The Courier

Dear Parents

We know we are near the end of term when Welcome Evening has come and gone. Thank you for attending yesterday evening‘s session and I hope you found the information helpful. The idea is to keep you informed and up to date by striking a balance between whole school initiatives and the nitty-gritty of life for the children in the classrooms.

This is always an exciting time of the school year in many ways as we look forward to next term. Move-up morning was a really joyous event with lots of excited and happy children getting to grips with the idea of moving up another year. Of course, we also had the pleasure of meeting next year’s Reception class who seemed to get on very well. During the morning, I came down the corridor to see them and I wondered where they had gone to. Not a single sound was coming from the room but when I came through the door, there they all were sitting quietly on the mat listening to Mrs. Pullen. Given that they were only 30 minutes into their school careers I thought this must be a good omen. When we look back at the achievements in reading and writing of this year‘s Reception class, and look further ahead to where the Year 1s have got to, it fills me with great optimism for the year ahead.

Of course, as well as looking forward, we also have an eye on the year that has gone by and thoughts of the children who will leave us next week. We will have our Year 6 Leavers’ Assembly on Wednesday, preceded by a reception for children and parents on the playing field. This is always a bittersweet occasion when the children look back at their time here at the school and also look forward to the new adventures that await them. We wish them all the luck in the world.

I enjoyed a quick trip to the Town Athletics Championships today in Rugby. It is always such a pleasure to visit Crescent children when they are taking part in events like this. Their impeccable behaviour and positive attitude is a great source of pride for us all.

It looks like we might finally get some barbecue weather to enjoy so I hope you all have a great weekend in the sunshine.

Dear Parents

We are currently exploring the idea of splitting the current Year 2 class into two smaller classes for the start of the academic year 2020-21 when they will enter Year 4. This will coincide with the current Year 5 classes leaving the school, thus enabling us to make the split at that time as an extra teaching space becomes available. As you know, we have been through a similar process in the recent past and feel this has worked really well.

Whilst it is too far out to say exactly what the staffing will look like, we are confident that our staff across the three year groups have built up a bank of knowledge and expertise in that phase that is of enormous benefit to all the children in the older year groups. By making the split at this point it would mean we can maintain our staffing at the current levels and thereby keep together the excellent team we have in place. 

Whilst this is still someway off, I felt it was only fair to share my thoughts with you at this early stage. Any potential split will of course depend on recruiting sufficient new children and I would stress that, as with all pupil recruitment, we only look to take on children who we feel will fit in with the ethos of the school and enhance the make-up of the year group.

We will be looking to make a firm decision on this by the end of September this year and in the meantime I would welcome any feedback you might have.

I am delighted to announce that from the beginning of next academic year we will have a different look to the SLT here at Crescent.

Mr Webb will remain as Head of Pre-Prep and also take on a whole school role as Head of Pastoral Care. This fits in well with his safeguarding lead duties and gives us an extra layer in the pastoral care system that is at the heart of all great schools.

We also welcome Mrs Stapleton onto the team as Head of Wellbeing. This is an exciting new role that we are introducing to promote the emotional wellbeing of both children and staff. Mrs Stapleton has plenty of fresh ideas on how we can develop this in the school and will dovetail into the work that Mr Webb will be doing on the pastoral side. Her first job will be to see the school through the Carnegie Wellbeing Award that we have embarked on this year.

I am also delighted to announce that from September Mrs Webb will take on the title of Assistant Head with responsibility for health and safety on school trips and for planning school events.

Ms Forth of course remains as Deputy Head and Head of Curriculum, and we will continue to draw on the expertise of Mrs Morley, who runs our admissions and marketing.

For a two or three week period this year we will be focusing on one of the sayings in the 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.

From now until the end of term we will be looking at a very important idea from the Good Citizens section of the Promise:

"We keep our school tidy and take pride in our clothes and our uniform."

Joe Thackway
Headmaster