The Courier

Crescent School is celebrating its 75th anniversary during 2023 and the school has exciting plans to celebrate this wonderful milestone, with opportunities to get together, renew and strengthen relationships and revive old memories.

The year will begin with the school marking Founder's Day on Monday 16 January. Founder's Day is a new celebration in the Crescent calendar and will provide an opportunity for the Crescent community to reflect back to its founding in January 1948 and to commemorate and thank all who have contributed to the school’s history. To mark the start of the anniversary year pupils will also be spending Friday 20 January looking back to 1948, with teachers leading themed lessons exploring life in the 1940s.

During the year the school is planning to update A History Of Crescent School last published on its 60th anniversary.

At Easter, the school would like to welcome a panel of old pupils back in to school to talk to the children and we are looking for volunteers and for any memorabilia from past pupils' time at Crescent School. Photos, school reports, examples of schoolwork, programmes from plays and concerts and even old school uniform would all be welcomed. Please contact the school office admin@crescentschool.co.uk if you would like to get involved or the Foundation’s archivist catherinelewis@princethorpe.co.uk if you have anything to donate.

Then in the summer, the school will be inviting past pupils to visit the school when we hold our 75th anniversary celebrations on Saturday 10 June as part of the school’s annual Summer Fête.

More details of the events will be shared once plans are finalised. We look forward to sharing this important milestone with you all.

Do you think you have super keyboard skills? Do you think you can type quickly and accurately? If you answered yes then you will be incredibly excited to hear that on Monday 30 January, Mr Adkins will be launching the inaugural Princethorpe Foundation Typing Competition, a chance to test your typing speed and skills against not just your class mates, but against all the children at Crackley Hall too!

During your computing lesson that week you will be carrying out a series of typing challenges, designed to see just how awesome a typist you are. There will be prizes for the fastest typist in each class, in each Year (including Crackley), in each school and of course the big one… the fastest typist in the whole Foundation! As well as this it will also be an Inter House competition, with big points on offer in the House Cup.

If you want to get yourselves ready and fighting fit for the competition, just head over to typing.com and have a practice on the lessons or the fun games. Remember your username is fullnamecrescent (eg. benstokescrescent) and the password is crescent1

If you have any more questions, please just ask Mr Adkins!

Grove du Toit has taken on the Headship of Princethorpe College with effect from January 2023. He succeeds outgoing Headmaster, Ed Hester, who has held the post since 2009. Mr Hester now becomes Foundation Principal, a dedicated role with responsibility for the strategic vision and direction of the whole Princethorpe Foundation, its three schools and nursery.

Mr du Toit was appointed as Headmaster back in May 2022 after a rigorous selection process and until December was Deputy Warden (Senior Deputy Head) at Forest School, a co-educational independent day school for children aged 4 to 18, located on the edge of Epping Forest, a position he held for five years.

Married to Marike, with whom he shares two daughters, aged 14 and 11, Mr du Toit, 43, is a practising Christian. South African by birth, he moved to the UK in 2005 and after a brief period teaching in the maintained sector, he has held a variety of leadership roles in HMC independent schools in and around London. Following his under-graduate studies at the University of Pretoria, he completed a MA in Education Management at King’s College London, and has recently completed his MBA at Salford University through their Business School.

Comments, Liz Griffin, Chair of Trustees, “We are delighted to finally welcome Grove on board. The Foundation Trustees were unanimous in the decision to appoint him as the next Headmaster of Princethorpe College. His passion for education and young people shone through throughout the selection process and our many encounters with him since. He has immense vision and energy combined with a wealth of experience and leaderships skills, but most importantly his personal values marry perfectly with the ethos of the College.

She continues, “Our thanks go to Ed Hester, who has done an outstanding job as Headmaster of Princethorpe College over the last 13 years. Of course, Ed will continue to have a very keen interest in life at Princethorpe and will be on hand to ensure a smooth transition and successful handover to Grove, who will be supported by Princethorpe’s excellent Senior Leadership Team.”

Comments, Grove du Toit, “I am excited and honoured to take on the Headship of Princethorpe College and lead the school into the next stage of its development, building on the excellent work of Ed Hester. I recognise and fully appreciate what a special community Princethorpe is and upholding its ethos and spirit of family will be central to my role. I look forward to immersing myself in school life and building relationships with staff, parents and pupils alike.”

Outgoing Headmaster, Ed Hester, adds, “Grove is a great fit for Princethorpe and brings with him a vast amount of experience and skills. I am delighted to be able to hand over the reins of running the College to him and am really excited at the prospect of working with him over the years ahead.”

The Princethorpe Foundation educates some 1,400 pupils aged 2 to 18 years across its senior school, Princethorpe College, and prep schools, Crackley Hall School and Little Crackers Nursery in Kenilworth and Crescent School in Bilton, Rugby.