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This week at Bentley...

It has been another busy week at school with lots of special curriculum opportunities. Everyone has been working and playing hard from some super instrumental music performances in classes, to interesting topic learning activities. Our Eco Councillors have planted out over 100 sunflowers seedlings today so we look forward to these blooming! Our Year 3 and 4 classes have had their Activities week with many fantastic activities including history, sports and outward bounds. The visits to the Gordon Brown Centre were clearly a highlight and experiencing the beauty and freedom of this wonderful place will stay with the children for a long time to come.

Going about the school in my role as Headteacher, I have been impressed with the focus and hard work going on in every class this half term. Through discussions and School Council meetings children have shared their enjoyment in being ‘back to normal,’ which is brilliant to hear. Staff have also reported a typical return to colds and sniffles, plus children dealing with the very normal ups and downs related to friendships. Whilst these are clearly much less wanted aspects of face-to-face contact, they are still a very normal part of life. Please help your child to relax, rest and re-boot over the half term break but do let us know if any health or well-being issues continue longer term – we are always here to help and support.   

Please take the opportunity to check PE kit (and especially trainers!) still fit and school uniform is free of holes.  Children will need their PE kits and their house colour PE t-shirts in school from Monday 7th and all children should have black school shoes.

Lastly, I wanted to post a big thank you to the PTFA as my Mother’s Day sunflower gift has been such a joy this week! The heavy rain and strong winds meant that it had to stay mostly inside but it has still grown and blossomed with a beautiful flower. It reminded me very much of the resilience of our super pupils despite Covid lockdowns…keep growing and blossoming Bentley children!

Mrs Katy Pinchess, Headteacher

 

On Seesaw this week…

Year R - A performance of Big Bear Funk for your enjoyment

Year 1 – Arcimboldo portraits with fruit and vegetables, making a fruit salad in DT and a poetry workshop with the Hay Festival

Year 2 – Audio clips of the children playing two chords on the ukelele

Year 3 – Roman day, the Gordon Brown Centre and local walk

Year 4 – The Gordon Brown Centre, history day and local walk

Year 5 – Our amazing fractions work

Year 6 – Our first attempt at clay sculptures to practise different techniques

 

Thank you...

...to everyone who bought and baked yummy goodies for the Y3 cake sale…and to those who came along and supported by buying them!  Year 3 raised £107.15

…to Cress Mizen, Laura Wellstead and Barbs Sarling, our super volunteer MiDAS-trained minibus drivers who gave their time to transport our Year 3 and Year 4 children to the Gordon Brown Centre this week.  These visits could not have happened without their help!

the mystery book donor who left some super books for our library by the front door!

 

Covid

Schools and colleges continue to play an important role in contact tracing for pupils, students and staff.  If a pupil (or any member of their household), member of staff or visitor to school develop Covid symptoms over this weekend, you must contact the school by texting our school mobile on 07519 146546 with your child’s name, class and the details of whether you are self-isolating with symptoms or have a positive COVID case confirmed. Mrs Pinchess will have the phone at home and check it for calls and messages between 10am and 12pm until 31st April in case we need to get in touch and ask other families and staff to self-isolate in the holidays.

Should you have to self-isolate, or have a positive case confirmed after 31st April, then please contact us by emailing the school office.  Whilst we will have passed the point where new cases require others in the school community to self-isolate, it will be useful to know for our planning and risk assessments for the start of the last half term.  

 

Students

You may have heard some new names and seen some different faces around school over the last few weeks with several student teachers having placements here. We said ‘Thank you and farewell’ to Miss Henson who has been at Bentley in Years 1 and 2 this year. She is in the final few weeks of her teacher training now and we wish her all the best in her future career.

Miss Eaton and Miss Hill were with us in Reception class this half term on first year training placements. Second year teacher students Mr O’Shaughnessy has been on placement in Year 3 and 4 and Miss Coles in Year 5. They will both stay with us into June. All the students have all very much enjoyed their time at Bentley.

 

Dobson Family

Brian has asked me to pass on the family’s gratitude and thanks for all the flowers, donations and emotional support over the last few weeks leading up to the funeral on Wednesday. He and Scarlet were so touched by the number of people who came to the service. The community support means a huge amount.

 

Win a set of funny books!

To celebrate the release of The Super Secret Diary of Holly Hopkinson this month, HarperCollins Children's Books have a competition for children to have fun with!

They are challenging children to draw a doodle about a funny thing that has happened to them. It can be about anything they like! The doodle that makes the author and publisher laugh-out-loud the most will win a copy of The Super Secret Diary of Holly Hopkinson and a set of other brilliant books. Find out more here

 

Wild World Heroes Book Collection

Children can read or listen to any books of their choice to complete their Challenge. The official Wild World Heroes Book Collection offers plenty of inspiration, featuring picture books, early reader titles and middle grade books connected to the core Challenge themes of the natural world, young heroes and standing up for the planet.

The titles in the Book Collection will be available to borrow from participating libraries and eBook platforms this summer. Find out more about the Wild World Heroes Book Collection here, or visit The Reading Agency’s Bookshop.org page.

 

Free activities to enjoy at home

The Reading Agency has over 600 free downloadable resources on our Chatterbooks resources page, including themed booklists, author videos, activity packs and discussion questions. Check out the resources page every month as it is updated regularly with new materials to support children’s reading for pleasure.

 

Huckleberries event

There is a special event coming up with Huckleberries Nurture Farm on 27th June at Hamptons Estate in Surrey. You need to book a slot to attend and there is going to be lots of fun activities for all the family from tree planting to Forest Schools to 'soil to beef' learning. Bev and her team will be there and donations made at the event will go towards supporting Huckleberries. We know that this event will be popular so suggest that you book in quickly!    http://www.hamptonestate.co.uk/events/open-farm-sunday/ 

 

Eat them to defeat them…

We are taking part in the promotion of eating more vegetable with ‘Eat them to defeat them’ campaign so expect lots of vegetable eating fun next half term!

 

Click here to find out what’s happening next week and

here to get more information about what’s going on in the local area