The Courier

Dear Parents

It has been a momentous week for the school following the sad announcement earlier in the week of Pathfinders’ imminent closure. Everyone here genuinely hopes that all the staff and children affected by this will be able to find suitable alternative work and childcare arrangements soon, but we know this process will take some time. We have been doing all we can to help those Crescent parents directly affected.

For Crescent, the return of the building to the main school will be a great opportunity for us to pursue our vision of providing the perfect prep school experience for our children and their families. This includes excellence in education and pastoral care, but also genuine breadth of opportunity in sport, music, drama and extra-curricular life. Many of you attended my presentation yesterday evening where I was able to expand on these ideas and share my excitement for the school’s future prospects. They are excellent. If you were unable to attend live last night, we will send a link to view at your leisure. In the meantime, please do contact me or the senior leaders at the school if we can help further.

On Tuesday of this week, we also enjoyed an excellent parents’ information meeting on the subject of digital citizenship (click here for more information). We have moved beyond the confines of simply covering online safety to looking at our rights and responsibilities as digital users. This may seem a difficult concept for young children, but it chimes very well with the ideas behind our School Promise. As you know, being a good citizen is one of the three main elements of the promise and covers qualities such as keeping safe, being respectful and tolerant of others and being honest and telling the truth. These are excellent starting points for good online practice as well. We are very fortunate to have Mr Adkins leading digital learning in the school this year and my thanks go to him leading for an informative and entertaining presentation.

As we head towards the half term holiday, we can reflect on a strange but productive six week period. Many teachers have mentioned to me just how engaged the children have remained throughout the whole time. I know that this has been a struggle in many schools, but for the vast majority of Crescent pupils they have soldiered on and made the absolute best of difficult circumstances. They genuinely deserve a massive well done from us and from you. Thank you to you as parents as well, for all of the support you have offered the school and your children.

None of us are off to enjoy sunnier climes for the half term week but instead we can spend time together and enjoy the simple pleasures of family life. I do hope you are able to find some quality time to spend with your children.

With my very best wishes.

Joe Thackway
Headmaster