

• Our Spring term curriculum overviews, homework matrices and spelling overviews have been sent out. These are also available on our school website. We look forward to seeing the children's homework projects coming in to school for show and tell.

• During our last week before half term (w/b 7th February), we will be celebrating National Football Week. During this week, we will be holding house football matches within Year groups, producing work based around football and having a 'football shirt' mufti day on Friday 11th February.

• Thank you to Mrs Sharkey for organising an Inclusion Coffee Morning - it was lovely to meet some parents yesterday and we hope you found it beneficial to discuss Inclusion at Byfleet. Some parents asked for the slides that were shared; please click on this Inclusion Link for these.

• A parent and carer reading workshop has been arranged for Friday 28th January 2022 at 9am; it will last around 30 minutes. Please come along to find out about our whole school approach to reading and simple ways to support your child with their reading at home. Adults will be asked to wear a mask whilst in school and we will ensure our Covid contingency measures are in place.

• We currently have several members of staff off self-isolating. We have also had to close our Reception Rainbow Class bubble this week due to a rapid increase in numbers of children who are Covid positive. A big thank you to our Reception families for being resilient and moving to remote learning so swiftly - Mr McLaughlin, Miss Lloyd and Mrs Bray can't wait to see the children return to school on Monday 24th January.

• Please remember to wear a mask whilst on site at drop off and collection times, if possible. We also ask that children are dressed in extra layers as we continue to keep the classrooms well ventilated, to avoid them being cold. We have noticed a lot of children wearing black trainers as part of their school uniform - please can black leather shoes (not boots or sports trainers) be worn on non PE days.

• We are delighted with the overwhelming response we've had for 1-1 or small group music tuition from Mr Gillani, our music teacher. We will have 26 children learning how to play the guitar or ukulele as part of our peripatetic offer, starting in the coming week.

• As you are aware, at the end of Autumn we were recruiting a new Deputy Headteacher to join Byfleet. We are pleased to inform you that we appointed a high-calibre full-time Deputy Head to join us from the end of the Summer term. Mr Richard Bowman has a penchant for curriculum design and comes with a wealth of knowledge and experience in strategic leadership. We look forward to officially welcoming him later on in the year to further strengthen our provision for our children.

• We recently introduced our Science Quiz Club and our Year 5/6 team of four did exceptionally well and came 4th in the national round. The finals are due to take place on Friday 4th February and we wish Monty & Lola (Year 6) and Kjaer & Amelia (Year 5) the best of luck. Miss Mills will be hosting her General Knowledge Quiz Club from next week, every child from Year 3 - 6 will take part to find the top 4 children (1 from each year group) to form our General Knowledge Team. Their national round will be on the 14th March. We hope to increase our children's Science and General Knowledge through the process. Good luck KS 2.

Year 3 have been dissecting flowers this week to identify the different parts of a plant in Science. They've also made some terrrific models of Stone Henge as part of their Stone Age topic.

Year 2 have made some musical instruments as part of their home projects. We love their Kandinsky art work too.

We have a quick plea that we are hoping our Byfleet community will be able to support us with....

Children's mental health week is 7th - 13th February 2022 and we are looking for a yoga or Thai Chi teacher to carry out some sessions with our children.

If any of our parents or family members work in this industry and would be happy to do short sessions with our 8 class anytime during this week, we would love for you to be in touch. Please let Mrs Sopp in the office know.

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 has 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 who 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 Doodle Tables. We would really appreciate parents/carers 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