The Courier

Dear Parents

One week into spring, and winter finally arrived. That may sound rather odd, but it perhaps sums up British weather quite nicely. My drive home from the parents’ consultation meetings on Wednesday evening was a particularly exciting one. At one stage my car went into a skid and I found myself trying to remember the best way of steering a car in these circumstances. Fortunately, I wasn't going very fast and managed to regain control just before I ended up in a hedge. 

We couldn't let the children out to play on Thursday or Friday unfortunately. Not in the spirit of being a killjoy but for a combination of health and safety risks as well as the certainty of many wet socks and unhappiness as a result. It was at least lovely to look at (the snow that is), for a short while.

We enjoyed a visit from Grove du Toit, the new Princethorpe headmaster, on Thursday of this week. He took an assembly with the children before throwing himself into an RE lesson with a Year 5 class. His assembly message was about the value of community and his illustration using a brick, a glass and a shoe box certainly grabbed the children's attention. If you want to know the details, try asking your child and see how much they can remember.

Some sports fixtures were also affected by the snowy snap but the girls’ netball national finals will certainly be rearranged, although not for a number of weeks. The LAMDA exams did however get underway and early reports are that the children have coped well with the pressure of the performance and the examiner was particularly friendly, which is always good. There are more to come next week and best of luck for those and for everyone as they await their results.

Next week also culminates a three-week period of parent consultation evenings. Many thanks to everyone for their cooperation and patience when attending these, it is appreciated. Running to time is always a challenge, I am pleased report that for the most part we have managed to do that pretty well up to now. The option of having these on Teams is still there of course, but at the moment the feeling is that the personal contact with the teachers is so important, particularly when young children are concerned.

Tomorrow we have an open morning for prospective parents. This is such a key event for us as a school of course, and once again I thank you for letting your children come along to share their love of their school with the next generation of parents. They have much to be proud of here at Crescent.

When the weekend does arrive, I hope you all have an enjoyable and restful time with your families.

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

SOCS has been updated with all the Co-Curricular Clubs for next term. These start week commencing Monday 17 April 2023 (the first day back of term) and run until Friday 23 June 2023.

There are some slight changes so that a range of children and year groups can enjoy the experiences. 

Please see the email that will be sent out today with all the details and sign up before Sunday 19 March.

Summer uniform is to be worn after the Easter break. Children often grow quickly so it's good to regularly check and replace any damaged, missing or ill-fitting items.  

Girls 

• Grey blazer 
• Green and white striped dress (should be on or below the knee)
• Green school jumper
• White knee length socks
• Green school sun hat/cap

Boys 

• Grey blazer 
• White short-sleeved shirt with collar and tie
• Green school jumper
• Grey short trousers or long grey trousers
• Grey knee length socks
• Green school sun hat/cap

Blazers should be worn to and from school. Children normally remove them once they are in the playground in the morning. On the days children wear PE kit to school they should have their Crescent tracksuit top on. Children are able to wear the blazer with their cricket whites if they wish to.

We would ask you to check:

• Uniform is labelled with the child's name not initials. 
• Your child is wearing their own uniform as coats/jumpers/cardigans/blazers etc sometimes get mixed up
• Dress/skirt length should be on or below the knee
• Children have the correct PE kit for their year 
• Shoes are black school shoes
• Hair should be tied back

A list of items stocked in school can be found under Housekeeping.

Uniform Order Form

Summer Dress Order Form

Cricket Kit Order Form

Crescent School

We are holding our next exciting House Competition - Design an Easter Garden.                

Please design, plant and create an Easter Garden, over the next few weeks. Please use a seed tray or something of a similar size. Choose your own Easter theme and work on your own or with your sibling/s.

Prizes

• 1st prize - 150  house points and an Easter egg
• 2nd prize - 100 house points and an Easter egg
• 3rd prize – 50  house points and an Easter egg

All entries will be awarded 5 house points.

• Yellow House - Mrs Johnson    jacquijohnson@crescentschool.co.uk
• Red House  - Ms Forth            bryonyforth@crescentschool.co.uk
• Blue House  - MrsPullen          clairepullen@crescentschool.co.uk

We look forward to receiving photos of your amazing gardens!

Thank you

Weekly Calendar

Please click on the link below to view next week's calendar:

Tuesday - Team Sports or STEM Club are not running after school on Tuesday this week. SOCS has been updated.

Weekly Calendar - 13 March 2023 

Next week is our final week of co-curricular for this term (unless you have been informed of catch-up sessions).

It has been a great term: there have been 43 clubs on offer with over 90% of the children being involved in some way. The average club per child is over three. I think this shows how much you all embrace what is on offer, thank you.

Please click below to view the lunch menu for next school week, children are able to have either the Main or Vegetarian option. 

Lunch Menu - 13 March 2023 

Crescent School

Below is a link to view the Lent Term Calendar.  Please note the following changes:

Click on the link below to view the Music Lesson timetable next week:

Music Lessons - 13 March 2023 

Lessons may not be able to be rearranged if children do not have their instruments in school.

Mr du Toit, the new Headmaster at Princethorpe College visited Crescent School on Thursday to give an assembly to the whole school. He spoke to the pupils about how we are all different, but kindness brings us all together. He then gave a lesson to our Year 5 class on the topic of justice and fairness which they will continue to learn about in their Religious Education lessons.

We hope all our pupils enjoyed meeting Mr du Toit.

Over last weekend, following inspections by independent tree specialists, the two mature trees adjacent to the playground and the Adventure Trail were removed. For safety reasons the trees had been roped off for a while and the children were aware that the work was being done.

However, thanks to some very clever saw work, these long-standing trees will remain a part of Crescent School. The stumps and some of the remaining wood has been sculpted into chairs, a toadstool table and log stools. Other wood has also been designated for Forest School including logs for den building, small branches for saw work and twigs for use as kindling. The area still needs a little finishing work, but it is going to be a fantastic resource for our Forest Schools sessions.

Plans are also afoot to improve the land the trees stood on, developing it into an adventure forest area. Suggestions include a reading cabin and benches to sit on alongside the existing Adventure Trail. There will also be a planting programme featuring deciduous native whitebeam trees.

On Tuesday 7 March, Crescent School welcomed musicians from fellow Foundation junior school, Crackley Hall, for an orchestral workshop. It was a great opportunity for the young virtuosos to work together, with 11 members of Crackley Hall’s Orchestra joining 12 Crescent instrumentalists for a day designed to develop and stretch their music and performance skills.

Pupils from both schools worked under the guidance of Crescent School’s Director of Music, Julie Barnes, and Crackley Hall’s Director of Music, Susan Olden, to prepare and rehearse pieces ready for an impromptu afternoon performance.

The children relished making music, especially in such a big group. They worked hard to prepare the dramatic Star Wars theme and the moving I Dreamed A Dream from Les Misérables, both pieces testing the players’ technical and music-reading ability.

At the end of the day parents were welcomed into school to watch a short performance. The concert was superb, and as well as featuring the full 24-piece orchestra playing their now near perfect pieces, it also included solo performances from Julia Kozhan and Grace Aston from Crackley Hall and Zahra Nadeem and Hattie Little from Crescent School.

Mrs Barnes and Mrs Olden, commented, “We had a very successful day and the pupils enjoyed collaborating together. They achieved a very high standard of performance, learning challenging music in a short space of time, it was a great opportunity for them all to play with so many other talented musicians. Thank you Crackley Hall for joining us today."

Many thanks to Aryaan from Year 4 who spoke to the school community in assembly on Tuesday morning about the Hindu celebration of Holi. Aryaan shared lots of important and amazing facts about this special day. He explained how families celebrating Holi gather round a fire to sing and dance and that Holi marks the beginning of the Spring season. Mr Thackway then showed a video showing how Holi is a fun and exciting celebration where people take to the streets and throw coloured powder at each other.

We hope all those celebrating had a very happy ‘Holi’.  

When I heard about Roisin’s goalscoring exploits in the recent festival of football at Crackley Hall, it reminded me of the world record for the most goals in a single tournament. This was held by Just Fontaine of France in 1958 who scored thirteen goals, just like our own Roisin did earlier this week. Amazing play Roisin!

Below is a link to a monthly newsletter from DC Beagle who runs Mathematics challenges. Year 5 and Year 6 have attended and won previously at Wrekin College and at Princethorpe College.

If you enjoy maths, there are some inspirational clips and some excellent websites and activities that he recommends. Take a look if you want to stretch your brain a little or indeed, a lot!

Mathematics- Beyond The text book March 2023 

Do you have any old/no longer used kitchen utensils, bowls, sieves, baking trays and washing up bowls suitable for our Forest School Mud Kitchen?

If so please can they be left in the box outside the front door of school.

Thank you 

Monday 13 March - 4.00pm to 6.30pm

We all value the importance of these meetings to share and discuss your child's academic progress.  

We look forward to meeting with you.

Wednesday 15 March - 5.30pm to 8.00pm

We all value the importance of these meetings to share and discuss your child's academic progress.  

We look forward to meeting with you.

Monday 18 March 2023 - 2.45pm to 3.30pm

We will be presenting our annual Spring Concert on Monday 18 March. Children involved are those in Choir, Orchestra, Flute Group, Brass Group, Wacky Music, and all of Classes 3 and 4.  

Please enter via the front entrance from 2.30pm where refreshments will be served prior to the service.  

We will start promptly at 2.45pm and finish by 3.30pm so children can be collected at normal dismissal time. The concert will be filmed for those who are unable to attend.

We look forward to you hearing the results of this term’s music hard work and effort! 

Youa re able to book one ticket per family or parents of children performing are able to book two tickets per family here:

Wednesday 22 March 2023 - 9.15am

We are super proud of how the children are progressing in our rehearsals for Animal Rumble Grumble. We are encouraging them to now push to learn all of their words so that we can be script free from early next week - please support this at home as they continue to practise.  All costumes need to be in school on Monday as previously requested.

Tickets can be booked via the link below - three available per family. Refreshments will be served from 8.45am on the day of the performance.

Year 2 Production Tickets

The dress rehearsal will be filmed and the link shared to parents after the production.

With thanks for your support as always.

Thursday 14 March 2024 - 7pm

This is an important event for parents of children in Years 4 and 5 to attend, where we will talk about the different options available to the children when they transfer to secondary school in Year 7 and how to navigate your way through. 

A link to join the meeting will be sent on the day.

Friday 24 March 2023

Our Easter Service will be held in the School Hall on Friday 24 March, including a telling of the Easter story by the Choir and Class 5F. We do hope you will join us for the most important festival in the Christian year.

Please enter via the front entrance from 2.30pm where refreshments will be served prior to the service. We will start promptly at 2.45pm and finish by 3.30pm so children can be collected at normal dismissal time.

Two tickets per family will be available for parents of children in Choir and Class 5F. Please book here:

Easter Service

There will be a retiring collection in aid of Bwengu Projects Malawi.

As the Princethorpe Admissions Cycle for 2024 entry begins, the whole of Year 5 are warmly invited to a taste of senior school life at Princethorpe College on Tuesday 25 April 2023. The dedicated taster day will begin at 9.30am with the children transported to the College by minibus from Crescent School. Pupils will experience a variety of classroom sessions, a tour of the school and a question and answers session with current pupils. Break and lunch will be provided and there is no charge for the day.

At the end of the afternoon, parents are invited to a Parents’ Information Session. The session will commence at 4.30pm, finish at approximately 5.15pm and light refreshments will be served. Grove du Toit, Princethorpe’s new Headmaster, along with other key members of staff, will be on hand to talk to you about the College, its ethos and vision and to outline the admissions process. Children will also have the opportunity to trial the online CEM test, one of the exams that prospective pupils complete during the Entrance Examinations Day, which will take place on Saturday 11 November 2023 from 9.30am to 3.30pm.

Please click here to access the online booking form for the Year 5 Taster Day. Please complete and submit the form by 5.00pm on Monday 6 March to secure a place for your child.

If you have any further queries please feel free to contact the College’s friendly Admissions Team on 01926 634201/297 or email admissions@princethorpe.co.uk.

This week Elliott in 2E and Siara in 1S receive their full student status in English, with Samuel in 4C achieving his in Art. Grace in 5F achieves hers in RE. Isla in 1S achieves hers in Science/DT and MingYi in 4C achieves hers in History.

Congratulations to you all.

Mrs Symons
JdV Lead

This week's reading champion is Evelyn who has read 500,000 words.

Well done.

This week's Accelerated Reader Superstars are:

Top Quizzers are:

• 3S  Kiran
• 4C  Zac
• 5F  James
• 6W Tegan

Word Wizards are:

• 3S  Lilah
• 4C  Aryaan
• 5F  Harry
• 6W Bryson

Mrs Nelson
Teaching Assistant

Well done to this week's Artists of the Week:

Artists

• Aria (3S)
• Esme (3S)
• Everly (3S)
• Gloria (3S)
• Ava (6W)
• Bella (6W)
• Chloe (6W)
• Zara (6W)

Well done all.

Crescent School

Pre-Prep reading certificates have this week been awarded to:

• Alex
• Carwyn
• Charlotte
• Dare
• Emily
• Jonny
• Katie
• Oore
• Rachael
• Siara
• Vihaan

Garage and Gigs are the most important games to show your progress. Pupils who have reached landmark % on automatic training mode in the Garage and Gigs and therefore are awarded JDVs for Maths Practice:

• Hannah 1Q completed 24% of the course
• Felicity 2W completed 48% of the course 

Results for Battle 2-9 March 2023. 1Q, 1S, 2E, 2W against each other - average score per class member.

• 1st 1Q - average score 116
• 2nd 2W - average score 41
• 3rd 1S - average score 17

Most valuable players in the whole competition:

• 1st Hannah 1Q
• 2nd Daniel 1Q
• 3rd Eve 2W

Well done, 1Q! 🏆

Last week most improved speedsters in the studio are:

• Mithun - Gigger!

Random Battle between Upper School from 9 - 16 March 2023:

3S, 4C, 5F and 6W 

TT Rock stars will block 2x, 5x, 10x and 11x on jamming if you are efficient at them, so you cannot pick easy ones just to score more points in the competiton! 

Please note only the children should play on their account or it influences the level appropriate to them.

Some of the things the children have been learning...

We have set sail with our new ‘Pirates’ topic and discovered that pirates love golden underpants! We have explored rhyme in the story and suggested alternative phrase endings.

In maths we have been comparing and ordering numbers to 20 and beyond. We’ve also started to practise counting in 2’s.

Some of the things the children will be learning in the weeks to come...

Our focus text in literacy will be Mrs Pirate. We will be exploring rhyme further and writing shopping lists.

In maths we will be exploring capacity in maths investigations. We will be writing addition and subtraction sentences relating to one more and one less.                                         

In phonics we have been introduced to blends:

tw as in twin

sm as in smell

pr as in print

sc as in scan

sk as in skull

sn as in snack

nch as in lunch

How to help your child at home...

• Secure number recognition to 20 and beyond
• Practise simple addition and subtraction. (Up to 10 then 20) present in ‘real life’ contexts
• Read signs you see on the way to school
• Sing nursery rhymes, identify the words that rhyme
• Write a shopping list encouraging the children to write the sounds they hear
• Please encourage the children to dress and undress independently

We loved dressing up and sharing our favourite characters from traditional tales, influential historical events and even inspirational African queens! The children had time to share with each other the reasons for choosing their characters alongside completing some writing about them too!

Last Friday, we had lots of fun discussing our book characters and even participated in a fashion show to showcase our outfits.

This week in 1Q, we have been learning about fractions. We investigated fractions by folding paper into halves and quarters, shading them in and labelling them.

In Art this week, we drew and coloured self-portraits.

In English, we explored different traditional tales and took a deep dive into Dragon Dinosaur, using our acting skills to re-enact the story and we verbally sequenced the story before drawing it out on our story maps. We are looking forward to hearing about more traditional tales over the coming weeks.  

Since our very first day in Year 2 we have been counting up the days to help us understand place value. Our target was 100 days with the promise of a party to celebrate. So, 100 days arrived amid much excitement. Balloons, dancing, party games, food and fun on the adventure trail. There might have been a few maths questions thrown into pass the parcel because … why not?   

Wednesday 9 March was Holi day in the Hindu faith and in RE we had lots of fun celebrating the festival of colour. Using brightly coloured paints in a spinner we created some fabulous colour wheels to represent the colour fights. 

In Geography, the children have done independent research to find out amazing facts about the animals of the rainforest. 

Children in 2W have consolidated their understanding of odd and even numbers and used this to solve challenging problems such as:

Does odd + even always = odd, does odd + odd always = even?

The investigation, setting out to prove these statements and conclusions were impressive.

Children in 2W learned and used the spelling rules for changing singular words into plurals this week. They have strong understanding that most words you simply add s, that words ending in s, sh, ch or x have an es plural ending and that most words ending in a y replace it with ies.

Year 2 pupils are taking part in a national competition for growing potatoes. We have been 'chitting' sample potatoes in the Science room so that we have tubers ready to plant. We will be exploring what potatoes need to make them grow. We have two varieties, Casablanca and Shannon and we are hoping for a good harvest in about 15 weeks. 

On the first day of Spring the U11 Netball team travelled to the beautiful Malvern Hills for their ISA netball Tournament at Malvern St James School.  It was a jam-packed day full of exciting netball with 16 schools from across the Midlands competing. Matches were 10 minutes each way with a fast paced tournament play and quick turnarounds. 

Crescent pupils displayed some fantastic netball with all girls playing exceptionally well and really gelling as a team, winning every game in their pool finishing top of their table.  They took on Ruckleigh, RGS Dodderhill and Heathfield Knowll. 

We went in to the knockout round against Birchfield and a tightly contested match we came away with the win 4-2  to take us through to the semi-finals against Tettenhall College.

A very tall, strong and aggressive team meant a change in tactics was required and the girls adapted their game well and really held their own in the second half. Tettenhall won the game and later the Tournament and we were in to the 3/4 playoffs against St Edward's Cheltenham. A fantastic match, very evenly matched lead to some faced paced dynamic netball and extra time. Crescent were victorious and took the 3rd place and secured a space at the National Finals.

A truly impressive performance by all, we are so proud.

Players – Grace M (Captain) Ava, Bella, Ellie, Erin, Esme, Grace C, Mya and Zara.

Following feedback from the Sports Council, Mrs McCollin has invested in some new basketballs for use within school PE lessons and it has been great to see them being used with such enthusiasm and excitement in Year 5 and 6 PE this week.

Pupils enjoyed working on their movement skills, agility, balance and co-ordination as well as their throwing and catching skills. They then put those skills into use when they finished their Games lesson off with some mini-games!

Once again emulating the Lionesses, Crescent U11s girls did themselves and the school proud with a fantastic showing over at the Crackley Festival of Football. Playing every other team there, Crescent finished with an incredible nine wins, two draws and just one narrow loss, putting them firmly in 1st place overall. Special mentions could go to the entire squad who played determined, skilful and clever football throughout, particularly Ava for her excellent defending, Tegan for her super shot stopping and Ellie who played fantastically both in goal and in midfield. The unanimous player of the whole tournament however, voted so by every opposition coach was Roisin C, whose pace, control and finishing saw her score a phenomenal 13 goals, more than double any other player there! Sarina Wiegman should be taking note...

Mr Adkins & Mrs Dowling

Three Crescent pupils competed in the National Cross Country Finals at Worksop College in Nottinghamshire last Saturday. This was a fantastic achievement to have been selected to represent the Midlands following outstanding runs at Bedstone College earlier in the term. 

The pupils represented their school brilliantly and put in maximum effort and determination on a tough and challenging course. Well done to Kian who came 36th and Henry 71st in the Year 3/4 Boys race and Roisin who finished 79th in the Year 3/4 girls race, we are super proud of you all.

Our lovely Treasurer, Donna, will be leaving us in July as her daughter is in Year 6 so we're looking for someone to take on the role of Treasurer within Friends of Crescent. We have lots of new systems in place so it shouldn't be too arduous! 

In the role you would need to:

• Reconcile incomings and outgoings against the bank statements, specifically those from Stripe (which we use for event tickets); BACS payments and cash for 2nd hand uniform; and iZettle (which we use for on-the-day payments at bake sales and events)

• Prepare Treasurer's financial report for each meeting and the AGM

• Organise cash floats for bake sales and events and deposit received funds into the bank account

• Be happy to engage with the FoC team!

If you are interested please email foc@crescentschool.co.uk or message me through Classlist. 

Please see below for useful school contact information:

• My School Portal: MSP Login
• SOCS: SOCS Login

Click here to view the term dates for 2022/23 and 2023/24.

Crescent School

The Foundation has the following vacancies:

Princethorpe College

• Head of Computer Science
• Teacher of Textiles
• AV and Theatre Technician

Full details and information on how to apply are available on the Foundation website here:

www.princethorpe.co.uk/join-us

Should you know anyone who might be interested in these posts, please do share this information with them.

The following items are stocked in the School Office and can be added to your account:

• Winter hats
• Scarves
• Gloves
• Ties
• Swimming hats
• Sports socks
• Hair bands
• Hair scrunchies
• Hair clips
• Sun hats
• Music group badges - Choir, Orchestra, String, Brass and Wind

Please do contact admin@crescentschool.co.uk in if you need any of the above items.

Crescent School Office