BECKET KEYS
CHURCH OF
ENGLAND
SCHOOL
December
Newsletter
Volume IV, Issue I
Volume IV, Issue I
DJ Ian Wyatt (BBC Essex) came to
light Advent Candles with us today.
Friday 7th December 2012
Latest news
In this week’s
Newsletter:
BBC Essex
DfE Visit
Snowy Days
Winners of
Christmas Card
Competition
Announced
BBC Essex
Today we welcomed Ian
Wyatt from the BBC Essex
Radio Sunday Morning
Breakfast Show. Ian came to
see the school, having
supported our Free School
project from an early stage.
He came to our collective
worship to light an advent
candle and to hear our students’ wonderful singing!
Ian also spoke with many of
the students. It will be
worth listening on Sunday
morning from 7am to hear
whether the interview with
your son/daughter is played
out on air.
BBC Essex have been following the story of Becket
Keys for nearly two years
now and it was a privilege
to show Ian around the
school. Having the largest
Free School and the newest
Church of England secondary school in the country
here in Essex is something
we should all feel rightly
proud of.
Ian was particularly pleased
to hear about how Becket
Keys is working closely with
the existing schools in the
Brentwood area on new
and exciting projects.
DfE Visit
You may have heard from
your son or daughter that
we had a visit from the Department for Education last
week. Vanessa Wiseman,
one of the DfE’s education
advisors, came to see the
school. She interviewed
students, parents, governors and staff. Mrs Wise-
man observed three lessons
and came to collective worship.
Students presented her with
a card of thanks to the DfE
and an art project by Anna
and Annie. Joseph Stuckey
also presented her with some
of his famous chocolate
brownies! She had heard of
his successes in the Junior
Master Chef Competition!
Best regards
Mr Andy Scott-Evans
Head Teacher
UNIFORM
PRAYER
Prayer Meeting
Please remember to look at our uniform guide before
making purchases!
Coats should be black.
There is a weekly meeƟng
on Tuesdays at 11:30am.
Please join us if you can.
There is also a prayer
request box in the recepƟon
area.
Socks for girls should be white.
Socks for boys should be black.
Earrings should be plain gold or silver studs.
Page 2
December Newsletter
Snow problem this week!
On Wednesday a heavy snow
fall caused a number of
schools to close.
Becket Keys staff struggled in
from all over the county,
experiencing significant problems on the roads.
We held a “Build the
Tallest Snowman”
competition on the
field on Wednesday.
“There is more
snow forecast
next week...if
we decide to
close we will
ensure you are
told as quickly
as possible and
in as many ways
So we started the day in the
Hall with the 80 students that
had made it in on time. Mr
Scott-Evans had his guitar
ready and we were going to
practise some Christmas Carols. Fortunately, Mr Platford
arrived just in time to play the
piano! Mrs Kennard was there
too to play the oboe and Mrs
Endicott played her clarinet.
Students were keen to lend a
hand too so Ellie played her
flute and Matthew had his
violin which meant that in the
end we had a veritable
orchestra! The choir were
able to practice their descant
part for ‘O Little Town of
Bethlehem’ and a good time
was had by all!
All the other staff had arrived
in time to teach period two
and a further ten students had
also made it in.
After period two it was time
to get into the snow. A highly
competitive snow ball competition ensued on the playground!
At lunchtime, the students all
went down to the school
fields to see which group
could make the tallest snowman!
Check out the photos on
pages 4 and 5.
More snow on the way?
We will always endeavour to
open our school for learning
when it snows. However, the
safety of students and staff is
paramount and where necessary we will make the decision
to close.
If we decide to close we will
ensure that you are told as
quickly as possible and in as
many ways as possible!
1.
You will receive a text
message
2.
The school Twitter
Account will send a
Tweet: @BecketKeys.
3.
The school website will
show the Tweet on the
left hand side panel.
4.
Local radio stations will
be asked to make an announcement: BBC Essex
and Heart SX FM.
as possible!”
There is more snow forecast
for next week. As most of our
students walk to school, rather than come from far and
wide on buses, we are in a
very good position to try and
remain open.
However, if due to transport
problems your son or daughter cannot get to school on
time, please let us know. But
do send them in when it is
safe to do so. We’d rather
they only missed part of a day
than a full day of learning.
No fizzy drinks
Staff Baby Competition
Please note. Students should
not bring fizzy drinks to
school—they are not allowed.
A staff baby photo competition will run this week. See if
you can guess who is who in
our fun competition!
We also have a ban on chewing gum.
Any fizzy drinks or chewing
gum found will be confiscated.
7A can come along to Mr
Platford’s room on Thursday
lunchtime between 12.40
and 1.20.
7B can come along on Friday
lunchtime, same times.
It costs 20p to enter, payable
on the door. There will be a
small prize, but the real prize
is seeing the Becket Keys staff
when they were small and
cute!
We are looking forward to
seeing you there!
The Charity Committee.
Volume IV, Issue I
Friday 7th December 2012
Page 3
Christmas News
YOUNG DESIGNERS
Our congratulations go to the
winners of the Christmas card
design competition. You can
see Anna Townsend’s excellent card here. Her design will
also be used on the December
Newsletters. The four winning
designs are going to be used
for Becket Keys Christmas
cards. The winners will be
receive £10 book tokens and
20 copies of their own card
printed by the Becket Keys
designers.
The winners are:
Hannah Bennett, Bethan
Peters, Anna Townsend and
Celeste Brien.
We will show you the other
card designs next week.
CONCERT TICKETS
You will have received three
tickets for the Christmas
Concert yesterday. We would
like every student to be there
accompanied by one or both
parents. However, if you cannot attend, please return the
tickets to the school office. If
we have enough returns we
will be able to sell them to
other families as additional
tickets.
We will be
serving refreshments
from 7pm on
the day of the
concert in the
dining room.
The concert
will start at
7:30pm and
finish around
9:15pm. We
do hope you
will be able to
join us.
Advent Craft Sessions
We are pleased to be working
closely with the Diocesan
Youth Advisor, Alice Smith.
Mrs Smith will be coming in to
school over the next few
weeks as we celebrate
Advent.
The first few classes have now
enjoyed their RE lesson with
Mrs Smith. She is linking her
lessons to Advent Conspiracy:
www.adventconsipracy.org.
You might like to visit this
website for further information and inspiration during
this season of Advent.
In addition, Mrs Smith has
hosted two Advent craft sessions at lunchtime. These
sessions have proved to be
extremely popular and
thought provoking.
12:40 to 1:40pm.
Please get these dates into
your son/daughter’s planner if
you think they would be
interested.
Only two more
Advent Craft
Sessions!
10th and 14th
December
12:40 to
1:40pm.
Two more craft sessions will
take place on 10th and 14th
Other school news:
LOST PROPERTY
We have a few items of lost
property that will be thrown
out at the end of the term:
two pairs of trousers and
three shirts, two pairs of
glasses and some pencil cases.
If your son or daughter has
lost anything please send them
to the office or contact us
directly.
Partnership Basketball Masterclass. Our congratulations to
Long Ridings for showing and
developing some superb
skills—and our thanks to our
students Catherine, Elizabeth,
Ryan and Ryan for hosting
them.
PRIMARY LINKS
Becket Keys hosted Long
Ridings Primary School this
week for a School Sports
New labs for science and
mathematics are nearly completed. We hope to open
these rooms after Christmas.
NEW LABS NEARLY
READY
The three new labs will be
ready for maths and science
lessons. We will feature our
maths and science department
after Christmas in the newsletter after Christmas and also
organise a viewing for parents
to see these state of the art
new rooms.
New science and
maths rooms are
nearly ready at
Becket Keys.
BECKET BLIZZARD
Snow fell heavily on Wednesday
Despite a heavy downfall of snow at the start of the day, Becket Keys remained open for a full day
of learning.
NEW ADDITIONS
New tradiƟonal wooden games have been purchased for the cold lunchƟmes at Becket Keys
Students are able to stay inside the dining room and test their wits against each other at Giant
Jenga, Chess, Boku (see image here) and many other games. Miss Gill has created a beauƟful
naƟvity crib scene—now in recepƟon.