The Courier

Dear Parents

I was pleased to see a good number of parents here this Tuesday for the launch of our new School Promise. You should all have received your own copy of the promise and I hope you will take the time to have a good read of this with your children and take the chance to discuss the core ethos that we are trying to promote here at Crescent School. The ideas that are described are deceptively simple but often taken for granted. These formative years for our children are so important in shaping the people they will become and as parents and educators we have a really key role to play in this process. In preparing for the presentation, I picked out some of the key words and phrases that are at the heart of the Promise. I will list them here:

Good Friends: kind, caring, forgiving, good manners
Good Learners: listen, try our best, never give up
Good Citizens: Respectful, tolerant, honest, responsible

My experience is that some children are born with some or many of these qualities, others may need some guidance along the way but all children can get there with the right support and in the right environment. Our job is to provide that environment and to keep reminding ourselves that they are children, a work in progress, and everyone is at a different place in their personal development. This is equally true of adults in many ways and I would stress that the new Promise applies equally to them, the teachers, assistants, office staff and support team, in the same way that it applies to me.

Although the School Promise has been renewed and refreshed, it is actually a longstanding tradition here and traditions play an enormous part in the identity and sense of community in any school or organisation. With that in mind, part of my brief in my first year here was to go back to basics and to think about not only the underlying values of the school but also its core mission and, more specifically, the aims that we are collectively trying to achieve. Please click here to read our new mission statement and the school aims. I hope you are able to find some time to sit down and have a read through them. They will in due course be appearing on the school website as well and you can always find them there.

I cannot finish my letter this week without mentioning our triumphant U9 Girls Netball team who won outright the ISA Netball Tournament at Stafford on Thursday. They deserve a tremendous amount of credit for this achievement, as does their coach Mrs McCollin. I have yet to hear the specific details of their heroics but we will find out all about it in assembly I’m sure. As a small school we shouldn’t really be winning this sort of thing but with the Crescent spirit and some expert coaching, anything is possible!

Have a great weekend.

Joe Thackway