Welcome to the first Newsletter for 2025. It is hard to believe that we are halfway through our first term of the school year, it is certainly flying by. Recently, I have had many students from across the school visit me in my office to showcase some of the learning they have been doing in class. I have been particularly impressed with the quality of the Narrative and Persuasive writing that many of our students are producing. The students are using interesting and varied vocabulary which makes their stories a pleasure to read. Congratulations to those students for their exceptional writing and I thank them for sharing their learning with me.

School Calendar
We have finalised dates for most of our major school events this year and have updated the school calendar. You can access the school calendar from the front page of the school website https://byfordps.wa.edu.au/ 

Before School Procedures
A reminder that classroom doors do not open until 8:35am, with class commencing at 8:45am. We do not recommend that students arrive at school any earlier than 8:30am, and that playgrounds and equipment are not used before school as we have limited staff available for duty. If your child does have to arrive at school earlier than 8:30am due to work commitments, there will be a member of staff on duty in the undercover area from 8:15am. All students who are at school prior to 8:35am without a parent or guardian present on the school grounds is required to go to the undercover area so they can be supervised. We thank you for your continued support with this to ensure the safety of all of our students.

P & C
It was wonderful to see some new faces at our AGM in February. Don’t forget that our supportive and hard-working P & C are always looking for new members and new faces are welcome at each meeting. The P & C play a vital role in the school through running the Canteen and Uniform shop, in addition to the many fundraisers they organise and run through the year, providing essential resources back into the school. If you are interested in joining the P & C this year but are a little unsure, or would like to know more about what is involved, feel free to pop into the office to speak with me, or contact our P & C president Annette Stones at byfordprimarypandc@hotmail.com  Many hands make light work!

Our P & C Executive team for 2025 are:
President – Annette Stones
Vice President – Brendan Appleby
Secretary – Gilda De Sousa
Treasurer – Jessica Lunnon

Assemblies
Assemblies are held fortnightly on Wednesdays, starting at 8:45am in the Undercover Area. To assist with planning below are our planned assembly dates for 2025:

NAPLAN Online
Our Year 3 and 5 students are currently sitting their NAPLAN assessments. The testing period is open between Wednesday 12 March and Monday 24 March. A timetable of scheduled testing times for each class was posted to class dojo. All of the Year 5 assessments will be online, Year 3 Reading, Language Conventions and Numeracy will be online, Writing will continue to be a paper test again this year. If your child is absent on an allocated testing day, Catch-Up tests will be administered throughout the testing period. Good luck to all of our Year 3 and 5 students.

Jody Harrington