The Courier

Image Musical Theatre visited the Crescent School today, Friday 15 October, to stage a production of The Reluctant Dragon for the whole school.  As always, the children got to join in with the super story-telling session and clearly all enjoyed the show.

Image Musical Theatre is a company that perform participatory theatre to primary school audiences.  They believe that bringing a story to life engages children and helps encourage them to read.

The actors, began by selecting ten children to take part in the show.  They then worked with the audience teaching them a series of songs, hand actions and responses to accompany the tale.

After a short break to allow the players to get into their costumes the production started.  It was an excellent performance full of comedy and wit and the children sat focused and fully engaged.  The theatre company cleverly brought the classic tale to life and the children really enjoyed singing all the songs.  Well done to Crescent’s budding actors, Marcie, Finn, Evelyn, Annalise, Toni, Sam O, Katherine, Rory, Sachin and Akaal, who took to the stage eagerly and delivered their lines with aplomb.

It was another great morning of engaging learning and fantastic fun.

It was non-uniform day in school today where children and staff wore clothes with a 'wildlife' theme. School Council representatives made up games for pupils to take part in before school.  Here is a list of the games and the winners so far...

• Champion Carrot Flinging - Tomisin (Pre-prep) and Aryan (Y6) 
• Around The School Quiz - To be announce when marked
• Spot The Sparrow -  To be announce when marked 
• How Many Leaves In The Jar? - Alex T (Y4)
• Name The Fox - Nora (Y3)
• Name The Wolf - Poppy (Y5)

We have been overwhelmed with the generosity today as we raise funds for the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, and we will follow up after half term with the remaining winners and the total raised so far for this term's charity. 

We are very grateful for your continued support.

Mrs Monteith and Mrs Stapleton
Class 4M and 1S Form Teachers

On Tuesday 12 October, local Rugby resident Sue Melia, from Bwengu Projects Malawi, visited the Crescent School to receive a cheque for £1,185. The cheque was presented by Year 5 pupils Sam McCormick and Esme Barlow, in the school’s Harvest Festival service.

The Crescent School has been supporting the work of Bwengu Projects for fourteen years now. In fact, the school was one of the charity’s first supporters back in 2007 when they donated books for use in school libraries, one of the charity’s earliest projects. Each year the Year 4 children at the Crescent School study Africa and in particular Malawi and the work the charity, Bwengu Projects, does. Studying the challenges the people in Malawi face helps the children to appreciate the similarities and differences in our societies.

At the end of their topic the children choose specific Bwengu Projects to support and go on to organise fundraising activities that the whole school participates in. This year the now Year 5s raised money in a number of enterprising ways including a sponsored silence, organising games and competitions and a non-uniform day.

For 2021 the children chose two projects to support with a target of £500 to raise, to repair three broken rooves on a school in Nachipangapanga and to provide a month of orphans’ food.

Bryony Forth, Deputy Head, commented, “Supporting the Bwengu Project is always a highlight of my teaching year, something which I personally am very proud to be part of. The children enjoy studying Bwengu and comparing 'A Village Less Economically Developed than Rugby'. Over the years, we must have raised nearly £11,000 and helped pay for renovating schools, building a Women's Development Centre, sewing machines, a teacher's salary and nearly 60,000 meals for orphans.

“The children worked incredibly hard this year, especially as COVID restricted what we could do. They smashed their fundraising target, so as well as fixing the rooves, there is enough money to fund six months of orphan food and to fix the rotten roof and truss of Isyalikila Junior School.”

Sue Melia was overwhelmed, and commented, “This is really wonderful, our aims are very simple, our projects in Malawi support education. We are very grateful to Crescent School.”

Harvest Festival at Crescent School is always a special event as the children and staff gather together with the wider school family to celebrate and give thanks. Every year the school hall resonates with music, songs, prayers and readings to reflect on the bounty of the harvest, the traditions of Harvest Festival, along with the importance of community and of helping one another. This year, the school hosted two services, for the Upper School and for Pre-Prep, to allow parents to join in the celebration.

The school relies on the generosity of parents and family members to make this traditional British event one to remember and together, thanks to a wealth of donations, a wonderful display of tinned and packaged foods was created.  These will be taken to Rugby Foodbank and are sure to be gratefully received.

In the Upper School service the Crescent orchestra played stirringly leading the gathering in the traditional hymn ‘We plough the fields and scatter’. The children delivered their readings beautifully and sang traditional and modern Harvest songs.

Thank you to all of the children, to the staff who helped put the service together and to the parents for their donations of goods and of cash totalling £271.40 for this worthy cause. We hope you enjoyed this first shared service of the school year.

Last Monday 11 October Crescent School took part in the Princethorpe College’s Year 5 Maths Challenge.  The event was run by Douglas Buchanan of DCBEAGLE Challenges, who specialises in organising exciting and innovative maths activities for primary school aged children.

Crescent took two teams of two to compete alongside 18 pairs of enthusiastic and very talented mathematicians from nine local schools, the pupils took part in a series of puzzles against the clock.  In five eight-minute rounds the children tackled Tangram Triangles, Broken Calculators, Domino Jigsaws, Card Order and Curly’s Cycling Circuits, before finishing with a bonus round of five final mathematics questions.

Ably supported and marked by a team of Princethorpe’s Year 10 pupils, the competition stretched and challenged the children with mathematical activities that required both reasoning skills and mathematical knowledge.

The event was huge fun for all who took part and everyone who participated received a certificate and a special Princethorpe cookie.

Crescent School’s best placed team Crescent 1, Tegan and Zahra, finished in 5th place overall with Crescent 2, Ellie and Mya, finishing 14th.

Mrs Calder and Miss Wrzesniacka, who accompanied the children, said, “The children had a great time and really enjoyed putting their maths skills to the test. Well done to them all, they made Crescent School proud.”

There was a great atmosphere around school last Friday when we held Open Corridors for the first time in over 18 months. The children were so excited and proud to be showing their parents their school and work. When talking to parents there was a feeling of gratitude, pride and emotion now they were able to share in their children's life in school a little more.

The next Open Corridors will be held on Wednesday 1 December, we look forward to welcoming you then.

After the half term break all children are expected to be in full winter uniform.  Parents can use their discretion as to whether blazers or the school coat are more appropriate for the weather at the time.

When it does get really cold we do need all the children to have their coats in school so we can make a decision on outdoor break times. 

The School Shop is closed over half term.  Uniform items can be ordered via the link below and will be delivered to school during the first week back.

Uniform Order Form

Thank you for your cooperation with these guidelines.

Joe Thackway
Headmaster  

The Poppy Appeal items will be arriving in School on Monday 1 November ready for children to purchase.  Year 6 will be selling these on the door each  morning before school.  

The photo displays the items for sale last year - this years items tbc.

Please would parents ensure that children do not come into school wearing jewellery.

Necklaces and bracelets can easily be broken or lost and are potentially hazardous for children taking part in physical activities or experiments. 

Earings – children are not permitted to wear earings to school due to health and safety.  If a child forgets to remove their earings, we will ask them to remove them and put in an envelope to bring home.

We discourage watches being worn in Pre-Prep but they can be worn in the Upper School to aid learning.  

Thank you for you cooperation with this health and safety matter.

Photo proofs have been sent home with children last week. All photographs should be ordered online at www.pics4schools.com.  

All details can be found on the proof card with your unique security code. The deadline for orders to ensure free delivery to school is Friday 24 October 2021.

Please do contact Mr Lloyd if you have any queries, his details are on the proof card.

Crescent School