As you know it is a very busy time in school with lots of year group data and reports being written. Please may I remind parents that it is not appropriate to go into classrooms before school without an appointment with the teacher. Any messages will be passed on by the office or by the staff on the gate to the teacher. If you would like a chance to see the class teacher before the Open Afternoon on Friday 12^th July then, as ever, contact the office. Miss Enticknap, our SENCo, is in on Mondays and Wednesdays if you would like to request to see her.

Year 6 have been the luckiest class with the weather for their residential this year and splashing about learning new skills on the water has made the rest of us feel more than a little bit jealous! They are not back until after 7pm today and we look forward to having the whole school family back together next week.

In the meantime Year 5 got a little taster of what it is like to enjoy being top of the school – and they liked it! Thank you to our super cook Alison and her Team for kindly letting them try the Year 6 menu this week – it was delicious!

Year 4 have worked hard on their understanding of the twelve hour clock this year but have really wowed Mrs Scott-Bromley this week by moving confidently into the 24 hour clock. Leave the holiday planning of travel times to them!

In Year 3 the children have been pulling together many aspects of measure and moving into applying it in their problem solving. You can help them with this by showing them how weight, length and capacity are important at home – see what they remember!

Year 2 have written super pieces of work pulling together many mastery aspects taught over the last two years in KS1. Miss Kirby says that ‘they rock’ in their use of conjunctions!

In Year 1 Mrs Vogel and Mr Goddard were delighted by the class in their use of different coins to make up different amounts to £5.

Year R had a terrific school visit to Alton and Mrs Peters and Miss Smith were proud because they were so well behaved on the train (despite being very excited!).

We are lucky enough to have the brilliant NSPCC supporting our PSHE curriculum this half term. They have very useful information for children and parents, as well as teachers and you can find out more by clicking here.

It is the wonderful PTFA Big bike Ride this weekend – please see the list of the super cyclists below. We will be welcoming them back to school with a BBQ (and bar) run by PTFA volunteers here at school. We will be setting up from 3pm and expect them back at 4.30pm. Also on the Recreation Ground Year R volunteers, the Hammertons, will be running a fun new event for the children. This is ‘Cycle Mania’ and much more information is available by clicking here. For both activities we are still short of volunteers so if you can help we would really appreciate it – sign up by clicking here or pop into the school office and sign up there.  If you would like to make a donation and send a message of support please click here.

See you all on Monday, if not tomorrow, for our final, fantastic three weeks of term! 

Katy Pinchess, Headteacher

 

A huge PTFA thank you to everyone who volunteered to make our School Fair such a success last Friday evening. It was 'Pirate-tastic'!

…to Charlotte, Stephanie and all the Honey Bee's team who set up and were here to the very end

…to Claire Aston, Deborah Bates, Eliza Bell, Amy Bingham, Briony Cavell, Michaela Courtnage, Hannah Dubreuil, Cleodie Gladstone, Lucie Hammerton, Mike Hammerton, Sophie Ince, Sylvie Nonhebel, Gill Ormond, Tom Payne, Zoe Payne, Eleanor Read, Charlie Shaylor, Jenny Shaylor , Sarah Stanley, Maria Stofanakova, Nancy Stuart-Bruges, Cheryl Verrall, Sara Wood and Sarah Young     

…to Mrs Rushin, Mrs Miffling and their Year 6 entrepreneurs who ran AMAZING stalls raising a grand total of £256.47. We were all wowed by your great products and everyone LOVED your ideas. Keep it up and we look forward to hearing about your business acumen in the future!

…to all the Year 6 parents, 'Mom-agers' and back up resources team who shopped, advised and ensured that the Year 6 stalls were so fantastic

… to all the Year 5 pupils who helped to run the PTFA games and stalls

…to everyone at school for the great donations. Everything was used and MUCH appreciated. The raffle raised over £500.  Thank you to Jo Dobson for co-ordinating everything!

…to all the staff who helped; Miss Kirby, Mr Lucas, Mrs Vogel, Mrs Patey, Mrs Siers, Miss Smith, Mrs Drew, Miss Wiggins, Mrs Scott-Bromley Miss Hand, Miss Smith, Mr Goddard, Mrs Tewkesbury, Mr Fay, Mrs Cox and not forgetting ‘Mrs P the pirate’!

…to the tidy up crew; Mrs Scott-Bromley, Ryan Doel, Debbie Bates and Steve Bryan

… to Mrs Lawrence-Poole and her fabulous troupe of dancers who performed such a lovely show

…to everyone who lent or donated super pirate themed items

…to the Wolfe family for loaning the very comfy hay bales to sit on

…to the Bingeman family for their donation of sand

…to everyone who came along and joined in the fun of the afternoon. Whether you enjoyed a huge ice cream, had a refreshing drink, scoffed a hot dog or got a (temporary!) tattoo we hope that you all had fun and thank you for supporting our school.  Thank you!

…Thanks to the Jeffs family for the donations of hand soaps and glue.

…Thank you to everyone who donated a box of tissues earlier this year. We have just run out of our last one and Mr Lucas has ordered more for the sniffy hayfever sufferers. Your generous support helped us save money for other projects and Mr Lucas has been able to use the budget to re-roof the Wendy house and do other repairs which we might not have been able to afford otherwise.

 

Well done…

… to Gabriel, Issy and the Aston family on their winning costumes in the Fancy Dress competition on Friday. Also to everyone else who got dressed up and into the seaside spirit of the theme - thank you!

… to Michaela, Year 4, Luke, Year 3, and Harry, one of our new Year R for September, who all won prizes at the Fair. Year 6 have a couple more to hand out on their return.

… to George, Year 3, who auditioned and was offered a Junior Associate place at the Royal Ballet School, London – amazing and we are very proud of you!

… to Sally Dando and Jan Elliott who took their MiDAS refresher courses and passed!  This enables them both to drive our school minibuses for another four years!

… to John Ormond for taking (and passing!) his MiDAS Trainer refresher course, enabling him to train all our minibus drivers. You are a star and we REALLY appreciate all the time you give which enables all the Bentley pupils to enjoy so many great learning opportunities.

 

Good Luck …

… to all our fantastic cyclists tomorrow… James Aston, Dom and Eliza Bell, Ben Bingham, Georgia and Jonny Boston, Ian and Sophie Cass, Briony Cavell, Marc Dando, Morgan Dixon, Sophie Handa, Natalie Hurst, James Ince, Frankie Jordan, Mike Kennett, Daisy, John and Syreeta Mansfield, Sacha Moore, Richard Myers, John Ormond, John Owen, Claire Pengilley, Andy Phillips, Martin Pratt, Andrew Rae, Chris Schafer, Jenny Shaylor, James and Sarah Stanley, Susie Stredder, Amy Wolfe, Sara Wood and our lovely Staff – Miss Smith, Miss Kirby, Mrs Rushin, Mrs Siers and Miss Wiggins.  You are all amazing!

 

Move Up morning

Next Friday, 5^th July, the children will be spending some time in their new classroom with their class teacher.  We will publish a full list of the teaching staff in the news next week.  Our year 6 children off to Eggar’s or Amery Hill Schools for the day do not need to complete an Absence from School form.  For any other children who will not be with us in September, transition activities have been arranged for the day. 

 

School Funding

Stories about the crisis in school funding have become a regular fixture in the news headlines - recently we have read that some schools are turning to charities to top up essential funding [1], and this week a group of families has brought a case to the high court accusing the government of failing to give adequate funding to local authorities for special needs provision [2].

The government tells us that education spending is at its highest level ever, which is true if you simply look at the amount of the Dedicated Schools Grant each year. But when you take a harder look at the numbers things start to look very different.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies tells us that in real terms, allowing for inflation, rising costs and increasing numbers of pupils, per-pupil funding fell by 8% between 2010 and 2018 [3]. As a percentage of GDP, overall education spending has come down from a peak of 5.8% in 2010 to barely more than 4%. This is roughly the same level as in 1960, when young people left school at 15 and few went to university [4].

Funding for buildings and maintenance have suffered too, thanks to a 41% real-terms cut in capital spending on schools since 2010 [5]. The National Audit Office estimates that it would cost £6.7bn to restore all school buildings to a satisfactory condition [6].

Here in Bentley the school seems to carry on as normal, but even we are seeing the effects of the lack of funds. In recent years we have been forced to cut specialised music tuition, remove subsidies on the price of clubs, and make all sorts of less obvious savings just to keep afloat. We were able to set a balanced budget for 2019/20, but Hampshire Education Financial Services are forecasting that we will fall into deficit in 2020/21 if funding levels don’t increase.

This is a serious state of affairs, and the governors are committed (and indeed required) to do all in their power to prevent this from happening. If things don’t improve we could be faced with some very unpalatable decisions - many schools around the country are already cutting staff, and Bentley really doesn’t want to have to join them.

Our best hope for more funding comes in the form of the government spending review, due later this year. The schools minister, Nick Gibb, has suggested that more money will be found, though whether it will be enough remains to be seen. Until then, you can make your voice heard: talk to your MP if you care about school funding. Here in East Hampshire he also happens to be Damian Hinds, Secretary of State for Education, so it’s not as if he lacks influence.

Paul Harrison, Chair of the Resources Committee

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jun/12/school-asks-bbc-children-in-need-to-cover-funding-gap

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jun/26/families-fight-government-in-court-over-chronic-underfunding-for-special-needs

[3] https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/13143

[4] https://neu.org.uk/joint-general-secretaries-speech  

[5] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/oct/26/35bn-cut-for-school-buildings-leaves-pupils-in-crumbling-classrooms-labour

[6] https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Capital-funding-for-schools.pdf

 

Water Safety

We have been forwarded an excellent water safety notice for parents and carers to use at home. Water safety is covered in school and as a part of our swimming assessments in Year 3 but at this time of year it is great to have such a resource for children.  Please click on the link at the bottom of this page.

 

Amery Hill School Open events

Open Evening is on Tuesday 2nd July between 5.30pm - 8.30pm when you will have an opportunity to explore some of the many exciting learning opportunities our school has to offer.  Headteacher talks will take place in the Main Hall at 5.45pm, 7.00pm and 8.00pm.  Please note that due to building works, parking for this event will be at Alton College, Edward Road Car Park C rather than the front of College - postcode for sat nav is GU34 2HU.

Open Mornings will be taking place between 9.00am - 10.45am on the following dates:-

Wednesday 25th September

Thursday 26th September

Wednesday 16th October