Byfleet Primary Newsletter

Dear Parents/Carers,

• Thank you for helping us raise £183.85 for Red Nose Day. Some terrific jokes were shared by the children and class winners have been chosen. Do ask your child who told the funniest joke in their class........'What did the policeman say to his belly button? You're under a vest!'

• Surrey carry out an annual Travel To School Survey. A key response from parents and carers tackling the school run was that they wanted to see better infrastructure and road safety training to help them walk and cycle to school safely. As a direct result the county council are considering additional investment in walking and cycling measures outside schools to make walking and cycling and scooting to school easier and safer. Please click here to complete the short survey for 2022.

• Just a reminder that it is Parents' Evening on Tuesday 29th and Thursday 31st March in our school hall. Children are welcome to attend and there will be an opportunity for you to see your child's work while you wait.

• Swimming: Year 1 - 6 information about our swimming lessons which are starting in the Summer term, has been sent out. Please click here if you have missed the letter. We are excited to be using a new swimming company 'Rubba Duckies'.

• We are looking for a volunteer to help us out with supervising our children during transitions between swimming lessons. This will likely be between 9am - 12pm Monday - Thursday for the summer term. This is a great opportunity to catch a tan or read a book between the swap over of groups of children during their swimming lessons and will really help us out. If you are able to help us, please log your interest here.

• Just a polite reminder about appropriate PE kits being worn on PE days. PE kits are a yellow t-shirt and black shorts; a dark tracksuit for colder weather. There are many children wearing an assortment of different football kits, bright coloured leggings and a variety of different branded sports tops. If you require any items of clothing, please speak to the office staff who will be glad to assist from our second hand stall.

• Well done to Year 3 for a terrific cake sale - they raised a whopping £360! Thank you to everyone for supporting them.

• As the term draws to an end, we say goodbye to Mrs Martin who works 2-days a week in Year 5. We wish her well in her new role, closer to home. We also wish Miss Payne the best of luck with her new ventures ahead.

• Well done to Miss Mills' General Knowledge Quiz Club who came 13th out of 78 other schools nationally. Well done to our amazing teams!

Team 1: Monty, Jack W, Stanley and Leah

Team 2: Elisia, Dylan B, Zaiden and Dixie-Belle

• Please be advised that we will be finishing school at 1.15pm on Friday 1st April to commence our Easter holiday.

• The children return to school on Wednesday 20th April - please see the new arrangements for drop offs from the Summer Term.

• Monitoring attendance and 'lateness' continues to be a priority for us - our school target is 97% and our current whole school attendance is 93.8%.

• When absence drops below 92%, we will heighten our communication with you to see how we can help improve your child's attendance. Similarly, if a trend is spotted with your child arriving late, we will work with you to see how we can improve this.

• Once attendance drops below 90%, Surrey Local Authority become involved and an Inclusion Officer will work with us to see what else we can do to support you.

• Persistent Absence is defined as 'having 5 or more absences in a half term'; this is regardless of the 90% threshold that triggers the LA Inclusion Officer.

• In Spring 1, we had 18 child who fell into the Persistent Absence category - this is well above the national average. We completely understand that illness and covid etc. cannot be helped and there may be occasions where the best place for your child is staying at home if they are not feeling well, however there has been an increase in families requesting to take their children out of school for holidays etc, which unfortunately cannot be authorised.

• If your child is going to be absent for any scheduled reason, please inquire with the admin team for a 'Request for Absence Form', which can also be downloaded from our website, which will allow us to report your child's absence accurately.

• As previously shared, the headteacher is unable to authorise absence unless in extenuating circumstances. It is also the Local Authority who issues penalty fines for unauthorised holidays of 5 days of more, resulting in a £60 fine per parent per child.

• If there is any information you wish to share with us that is impacting on your child's attendance, please speak to Mrs Scott or Mrs Meyrick in the office so we can work together to help.

• We currently have 11 children with 100% attendance for this year.

• It has also been great to see the improvements for the families we have been supporting with several who are no longer below 90% or within the Persistent Absence category - this is terrific news!

The Surrey Arts Easter activities programme returns in April after a couple of year's break due to the Coronavirus pandemic. This year sees a significant change to the programme. For the first time the programme is split over two areas of the county, East Surrey (Redhill) and West Surrey (Woking). This exciting programme gives young people the chance to experience a variety of different activities including playing in an orchestra for the first time, trying a string instrument, producing their own music and DJing, being part of a rock band, learning dance routines and being creative in an art class.

The range of activities for 6 to 16 year olds will run on Monday 4 and Tuesday 5 April at St. Bede’s School in Redhill and Wednesday 6 and Thursday 7 April at Westfield School in Woking.

Activities include:

• Discover Strings suitable for 6 – 11 year olds (Redhill only) - no experience needed

• Orchestra in a Day for grades 1 – 4 and 4 – 8 or equivalent standard

• Music Production and DJing suitable for 8 – 16 year olds - no experience needed

• The Band Experience suitable for 8 – 14 year olds - no experience needed

• Creative Dance suitable for 8 – 15 year olds - no experience needed

• Art class suitable for 6 – 10 year olds - no experience needed

Further details about the programme are available on the Surrey Arts website Surrey Arts - Easter holiday activities - Surrey County Council (surreycc.gov.uk)

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 3 - Wednesday 30th March - Stone Age

Year 4 - Wednesday 22nd June Year 5 Blue - Wednesday 25th May - Greeks