Headmaster's Message

Headmaster's Message

Dear Parents

We had the pleasure in the week of a visit from the Reverend Tim from St Mark's Church. He spoke to the children about the need to protect our environment and in particular the powerful campaign that has recently been mounted by Greta Thunberg. The children listened carefully to the message and how dependent we are on sustainable agricultural productivity. A pertinent message as we head towards our harvest celebrations and the food bank collection gets underway.

I was also was pleased to announce to the children the arrival in school of class sets of purple pens. These will be used in the classrooms by the children for reviewing and correcting their own work. As part of our whole school improvement target this year we are looking at the area of feedback and marking. The ultimate aim is to improve pupil attainment through self-regulation, where they are able to review and edit their own work checking for accurate spelling and punctuation, as well as re-reading for meaning and coherence. On my learning walk this morning I was delighted to see lots of children making use of the pens and taking responsibility for their own work. Teachers are also providing children with target areas for them to assess themselves against. These are shared with the children and provide clear success criteria, enabling the children to monitor and improve their progress.

You will have received this week a letter regarding next week’s parents’ evenings. We have reviewed our practise in this area and hopefully you will find the new format more focused on your needs at this time of the year, and also the evenings will be considerably quieter. We are putting on four evenings in total this term, as opposed to the normal two, and whilst this results in greater staff commitment I believe it will be a better experience for parents. We will of course continue to monitor this as we go forward.

With some chillier autumn weather around this week we have certainly started to notice the change of seasons. This puts us in the mood for our harvest service, which is now under two weeks away.

Have a good weekend everyone.
 

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

Parent Consultation Evenings - New Format

Dear Parents

This term we are bringing in a revised system for parents’ evenings, after reviewing last year’s arrangements. You have already received an invitation to make your appointment with your child’s form teacher

For parents of children in Pre-Prep, your form teacher will have gathered information from specialists but will focus on how well your child has settled into their new class, as well as reporting on early progress in the core subjects of maths and English. In the second round of parents’ consultations later in the year, all of the specialists will be present. If you would like to receive feedback from a specialist teacher before that time please email them directly or via admin@crescentschool.co.uk to arrange a mutually convenient appointment.

Pre-Prep meetings will take place in your child’s form room. For the late session on 07 October, parents can park on the school playground and enter the building by the Mortimer Foyer door next to the Reception class. For those of you coming by foot, and for the early session on Tuesday 15 October, you may enter the school by the link room door, where you would normally pick up your children at the end of the day. Both entrances will be clearly signposted.

For parents of children in Year 3-5, your meetings will take place in the main school hall. As in previous years, you will have a scheduled appointment with your form teacher as well as seeing the specialist teachers, who spend more time with your children at this stage.

These new arrangements mean that the parents’ evenings should be quieter, more relaxed affairs which focus on what you need to know at this stage of the year. Far fewer parents will be seen on each evening with a total of four evenings planned for this round of appointments, whereas this time last year there were two.

As usual, tea, coffee and light refreshments will be served and the children’s books will be available for open viewing before and after your appointments. We do hope that you find these new arrangements user-friendly, providing an enhanced experienced all round. Along with other members of the SLT I will be there each evening and look forward to meeting you all.

Best wishes

Joe Thackway
Headmaster