Headmaster's Message

Headmaster's Message

Dear Parents

I hope you and your families are well. Many of you will be looking forward to a long weekend with the bank holiday tomorrow, although for many others work will continue, I'm sure. It looks like a weekend of two halves is forecast, with the better weather on Friday and Saturday. I do hope that you get to enjoy at least some of that sunshine.

This week's Courier reflects the many and rapid adaptations we have had to make over the last few weeks to meet the demands of the current crisis. For example, I managed to run the annual inter-house geography final using Teams and, despite some technical hiccups along the way, the winner emerged and there won't be a gap in the honours board, at least for this competition. You can read more about the final elsewhere in the newsletter.

Another calendar event we have worked hard to keep was today's History Day. Our focus has been the home front during the Second World War, in particular the celebrations marking VE Day on the 8 May 1945. All of the children have enjoyed taking part in different focused activities as part of their timetable today, hopefully giving them an insight and appreciation of experiences of living through a time of war when so much was unknown and the fear of catastrophe ever present. Given the deadlines that we work to for the Courier we won't be able to share many details of today with you but please look out for lots of highlights in next week’s edition.

A very welcome taste of normality came with the announcement of our outstanding LAMDA results earlier in the week. I say outstanding, when perhaps astonishing would be better the adjective to use. I have trawled through results of this sort for many years as a prep school teacher, but never have I seen so many distinctions and merits. The children worked so hard preparing for the examinations so it is always great to see them delivering the goods on the day. Enormous credit must go to Miss Thompson, who is such an inspiring and inventive teacher who is able to coax performances from children who might never have believed they were possible.

I do hope you enjoy today's newsletter. Have a great weekend everyone.

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

 

VE Day Competition

As part of our History Day to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day, the children can take part in a competition to win a copy of 'My Secret War Diary' by Marcia Williams. There are three books to win, one for Pre-Prep, one for Year 3 and 4, one for Year 5 and 6. Taking part is entirely optional.

Here is a copy of the build-up given to the children on Seesaw this morning:

"I want you to imagine you are a child back on that day in 1945. There would have been street parties, bunting and flags flying. Everyone would feel happy and relieved.

You need to think how you would have felt after six long years of war. Food was rationed and in short supply, your Dad was away fighting and your town had been bombed. Finally, it was all over and you could look forward to a new and happy life.

On the day of the celebrations, there would have been street parties with tables set out in the road and lovely food being served, jam sandwiches, jelly, squash and things like that".

Instructions on how to enter the competition are below:

Pre-Prep children (Reception, Year 1 and Year 2)
Write a postcard telling me what happened at the street party. You can divide a page in two and draw a picture of the party on one side and a short message on the other side.
 
Upper School children (Year 3, 4, 5 and 6)
1.   Write a poem describing the celebrations and how you felt
or
2.  Write a diary entry, telling me what happened to you on that famous day

You can illustrate your entries with pictures of party food or bunting or people celebrating. Your entries can be typed or handwritten.

Please send you entries to homelearning@crescentschool.co.uk

It is fine to send a picture of your entry, but please make sure it is easy to read. Winners will be announced in the Good News assembly on Friday 15 May and we will also publish the highly commended entries in next week’s Courier.

Good luck!

Joe Thackway