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Welcoming the children back for the summer term...

Thank you so much for all my birthday wishes. I will treasure the wonderful cards and messages from all the children and everyone made my birthday really special. The staff spoilt me rotten with a special spa voucher (which I hope has the magical powers to turn back the years when I am lucky enough to book in!). There was a fantastic, happy video with some groovy dancing from all the children and they cleverly passed the birthday hat (like a Harry Potter sorting Hat with birthday candles on it) to me to wear.

We have been lucky enough to have many sunny days this week so it is time to dig out the sun hats and buy some suntan lotion! Please ensure your child always has a pack-a-mac or waterproof coat with them as we go outside every day and the British weather does not always follow the forecast! Suntan lotion should be applied at home so look out for the long lasting type. Please also check all uniform, sports kit and water bottles are CLEARLY NAMED.

Thank you so much for your support in getting children their full uniform re-sorted. Shops and online uniform are all available so all children are now expected to be in BLACK leather shoes (no open toes).

We have noted a few regular parents are persistently running late. If this is you then please set the alarm a little earlier on school days to help your child to get into school by 8.55am every day.

A big thank you for all your support with our continuing COVID requirements. Please ensure you are wearing facemasks as you queue up and collect children as social distancing is clearly more difficult at this time. We would request the only parents to queue by the school gate are those who are medically exempt from wearing a facemask, as the entrance gate is becoming very congested. Please could all other parents meet older children who leave school independently further away from the school (e.g. at the Recreation Ground, the shop or at the car park). We also request dogs are not left unattended by the gates at this time.

Mrs Katy Pinchess, Headteacher

 

In school this week...

...we are starting some new topics in our learning;

In Yr R the children have taken amazing photographs of signs of spring. They will be starting the ‘Animal Topic’ for this term and also learning about different countries and cultures in their Knowledge and Understanding of the World. 

In Yr 1 the class have really enjoyed their history topic about the 1960s. They learnt about the moon Landing and look on Seesaw to see them learn to do the twist! We are very excited to have the amazing Gardening Team back again on Friday afternoons to get our raised beds growing.

In Yr 2 our learning in English has been linked to space and in Design Technology we will be making Moon Buggies. In RE we are thinking about Christian understanding of what God is like.

In Yr 3 the children will be conducting experiments to understand how light works. They will be making Roman Mosaics in art linked to the history topic of Romans in Britain.

In Yr 4 the children have started their RE topic about Pentecost. They will be programming in Computing lessons using LOGO. This term continues the children’s chronological learning about British Invaders, with our Viking topic in history.

In Yr 5 the children will learn about amazing National Parks in the UK and around the world, comparing their features. English work has started with instructional text writing and in maths, children have been partitioning decimals.

In Yr 6 children have looked at how climate change is affecting where humans live. In Art children are studying the Pop Art movement and in music we have been enjoying the Motown sound.

 

Jo dobson

Some of you will be aware that a much-loved member of our Bentley community was lost this week. Jo Dobson passed peacefully after several months of illness. Jo was well known to everyone as a brilliant supporter of the school, super PTFA minute taker and ‘raffle organiser extraordinaire'. Her husband Brian passes on his thanks for the thoughts, prayers and kind words for Scarlet, for him and their family at this time.

As a school community, we prayed for the family in collective worship today and Mrs Pinchess and the teachers have spoken to the upper juniors today to answer their questions. We will keep a close eye out to support children who may be affected, but please let us know if your child is upset by this news. Jo touched the lives of many so positively; we do not always know the home connections, but are sure everyone who knew her will feel saddened by her death.

Should your child has questions we thoroughly recommend www.winstonswish.org but there are many other excellent bereavement materials available online if you feel they would help you to process this sad news.

Our staff and children have some ideas of how we would like to celebrate Jo’s life and positive legacy here at school and we will discuss these with the family when they feel ready to.

 

COVID Update

Our school risk assessment has been updated to reflect the latest guidelines - you can download a copy here.  The most significant changes are:

  • Resume enrichment clubs – sticking to separate bubbles in the main
  • Merge Juniors and Infants on minibus from 20th April
  • Merge Juniors and Infants and in Breakfast and After School Club from Thursday 22nd April
  • Allow more essential visitors back into the building e.g. Governor, Gardening Team and HIAS
  • Year R to go back to drop off from playground from 26th April

 

Thank you…

…to the Barker family for the lovely paints and super books for the library

…to the Wellstead family for English learning journey book for Year 3

 

Well done …

…to all the children for a brilliant first week back with great routines and independence observed by the staff!

…to everyone who has remembered to bring in their reading book and reading record in – you are SUPERSTARS! Please can anyone missing their reading record (or a school book) have a really big hunt for it over the weekend so everyone can record their brilliant reading.

...to the staff members who have been taking part in the Strides Against Stress campaign.  They pledged to walk or run at least one mile each day during April.  Please click here to visit our sponsorship page set up by our own exercise ambassador, Miss Wiggins, and see how they are getting on. Your donations will help increase awareness of the stress educators can experience and provide mental health and wellbeing services for them.  Thank you.

 

School Lunches

The new school lunch menu has started. Picnic lunches are still available – Cheese wraps are available on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and Ham wraps served on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If your child has any special dietary requirements, please let the school office know.

Lunches remain at £2.50 per day for all Junior children and these should be paid in advance via your www.scopay.com account.  Lunches to half-term will cost £72.50.

If you provide a lunch box for your child and are struggling to introduce fruits and vegetables that don’t just come home in the lunchbox at the end of the day, VegPower have put together a flyer which has some really helpful ideas.  You can download this from the foot of the page.

 

School Collection Updates

We continue to collect used stamps, clean plastic milk bottle tops, used batteries and old/unwanted coins and bank notes. These all go towards school projects and charities. We currently have a big box of stamps and would be happy to pass them onto a charity linked to one of our families. If you would be happy to collect these and pass them onto a charity, please let us know via the office.

Thank you to everyone for passing on good quality, clean school uniform for PTFA sales. Don’t forget that you can also bag up clean clothes, material and shoes and drop them off in the recycling box by the Year R gate.

 

Fame!?

We have been alerted that the One Show feature is due to be aired next week, probably on Monday. The focus of the piece is around the poet presenter Benjamin Zephaniah. He is dyslexic and struggles with reading but still had the creativity and determination to become a writer. The piece will focus on his journey and the filming from Bentley is around an online assessment tool we have started using called Lexplore which is helping us to detect and support children with all sorts of reading difficulties.

As staff, we have not had any sneak peeks and we have no idea which adults or pupils ‘made the edit’ after the whole day of filming! We have some trepidation about the rumours of the camera adding 20lbs and the lack of hairdressing availability at the time of filming…! Fingers crossed our lovely school, fantastic pupils, supportive parents and hard-working staff all come across brilliantly. 

 

Netball and Dance Day

Time for the children to get their boogie and ball skills ready as Miss Wiggins has organised a special dance and netball session for ALL classes on Tuesday 27th April.  Children will need to have their PE kit in school.

 

Summer Term Clubs

We had a great response to our super teacher-led clubs this term. Texts will be coming out this afternoon to confirm places.  Please go to www.scopay.com by Monday to consent and pay for your child to take part. If you no longer want the place for your child, please email the school office as soon as possible as many of the clubs have a waiting list.  All our clubs will run from Monday.

 

Bentley Love Nature Challenge

Last term I challenged all the children to show love for the nature in their gardens and on their doorsteps over Easter by completing the ‘Bentley Love Nature Challenge’.

This week the children fed back to me with great enthusiasm the multiple things that they did over Easter to nurture the nature where they live. These included: creating hedgehog highways; numerous fantastic bug hotels; growing flowers and vegetable seeds; litter picking; rescuing animals in need; feeding the birds, putting up birdboxes; providing water for wildlife and even watching birds’ nests using specially installed cameras.

A huge thank you to all the families who participated – it was really brilliant to hear all the lovely wildlife stories today from the children. If you want to continue being ‘wild’, why not sign up for the Wildlife Trusts ’30 Days Wild’ event by clicking here.

Madame Jones