The Courier

Dear Parents

As we enter the new school year it is an important part of my job to identify areas of the running of the school that we want to work on and develop in the three terms ahead. I mentioned these in the welcome evening at the end of last term and it is probably worth reminding you of them now that term is properly underway.

Last year we rewrote the School’s Mission Statement and Aims, a full copy of which are available to view on the School website. This academic year we are focusing on five of the School Aims, listed below;

1. To deliver a broad, engaging, inspiring curriculum.
2. To provide excellent pastoral care that meets the emotional and social needs of every child at Crescent School.
3. To teach the children the skills they need to feel happy, and safe in the wider world.
4. To ensure that as children enter the school they feel cared for and fully part of the Crescent community.
5. To communicate with all constituents of the Crescent community in a way that is consistent, inclusive, informative, effective, accurate and user friendly.

As the year progresses we will be addressing these targets in various ways and exploring how we can improve our offer in these five key areas. Later in the term you will also be receiving our annual parents' survey for you to give us your feedback on how we are doing but please do feel you can approach me about these issues in the meantime if you have unanswered questions or ideas.

Our Year 5 and 6 boys played their first football match of the season this week, with the girls’ team set to follow suit next week. The captains were announced in assembly and more individual team captains will be announced as the year progresses. This is a change to previous years when we had an overall games captain for the year. Hopefully, this will give more boys and girls the chance to take on a leadership role on the sports field over the year.

We also announced Head Boy and Girl this week and there will be elections for the appointment of the House Captains later next week. Importantly in this new initiave we have also introduced duties for all of the Year 6 children to perform throughout the year. Ms Lowe has divided them by house into three teams with a range of jobs including milk delivery, assembly preparation and recycling collections. This is designed to raise the children’s community awareness and give the eldest children in the school a special role in the school that reflects their seniority and enables them to nurture and care for the younger pupils.

Today has been a bittersweet one for me. I started the day having great fun with all of the children as they came into school in all of their wonderful outfits as we begin to mark the school’s 70th anniversary. This has been a great start to our celebrations and I know the children have also enjoyed working on their stone decoration project with Mrs Akbik during the week.

Later today I attended the funeral of Mary O’Farrell, former chair of Trustees for the Princethorpe Foundation, who very sadly passed away just before the beginning of term. Mary made a great impression on me when I came for the job here with her genuine warmth and brilliant sense of humour. She was universally admired and liked and we will all miss her terribly. Everyone here at Crescent sends our heartfelt condolences to her husband John.

With best wishes for the weekend

 Joe Thackway

I was delighted to announce in assembly this morning that the Head Boy for the year will be Harry Richards and the Head Girl Maya Patel. I have no doubt they will make fine role models for the rest of the school during their time in the position.

It was a really hard decision this year with so many strong candidates in the year group. It was great to see that the other applicants were the first to congratulate the two appointees and everyone here wishes them congratulations and the very best of luck.

One disappointed candidate even took the time to thank me for considering them which says a great deal about the Crescent spirit and the promise.

For a two or three week period this year we will be focusing on one of the sayings in the new School Promise. We will talk about this in assembly and in form period. It would be great if you could discuss this with your children at home and support the messages we are emphasising in school.

This week’s promise is an excellent one to start the year with and is in the category of Good Friends:

‘We are kind to each other’