You may have spotted some angel decorations on the sports hall windows. Every child has made angels in class this December and they are absolutely beautiful. The Winchester Diocese team got us on a mission as they pointed out how angels are so often blonde and white. We are all different and very blessed to be so. Bentley children have made angels to represent and celebrate our differences. Great work Bentley!

It will be a busy afternoon at school tomorrow with many people picking up their Christmas trees and Mrs Proud will be running a pop-up shop from 2-4pm, so bring some money and come over if you need any last minute gifts or decorations for your home. 

Mrs Katy Pinchess, Headteacher

 

Covid

Please know we are keeping a very close eye on all the updates. We review our Risk Assessments regularly and any time there is a new requirement.  At this time facemasks for adults indoors are mandatory and we continue to;

• Reduce adults into the building again – please only come in for a pre-arranged meeting. Email or ring into school where possible. Use the buzzers to speak to the office on site.
• Use the one way drop off system in the mornings
• Ask parents to socially distance as much as possible at pick up time (currently all in and out of the main gate)
• Log all visitors on site and carefully monitor child close contacts in case of a positive Covid case

 A huge thank you for your support to help us all keep safe. We will update you if there are any changes.

 

Celebration assembly

The whole school enjoyed a super awards ceremony this morning when reading, handwriting and times tables certificates were awarded. Please do check book bags for certificates. We are really proud of the terrific results which reflect lots of effort and practice. Excellent work and keep practising!

We also awarded S.T.E.P. (Sorry, Thank You, Excuse Me, Please) certificates and badges to three children from each year group today. Good manners are not only encouraged, but expected at Bentley and our children’s excellent manners and behaviour is often mentioned by parents, relatives and visitors who come to the school as well as when pupils are out on school visits.

The following children have shown superb manners over the term, in many different situations, and were nominated by their teacher, and endorsed by all staff, for a S.T.E.P award:

Year R – Erin, Orla, Tommy

Year 1 – Arthur, Edie, Frankie

Year 2 – Alex, Freddie, Otto

Year 3 – Agnes, Lexi, Rhys

Year 4 – Bella, Percival, Poppy

Year 5 – Emma, Francis, Sophie

Year 6 – Charlotte, Razi, Tristan

Congratulations also to George in Year 6 who earned an HC3S certificate from Wendy, Rebecca and Debbie - our school cooks - for helping out at lunchtime all term.  Well done George!

Year R & Choir visit to St Mary’s

We are delighted our Year R children and the School Choir are able to perform to all the children and staff at the Church on Thursday afternoon. Whilst we are very disappointed not to have the entire parent body in church for our traditional Christmas end of term service, we would love to welcome ONE adult family member from Year R and the School Choir to come along and watch their children perform.  Babies, toddlers and other siblings are all welcome on this occasion too.  Please click here to book your place by Tuesday 14th December at the latest. More details about this special performance will be sent after booking.

 

Staff News

We have a couple of goodbyes to say at the end of term. Mrs Morris (from the  Library and Office) has decided to take up a fulltime role with ‘big children’ and will be starting as a School Matron in January! Miss Farrant (from Breakfast Club and Year 2) is moving to Bristol this holiday but is continuing as an LSA at a school there. 

This means we have some welcomes to new staff in January! Many of you know Mrs Tegan Hansen who will be joining the breakfast team every morning. She is excited to get to know the children and families and has many great craft and play ideas to share. We will also welcome Mrs Fiona Tessendorf, who brings great of Admin experience to her new role as our Librarian and in the Office Team.

We are currently recruiting for a new member of the team to work in Year 2 as an LSA from 8.45-2.30pm every day. Please signpost anyone with suitable skills to the Hampshire Education jobs site.

 

Seesaw communications

Please can all parents follow school expectations to use the office email account to post messages to staff. It is not appropriate to use Seesaw for adult messages, as this is set up for teacher to pupil communications. Any messages can be read by the child them self and could potentially be shared with the whole class as work is reviewed on the interactive whiteboards.

 

Thank you to…

...everyone who lent gazebos for the School Fair. There is still one in our office. Please buzz to retrieve it as soon as possible!

 

Community courtesy

We have received a high number of complaints this term about parent and carer manners in relation to traffic around the village. When the police have attended they have not witnessed this behaviour, but the school is receiving a growing number of angry emails and letters. Here is one of the messages we received yesterday, which sadly left a very negative resonance after such a special event for the parents and children;

“The attitudes and behaviour of your school parents this evening leaving tonight’s school event was disgusting.

I have never seen a more selfish bunch of self-entitled idiots blocking drives, throwing cars all over School Lane, deliberately preventing anyone from actually driving up School Lane, driving around cars (in their rush to get home) who had actually shown some grace to try and allow someone to drive in the opposite direction.

As you know we have lived on School Lane for a long time with both of our children having attended the school, but this year really, really is beyond the pale with their selfish and arrogant behaviour to anyone who might cross their path.

The irony that tonight’s event was probably a Nativity play, where messages of kindness and love should be spread is clearly lost on those attending.”

We expect;

• No turning in neighbours’ drives
• No speeding
• No inconsiderate parking
• No pulling up or parking at any time on the zig zags

Governors have been working closely with the Parish to try to find positive parking solutions. One idea suggested by the Parish is to stop all parking close to school, to force families to park much further away and walk. Another suggestion was to lose our beautiful wooded area so beloved by our pupils to create more parking. Neither of these suggestions would be required if some more good will and courtesy were being used. Please remember your part within our community. We all need the dropping off and picking up of pupils to be safe, efficient and to reflect our school in a good standing with the village where we are located otherwise further action will be required with much more negative effects. 

The Parish Council has listened and taken action to support parental concerns about walking due to speeding cars. Number plates are now recorded and offenders are contacted. The Parish are trying to reduce car usage and make it safer to walk to school.

Please do log any specific concerns or incidents witnessed (with number plate details) so issues can be followed up by the police; https://www.police.uk/pu/contact-the-police/report-a-crime-incident/    

 

Save the Date - Monday 10^th January 2021 

Governors invite parents and community to attend a Zoom briefing about our recent Ofsted and next step plans. We will send out more details in January.

 

The Christmas Fair was a huge success… thank you to Vicky for taking the pictures in the Grotto (these should have come home with your child today), to Cressida and Laura for creating the fabulous Grotto and to Paul (for services to Lapland), to Eliza for bringing the gorgeous pony and to Mrs Tewkesbury for organising all the floats.  Special thanks to all the Year 6 elves, to the tidy up team and to everyone who manned a stall on the day.  We really couldn’t have run such a fun, happy and successful event without you!

The Elf Run on Friday was super – our Bentley family, the Forresters, were there taking pictures – please head over to our Sports News page to see some of our favourite shots.

 

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