The Courier

Huge thanks to Crescent School’s FoC for organising this morning’s fundraiser for Macmillan Cancer Support. At morning drop off parents responded generously to the FoC enthusiastic cake sales team, who were pleased to welcome everyone for coffee and cake. Then at break time the children were delighted to purchase individual cakes to enjoy, although choosing was quite challenging for some. It proved a great morning of fundraising for a very worthy cause.

Macmillan Cancer’s annual fundraiser raised over £12 million for the charity last year but that figure was substantially down on previous totals. So, every penny contributed today will be most welcome.

The FoC and Crescent School are very grateful to parents, pupils and staff for their support for this good cause. Thank you to all you baked, bought and consumed. We will let you know how much was raised.

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, one for the Upper School and one 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 collection of tinned and packaged foods was on display. 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, sang traditional and modern Harvest songs, performed the story of Ruth and Naomi and confidently led the prayers. The school was especially pleased to welcome Rev Margaret Simmons from St Oswald’s Church who spoke to the gathering about what it means to celebrate the Harvest.

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 for this worthy cause. Pre-Prep had their Harvest Festival on Thursday. We hope you all enjoyed this first shared service of the school year.

You can find more photos and clips from the Upper School service on our social media here.

Crescent School commenced this year's Learning Mentors initiative today. The scheme underpins the school’s emphasis on building self-regulation, supporting and empowering pupils in their learning.

During the day, pupils had their first meeting with their mentors. Staff discussed the children’s work with them, helped them reflect on their books, feedback and comments and encouraged them to choose and agree the academic targets they want to work on this year. Together they then recorded the targets on a postcard, to help remind pupils and to allow them to share their targets with parents.

This powerful initiative gives responsibility for learning to the children, and all pupils from Year 1 up to Year 6 take part. Staff do not tell pupils what targets to choose, they choose themselves.

The children were all excited by the opportunity and we know it motivates their learning as they strive to achieve their own set goals. We look forward to reviewing the targets with them over the coming year.

Thank you to everyone for participating so enthusiastically and to our Year 6s for their sterling organisation of the day.

Many children love to write but need an excuse to write. The BBC 500 word writing competition has just opened, this can be a great excuse for your child to be creative. Please let me know if any of you enter it.

500 Words - BBC Teach

Year 6 enjoyed a warm welcome when they visited Princethorpe on Thursday 28 September to take part in a special Science Investigators’ Workshops in the College’s brand new Science Centre.

Ably assisted by Head of Science, Miss Cooper, and her team of specialist science teachers, the children were put through their paces with some fun hands-on Chemistry and Physics activities. They found out how long it takes for an alka seltzer rocket to explode and designed and constructed paper bridges that withstood some amazing masses.

It was great to see them all participating so enthusiastically in the experiments. Many thanks to Princethorpe’s staff for running this special science event.

If your child is in one of the following groups and you would like to purchase a Music Badge for them to wear on their uniform please complete the form below.

Music Badges Order Form