This week...

Year R have been learning about safety for children and pets when there are fireworks

Year 1 have enjoyed making poppies in Design Technology and learning about what the poppies represent ready for our collective Worship next Monday

Year 2 have LOVED trying to beat their own scores and improve their speed with their times tables facts in maths

Year 3 created their own individual poppies and made a 3D wreath in their Art and Design lessons

Year 4 had a wow day on Monday for Design Technology, building on their sewing skills from Year 2. They went from design to completion of fabric pouches in a day!

Year 5 have really tackled graphs and moved their learning on to read and draw accurate line graphs. “It was tricky but we worked through it and improved” said Isaac.

Year 6 read War Poems from WW1 and created their own poems with great visual imageries. 

Next week it is a national themed anti-bullying week and our school will have Kindness themed lessons throughout the week. Click here for more information and optional clothes changes.

It has certainly taken a wintery turn in the weather so please ensure that your child has a waterproof hooded coat in school every day.

Mrs Pinchess, Headteacher

 

THANK YOU TO…

… the PTFA for paying for the super panto this afternoon in school – the children have loved Dick Whittington!

… the Wellstead family and SMSW Media for the super new Bentley Eco-Council logo – we love it!

… the lovely donor of newspapers in a box - if you’d like your box back please collect it asap

… Anne Shelley, Grandma Aston, for the donation of sewing supplies

…all the staff for running the book Fair and to Mrs Miffling for setting up the event. A big thank you to everyone who came and bought lovely books. We raised over £700 which will ensure that we can continue to run and fill our library.

 

WELL DONE TO…

... our fantastic Hockey Team who are through to the Hampshire Games Final having won every single game at the second round! Go Bentley! Click here to read about our Hockey Heroes!

… our super cook, Alison, who once again has got through to School Chef of the Year!  Against stiff competition she cooked up a storm and her turkey kofta with a broccoli tabbouleh and carrot cake cheesecake wowed the judges. The final is in January – good luck Alison!

 

STAFF NEWS

We will be holding a special coffee and goodbye for parents, staff and community members to come and wish Mrs Sharon Gallagher a fond farewell. This will be held on Friday 29^th November at 10.30am. Please do come along and let the office know if you can make it. All welcome.

We are very sad to announce that Miss Enticknap our SENCO will be leaving us at the end of term. For any long standing Bentley friends will know that Vicky first joined the school in 2002 and for a long time she was our full-time Year 4 teacher. She has been a brilliant SENCO who has worked for one and a half days a week with an ever changing work load; she has supported lots and lots of children with special needs at Bentley over the years; she has trained, advised, coordinated and managed staff to help with first quality teaching at all times; she has ensured that the onerous statutory expectations and timescales are met for any child with significant needs and supported families with the difficulties of applications for EHCPs or new school placements; she has often been the person whom parents can confide in, ask advice of and she is a sympathetic and caring professional at all times, throughout all her work. It will be a difficult time for us in losing such a knowledgeable, dedicated and hard-working teacher.

Miss Enticknap has exciting plans ahead and has had a very special opportunity with the Helen Arkell centre. She will be returning to work full time with children and her role will be to support pupils 1:1 in areas of deprivation. We know that she will be making a huge difference for many children who struggle with learning and we will miss her hugely but wish her all the very best in her next adventures in learning.

 

KINDNESS WEEK 

Next week brings a renewed focus on Kindness, as part of national Anti-Bullying Week with a week of kindness focussed activities, run by Mrs Vogel, our PSHE Lead. To celebrate our differences and support of each other’s difference we have encouraged all the children to get involved by wearing odd socks or funky tights (rather than the school uniform colours of grey or white) to school on Monday 11^th through to Thursday 14^th November.

On ‘Elmer Day’ on Friday 15^th November all our children may come to school in their own clothes and can represent their own interests and passions in what they wear.  There’s no ‘theme’ and definitely no pressure to conform to the latest fashion or for parents to buy expensive costumes, it’s just an opportunity for the children to express themselves and celebrate their individuality and what makes them all unique!  If you wish to make a kindness donation, all proceeds will go to Kaira Konko, one of our chosen charities for this academic year and all the money will be spent to support our friends in North Africa at Sitahuma School.

During the week the children will all take part in activities related to kindness.  At the end of the week the children and the staff will nominate one child from the school who they think is especially kind and two children, a boy and a girl, who they see as typifying our Church School values in their behaviour.  The following week in a special assembly on Tuesday, the Kindness Cup and Values Cups will be awarded to those children.

 

BENTLEY’S ECO-COUNCIL 

This term we are delighted to launch our new Eco-Council, led by Sophia and Olivia in Year 6, with support from Madame Jones and Mrs Krempel.  We are all very passionate about saving our beautiful planet and have lots of ideas for this academic year to get the whole school community involved. 

Please read Sophia and Olivia’s inspiring words below to find out more:

“We are the Eco-Council.  We think it’s important to look after the planet because it’s struggling with the amount of plastic we are producing. If we clog up the ocean with plastic, the rest of the planet will suffer.  If we chop down all the trees, everything and everyone will suffer because trees provide us with oxygen.  All the different parts of the planet rely on each other to keep the whole world alive and healthy.

On Friday 6th December at the Christmas Fair, we would like to have our own Eco-Council stall.  We would like to sell candles all made from recycled materials.  We would also like to run a workshop to make bags using old t-shirts.  Please could you help us by saving the following items and bringing them to us in year 6 by putting them in the labelled box in the library:

Babybel wax   -   Babyfood jars   -   Wine bottle tops – caps and corks

Beer bottle caps (or similar)   -   Old t-shirts (all sizes, clean and no holes please)

Jars   -   Corks   -   Odd socks (clean!)

Thank you very much for your help.”

Looking after our precious planet is a very big task and we are going to be encouraging everybody to do their bit, however small.  In the next few weeks the children will be asked to make a pledge to protect the planet, e.g. picking up litter or turning off lights.  Sophia and Olivia are also going to be recruiting a team to help them with their ideas. 

If you share our passion for the environment and would like to help us with our projects this year, we would love to hear from you.  Please leave a message for us at reception. Thank you in advance.  In the meantime, please keep an eye out for information on the website about our projects.

Sofia, Olivia, Madame Jones and Mrs Krempel

Logo courtesy of SMSWMedia.com

 

whoop whoop!

We are all super excited (especially Mr Lucas!) to hear the new minibus is on its way! We are just waiting on the signwriting and it will be here!  John Ormond will be training our fantastic volunteers - Laura Wellstead, Steven Barnes, Dilly Green, Chris Wood and our own Miss Kirby - later this month.  There is still space for one more volunteer driver on the course next week, please contact the school office if you would like to sign up.

 

SCHOOLS MEALS

We had AMAZING feedback from the children and parents who came along to taste the new options for lunches last term. Our super school cooks Alison and Wendy work really hard to make sure that there is something yummy for everyone and they are always happy to pass on feedback and ideas to the HC3S leadership team so please do give us any relevant feedback, compliments and ideas. The new menu option has something for everyone so we hope that your children are enjoying the additional choices and options for Juniors and new options for all Infants. Yum, yum!

HC3S write, “Next week we celebrate National Schools Meals Week (NSMW). One of the key themes of this year's events is TASTE IT YOURSELF, as we want to encourage pupils who do not regularly eat with us to take part in taster sessions to banish any misconceptions about school meals.

We are very excited and proud to announce that last month HC3S were named best education caterer at the Catey's Food Service awards. These nationally recognised awards honour the ‘crème de la crème’ of the catering industry. We were fortunate to win not one but two awards! The innovation category saw HC3S take the title as our leading social media Facebook platform was recognised as an effective interactive method in communicating with our parents, schools and teams”.