What a start to February! Parent craft sessions, Year 6 parents SAT's information events, the first Dance Extravaganza of the Year at The Buckingham School, TED day at Beachborough School, Cross Country, students from Buckingham University visiting year 3 & 4, an Instrumental day at Stowe School and Year 5 are performing a Dragon Dance today to celebrate Chinese New Year. All of these wider opportunities are so incredibly valuable to the children and I am incredibly proud of how the children represent them-selves, their families and BPS at these events. There are write ups of the various events throughout the newsletter and others will be included next week. We also welcomed our first parent speaker to our career assembly on Tuesday. Naomi Field spoke to the children about her work as a construction Site Manager and how important both maths and commu-nication skills are within her work. The children asked lots of interesting questions and some shared ex-amples of their own parents who also work within the construction industry. Thank you to Naomi and all the parents who have signed up for this great initiative, we are looking forward to learning about other careers over the next few months. We have been delighted to publish our improved attendance infor-mation on the website this week for the Autumn term and thank par-ents for supporting us in our drive to increase attendance rates. Whole school attendance improved to 96.6% and we have seen significant improvements in the attendance of our most vulnerable groups of learners. We look forward to these figures improving even more during the Spring term. Very best wishes, Mrs France

-During Parent’s Evenings this week on Monday 11th February & Tuesday 12th February BPS Club in the afternoon

will be in the Nursery Hall.

-Please can you ensure children come to school with the appropriate clothing for the weather, including coats.

-The PTA will be selling good quality second hand school uniform during Parent’s Evening in the KS2 Cloakroom.

-Please could we ask that children all have their named PE kit in school at all times. At this time of the year, we

strongly recommend jogging bottoms and tracksuit tops to help keep warm. Thank you for your support with this.

Reminders

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The manner we will be focussing on next will be:

How to tidy up

Calmly and quiet manner

Ensure other people are finished before taking books

Do not grab books

Help other people by passing them items from the ta-

ble

Stack chairs quickly and safely

Be aware of other people when moving chairs or furni-

ture

Manners Matter

Last Thursday, pupils from Years 3, 4 and 5 joined to-

gether to engage with the BBC Teach Winterwatch Live

Lesson. The children all thoroughly enjoyed the experi-

ence, despite a slight technical hitch! They worked in

pairs to complete a variety of tasks about habitats and

adaptations of animals to survive. The lesson also en-

couraged the children to investigate living things and

their habitats, the impact of seasonal changes on wild-

life and the interdependence between all living things.

Having Chris Packham answering a variety of questions

from children was a particular highlight, along with see-

ing the golden eagle that was bought into the studio. I

hope all the children are now keen to build a bug hotel

and are continuing to keenly watch Winterwatch!

Winterwatch

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On Monday 4th February 3 teams of boys and

girls from across Key Stage 1 represented

Buckingham Primary at a local dance extrava-

ganza. All the children were a credit to the

school both as great audience members

watching the dancers from others schools

and dancing beautifully when it was their

turn to perform. We were extremely proud of

all of the boys and girls involved and they all

received a medal. We are delighted to an-

nounce that one of the teams has been invited

to compete at the KS1 dance finals in March.

Well done to you all.

Thank you to all the parents who supported

with transporting the children to the event and we

hope you enjoyed watching the children perform

for you today.

KS1 Dance Festival On Wednesday 6th February a group of children

from Year 5 and 6 went to Stowe School to rep-

resent Buckingham Primary School and compete

in the Cross Country Event.

They all did very well and

achieved good times.

Isabella Clark and Eva Dale-Evans

for the girls did particularly well,

with Archie Ballantyne being

very successful for the boys.

All the children were a credit to

the school and had fantastic

sportsmanship.

Huge thanks to all the

parents that came and

supported BPS and for

providing transport too.

Cross Country at Stowe

Whilst we all had lots of fun in the snow last week, we were very disappointed that our Number Day event, raising money for NSPCC, could not go ahead. We were so proud of all the work our classes did presenting their investigations that we feel we have to show it off to you still. During Parents Evening, Early Years and Key Stage 1 will be displaying their work in the Key Stage 1 hall, while Key Stage 2 will be displaying their work in the school reception area. Please do take a look at this wonderful work your children produced. If you bring your children to Parents Evening, I am sure they will enjoy explaining what they have been working on. We will also be taking donations in the reception area for the NSPCC at this time. We have resched-uled Number Day for Friday 15th February. We will still be having fun with maths, ‘dressing up for digits’ and raising money for NSPCC. However, due to the rescheduling, we will not be holding the Maths Fair after school, but hope to hold the event next year (if the weather allows us!)

NSPCC Number Day

F2

Year

1

This week Year 1 are continuing to ex-

plore the role of real life superheroes,

with a visit from a local Fire-fighter. The

children enjoyed finding out more about

the role and dressing up in some of the

equipment. They asked lots of interesting

questions and we really appreciate when

parents come in to talk to our children

about different careers and interests. If

you have a skill, talent or job that you would like to share with Year 1, then

please do get in touch.

Well done to all of the children who performed a dance at the local festival.

They looked great as dwarves and made us all proud with their wonderful

dance routines.

We look forward to seeing you to discuss your child’s progress at our parent

evening meetings.

Year

2

This week we are busy being designers! We have been thinking about the best

materials to make tents and have been testing their properties. More excitingly

we are going to design Tudor houses that we are going to set alight next week!

We are going to make our own Great Fire of Buckingham Primary! To support

this, could children please bring in cardboard boxes, and tubes next week.

We have been working really hard on our times tables and division, the chil-

dren are now much more confident with division. They are really keen to start

working their way up the rockstar ladder!

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This week we have been learning about the story of Peter Pan as

well as other pirate stories. The children have loved creating their

own treasure maps and have really embraced the writing opportuni-

ties in our environment. We learnt all about Chinese New Year on

Tuesday and had fun, creating lanterns, counting in mandarin and

putting shows involving dragons! In maths, we have been combining

our knowledge of adding and money, and have practised counting

on to add items from the shop. Next week, we will be estimating

and revisiting shape as well as writing poems and other pirate relat-

ed texts.

At home:

-Please can parents read with their child and write in reading records

at least 3 times per week. This really supports their progress and has

a huge impact on their development in all areas.

-Discuss poems and pirate stories.

-Write sentences using 'tricky' words. (In the September Pack)

-Practise adding single digit numbers together using objects.

-Practise our manner of the week - How to Share

-Practise being a 'Slinky Linky Snake' - Making links in your learning -

applying learning in new situations.

Reminders:

Please let us know if you cannot view your child's observations on

Target Tracker Link.

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rser

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This website has an document online; it is a really useful guide as to what you can expect your child to achieve at different ages.

https://www.foundationyears.org.uk/files/2015/03/4children_parentsguide_2015_WEB.pdf

Target Tracker observations are available for you online please advise a member of staff if you have not received a login email and we will arrange for this to happen.

Please feel free to show your child the observations so that they see why we take pictures of them to share with you.

Please can you put an ice pack in your child's packed lunch box in order to keep the food cold.

Year

3

Parent craft day was a great success! The children are loving learning about the Romans and it's

been great to share some of their enthusiasm with you. The pots will be finished over the next few

weeks and put on display. Thank you for all your help, we hope you enjoyed the experience.

Next week in English, we are going to be preparing for the Radio 2 500 words competition with

creative writing lessons. We're sure the children will come up with lots of wonderful ideas. We

would like them to publish and submit their finished stories at home, the deadline is Saturday 9th

March. The website is https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00rfvk1. If you do not have access to

a computer please let us know.

Year

5

Kung Hei Fat Choy! Happy Chinese New Year! A massive thank you to all those who

attended Tuesday's Darentcraft session, the children had a fantastic time and the final

results are amazing. The children felt very proud showing them off during their dance

routine on the playground.

We have been really busy in Maths, investigating frac-

tions and thinking about how we use them in real life

situations. Don't forget to keep playing Times Tables

Rockstars at home

as we use these

skills a lot in frac-

tions!

In English we have

been looking at

different reading

genres and how an

author can use lan-

guage to create

tone and feel-

ing. When reading

at home with your

child, discuss with them how you know that the text

you are reading belongs to a particular genre - what

clues does the author give you? Challenge your child

to choose a book from a genre they normally wouldn't

select from.

Year

4

What fun we have had with our multiplication and division investigations this week for Number Week! The children have worked really hard on the challenges set. It was such a pity the snow meant they were unable to present these to the rest of the school. In Music, we have started learning the songs for a play we will be performing just before Easter (look out for more information shortly). The children are enjoying these and looking forward to auditions for speak-ing parts early next week. If any parent or carer would like to get involved with prop or scenery creation, we would very much welcome the support, so let your child’s teacher know if you can help. Finally, can you please encourage your children to go on Times Tables Rock Stars daily: numbers have been dropping as the novelty wears off!

Year

6

Thank you to all of you who managed to make it to our SATs Information sessions. We hope you found it beneficial. We would also like to say thank you to all our fabulous helpers, who did a wonderful job teaching the parents how to an-swer the questions. This week, several Year 6 children had the opportunity to visit Beachborough School to take part in a special technology day. We have been very proud of how all the children have represented the school at recent events. We look forward to seeing you all at Parents Even-ing and telling you how well all your children have been do-ing this year.

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11th Parents Evening – 4-7pm KS1 Indoor Athletics Festival

12th Parents Evening – 4-6pm Tree Planting at Stowe Year 1 Parent Craft

13th PTA-Circus Themed Activity Night

15th NSPCC Number Day—Rescheduled Break up for Half Term

25th Children Return to School Year 3&4 Tennis Festival

26th Fair Trade Day Nursery and KS1 Class Photographs Year 5&6 Basketball Festival—Second Round

27th KS2 Class Photographs Urban Strides KS1 Dance Assembly

28th Year 4 Stowe Trip Condover Parents Evening 5-6pm

February

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4th Year 5 Bikeability Sports for Schools Assembly KS2 Dance Festival

5th Year 5 Bikeability Year 2 SATs Meeting 9-10pm Year 2 SAts Meeting 2.30-3.30pm

6th Year 5 Bikeability

7th Year 5 Bikeability World Book Day

11th BPS STEM Week Begins

12th F2 Stowe Visit

15th RAF Visit

18th Sport for Schools Olympian Visit KS1 Badminton

19th PTA-Bags 2 School

22nd Year 3 Anglian Water Workshops

23rd PTA-Race Night

26th Year 5 Badminton Festival

27th Nursery Stay and Play

29th Nursery Stay and Play

March

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Lost

Mrs Roach has lost her black

leather gloves from M&S in the

playground. Has anyone seen

them? They are of great senti-

mental value.