The Courier

Dear Parents

We know we cannot avoid the countdown to Christmas any longer when the staging goes up in the school hall, as it has done this week. We are experimenting a little bit this year with the alignment of the hall such that the stage will be positioned in front of the new screen. Hopefully, this will mean everyone in the hall gets a better of view of performances, with the stage coming out into the audience. In the longer term, if this works well, it will also mean we can build a small storage area in the hall for keeping chairs, tables and PE equipment when not in use. Having seen some of the rehearsals already, I know you will all be in for a treat, and one or two surprises, when the big day for the performance arrives.

For our Year 6 pupils, this week has marked the end of their "exam season", no doubt to the great relief of them all. Of course, the destinations journey still has some way to run and they will be hoping to receive offers of places in the coming weeks and months. I have to say that I think our Year 6 children this year deserve immense credit for the sensible and mature way they have gone about dealing with the potential stresses and strains of exams.

Importantly, during the whole process school has been a place of normality and familiarity for them all, where they can feel secure amongst friends.  It is of course a competitive world out there and, as they grow, the process they have been through here will stand them in good stead, I am sure.  Having said that, we must be mindful not to expect too much too soon from our young people as they develop, to encourage and inspire them to aim high and to think big, but to celebrate and cherish them for who they are.  As we look at reviewing the school ethos and aims, it is worth bearing this thought in mind.

Enjoy your weekend everybody.

Joe Thackway

Please return the blue Flu vaccination consent form, which have  been sent home tonight, by Friday 21 September 2018. 

Forms need to be returned even if you do not consent to the vaccination for your child.

The link below provides further information:

Flu Vaccinations

Thank you.

Crescent School

We have an outstanding Class VI this year and it is our pleasure to announce the new Prefects. They are chosen for their contribution around the school, their proactive attitude in our school community and their keeping of the school promise.

Well done to:

We are extremely proud of our first set of Crescent First Aiders.  This term Class III undertook the Red Cross Life Live It first aid course.

This course is aimed at 6 to 11 year olds and our fabulous children worked towards the higher age group award.

They have learned how they can really make a difference in an emergency by keeping calm, controlling their emotions and summoning help.

They have shown wisdom beyond their years in being able to support a casualty with both reassurance and action.

Our First Aiders are now able to deal with burns and nosebleeds, help someone who is choking, support a patient who has a broken bone or who is bleeding badly, and most impressively of all, they can check for breathing in an unconscious patient and roll them into the recovery position.

Children from Crescent School’s Classes V and VI had a fantastic day full of uplifting singing on Tuesday 14 November when they visited fellow Foundation Junior School, Crackley Hall, to sing with Junior 5 and 6 pupils in a joint choral workshop. The pupils from both school choirs worked together under the guidance of Directors of Music, Susan Olden and Julie Barnes, to prepare and rehearse a mix of joint and individual choral and solo pieces ready for an afternoon concert to parents.

Mrs Olden and Mrs Barnes both agreed that the first joint musical initiative had been a very successful day, remarking that, “Everyone has enjoyed themselves and we have all learnt so much from each other.”

The concert started with super spine-tingling performances of I’m Still Singing, Agnus Dei and The Call, the voices of the 50 plus children blending harmoniously together to fill Crackley’s new school hall. This was followed by the two schools individually showcasing their choral skills, with Crescent School singing two pieces from their recent Harvest Festival, Thank You For Almost Everything and Everybody Praise Him, and Crackley Hall’s Chamber Choir performing For The Beauty Of The Earth and Hava Nashira. The audience were also treated to three incredible individual solos from Samuel Lau on violin, Emily Hennegan performing Naughty from Matilda and ChenChen Pan playing one of her Grade 7 pieces on piano. The finale was a catchy, feet stomping joint rendition of the popular classic Rhythm of Life.

Julie Barnes, Director of Music at the Crescent School, commented, “The children gelled straight away and clearly enjoyed working together. I was pleased with how their confidence grew throughout the day. We have some real talent in our schools and very much want to encourage them with their singing.”

Susan Olden, Director of Music at Crackley Hall, added “The children’s performance today was one any professional choir would be happy with.”

The choral workshop is to be followed by a return visit next term when Crackley Hall will travel to Bilton, Rugby for an orchestral workshop with the Crescent School.

Here’s to lots more working and learning together!

It is the school’s policy to remain open during periods of bad weather where reasonably possible. However, there may be occasions where opening the school may not be possible for health and safety reasons, or indeed when travel to school for pupils and staff may be especially dangerous.

If we do decide to close the school due to bad weather overnight, we would inform parents in the following ways:

• The school website will be updated with details of the closure. This is likely to be the first thing we are able to do as it does not require a member of staff to be in school
• All parents will be informed by text message and email

If we need to close the school during the normal day we will follow the same procedure as outlined above. Members of staff will of course stay with any uncollected children in this event until their parents or guardians are able to come and collect. If this does occur, parents should please come to the front of the school and report to reception.

Required to start as soon as possible, we are recruiting a full-time Administrator\Receptionist to work all year round, within our busy reception area, the successful candidate will have good organisational skills; will be articulate, friendly, professional and well presented.

The position involves a mixture of administrative support, reception duties, and liaising with pupils and parents; the post holder will need to balance general duties with providing comprehensive administrative support to members of senior management.

Interested candidates should ideally have experience in a similar position and will have excellent communication skills, good organisational skills, excellent customer service skills and the ability to work under pressure and to deadlines. Strong IT skills, particularly in Microsoft Office, are essential.

The working hours are Monday to Friday 8.00am – 4.30pm, with an hour for lunch.

Early applications are highly recommended as candidates may be invited for interview prior to the closing date, which could be brought forward.

This is an excellent opportunity to join a fast growing Foundation that values its staff and offers a rewarding benefits package including discounted places for staff, 25 holiday per annum plus bank holidays, to be taken during school holidays, a pension scheme, child care vouchers and a cycle to work scheme.

Application: To apply for this vacancy applicants must submit a Princethorpe College application form, together with a CV and covering letter detailing your personal qualities, experience and how you meet the person specification for the role. Applicants must ensure the application form is fully completed, including a detailed career history with specific dates.

Closing date: Tuesday 5 December 2017, at 9.00am. Candidates are advised to apply immediately as applications will be reviewed as they are received and the closing date may be brought forward.
Further details and an application form are available from the College website www.princethorpe.co.uk/employment-opportunities.

Ideally starting in January 2018, we have an exciting role within the IT Infrastructure Team for an experienced IT professional as a Senior IT Infrastructure Engineer (Windows Server, Active Directory, SCCM, Hyper-V, AV & Backup Solutions, Cloud, Office 365 and Azure). Working as part of a team you will be responsible for the design, development, testing, implementation, documentation and high-level support of a variety of network and server infrastructure products and solutions internally.

The successful candidate will also be expected to help design tailored solutions to meet the needs of internal projects including sourcing and introducing new products and services where required.

This is a Foundation wide role, based at Princethorpe College with duties at The Crescent and Crackley Hall Schools.

This is an excellent opportunity to join the fast growing Foundation that values its staff and offers a rewarding benefits package including discounted places for staff, a pension scheme, child care vouchers and a cycle to work scheme.

Application: To apply for this vacancy applicants must submit a Princethorpe College application form, together with a CV and covering letter detailing your personal qualities, experience and how you meet the person specification for the role. Applicants must ensure the application form is fully completed, including a detailed career history with specific dates.

Closing date: Monday 27 November 2017 at 9.00am, and interviews are likely to be held on Thursday 30 November at Princethorpe.

Further details and an application form are available from the College website www.princethorpe.co.uk/employment-opportunities.

Ideally starting in January 2018, we are recruiting Estates Assistants to work as part of the Estates team, providing support services to all of the Foundation schools - Princethorpe College, Crescent School in Rugby and Crackley Hall School in Kenilworth.

The duties will primarily involve maintenance work internally and externally, security, traffic management, porterage and some cleaning. Applicants with some carpentry, plumbing or decorating skills would be most welcome. This is a ‘hands-on’ role facilitating the proper functioning of the schools to ensure a safe and satisfactory working, learning and recreational environment.

The successful applicant will need to be able to provide a high quality service to staff, pupils and visitors and be enthusiastic as well as honest, trustworthy and reliable, able to lift and to work on his/her own as well as part of a team.

Working hours: We have a variety of part-time shifts available, from as little as two hours and up to eight hours, in the afternoons and evenings or on Saturday and Sundays. We would be happy to consider applications for working evenings and weekends only or with other shifts on a rota basis.

This is an excellent opportunity to join the fast growing foundation that values its staff and offers a rewarding benefits package including discounted places for staff, a pension scheme, child care vouchers and a cycle to work scheme.

To discuss the post in more detail please contact Michael Small, Foundation Estates Manager - 01926 6342647 or Pete Wilkes, Estates Manager - 01926 634200.

Application: To apply for this vacancy applicants must submit a Princethorpe College application form, together with a CV and covering letter detailing your personal qualities, experience and how you meet the person specification for the role. Applicants must ensure the application form is fully completed, including a detailed career history with specific dates.

Closing date: Monday 4 December 2017 at 9.00am and interviews are likely to be held on Thursday 7 December 2017, at Princethorpe.
Further details and an application form are available from the College website www.princethorpe.co.uk/employment-opportunities.

Tuesday 21 November - 7.00pm to 8.00pm

The Crescent School is holding a dedicated Reception Open Evening on Tuesday 21 November from 7.00pm to 8.00pm.

This is an opportunity for parents and prospective pupils to look around the school, see examples of children's work and activities and to talk to the Headmaster and members of the Reception Team. There is no need to book and light refreshments will be available. All are welcome, so please do help spread the word.

If you can't make the Open Evening but would like to visit the school, please call our Registrar, Mrs Helen Morley, on 01788 523851 and come to see the school on a day to suit you, we welcome visitors on most days.

For more information visit www.crescentschool.co.uk.

Ella Knight and Christopher Gibson are due to appear in Oliver at the Benn Hall in Rugby on Friday 1 December at 7.30pm and Saturday 2 December at 2.30pm and 7.30pm.

The show is being staged by Five Star Theatre, a local company run by some very enterprising and enthusiastic young actors. Ella has been in a number of their productions but this is Christopher's first.

The company has recently put on Les Mis, The Twits and Singin' in the Rain and is also working on Jack and the Beanstalk (as a Christmas pantomime) and Cats. 

Tickets are priced at £12.50 for adults and £10 for children and are available from the Five Star website (click here) or from the Benn Hall (01788 533719 or click here). 

Good luck Ella and Christopher.

The following children have received Junior da Vinci Awards this week. Well done to Anton Tran who has become a da Vinci Student. Congratulations to all.

Ms Sarah Lowe
Senior Teacher

Vignesh Sadasivan has been awarded a mastery, creativity and practice sticker for his work in Maths so far this year. This is a wonderful achievement and makes him our very first Junior da Vinci pupil.

In the photo you will see he is holding a plaque, this is one of the plaques that will be awarded at the end of the year to the boy and the girl who most embrace the da Vinci spirit.

They have been very generously donated to us by The Princethorpe Foundation.

The following children have been awarded Accelerated Reader Awards this week.  Congratulations to all.

Reading Eggs certificates have, this week, been awarded to:

Abigail Cowell, Alice  Diamond, Leela Matharu, Samuel Oldham, Shayla Panchal and Chloe Sarkies

Thursday 16 November v Bilton Junior School

The U11 A and B netball teams travelled to Bilton Junior School for their first games of the school year. Both teams settled quickly and got down to business fast, with fantastic passing and communication, showing maturity to hold and wait for the right pass.

In the A Team we saw fabulous centre court play from Olivia Sarkies, who read the game fantastically, intercepting passes and distributing the ball into our attacking third.

Olivia Monk and Amelie Edge worked the circle well together, with Olivia holding the top of the circle for Amelie to then move round closer to the net. Strong defence from Clara Woolf, Sophie Causer and Robyn Shaw ensured it was difficult for Bilton Junior to score.

We hosted “A” and “B” Teams from King Henry VIII.  The match reports are below:

A Team Report

We did extremely well and in the first half Georgia Dowling scored a good goal by intercepting one of their passes. Unfortunately against the run of the play, the opposition scored at the end of the first half.

In the second half, we were determined to score. Fortunately we won a short corner. Olivia Sarkies got into space near the post and scored from Georgia’s pass. Crescent showed great teamwork. Rebecca Monteith regularly got into good positions, Clara Woolf and Lucy Hardy were strong in defence. Mia Webb and Amelie Edge both played well on the wing.

Georgia ran down the right wing and crossed to Olivia to score Crescent’s third goal. Towards the end of game, Georgia hit another goal into the bottom corner.

We won 4-1. At the end, we enjoyed lovely biscuits and drinks. It was an extremely fun match to play. Well done team!

Players' player – Olivia Sarkies
Coach's player - Georgia Dowling

B Team Report

The B team played a fantastic game showing such strength and determination. For most of the girls it was their first competitive game of hockey for the school and everyone came off the pitch elated after the experience.

We had some fantastic defence from Lily Emery and Ella Knight who were coming out to close down players and block the shots.  Unfortunately, King Henry’s were strong in attack and the shots kept on coming and counter attacks proved too strong. It was not all one sided though and the midfield of Belle Clements, Harriett Louch and Olivia Fox created some lovely space for Lily and Ella to clear the ball so they could run on to the attack ready for Isabelle Wood up front to convert, unfortunately our efforts went wide of the post.

All the girls listened to the advice given and put in to practice the tactics discussed showing tremendous growth throughout the game. A great effort by all. Final Score 6-0 to King Henrys.

All the children at Crescent, from Reception to Year 6, would like to say a massive "Thank You" to the FOC for their very generous donation of new toys, games, sports equipment, building blocks, bubbles, craft materials and so much more that now helps to make our Happy Lunchtimes even happier.

Christmas Bazaar - Friday 8 December

This year we will be having a mixture of games and craft activities for the children to take part in and each activity will earn the child a stamp to go onto their card (these will be handed out at the end of class on the Friday). If the child earns 10 stamps they can then choose a prize off the prize table. They are welcome to fill in as many cards as they can. Each game in the school hall will be 50p to take part in. There will be festive knock down cans, skittles, hoopla, roll a ball, fishing and feed santa. In the hall will also be refreshments, the raffle plus the tombola stall.

In the classrooms we will be holding craft type activities. There will be:

• Face painting (£1.50), nail decorating (£1) and tattoo's (£1)
• Christmas photo area which will have a mixture of props for the children to have photos with their friends or family. Each set of photos will cost £2. These photos will be emailed to the parents afterwards by an outside contractor who is able to print them out. There is no obligation to buy.
• Christmas baubles decorated with handprints which will be run by an external company. The price is dependent on the size of bauble and all baubles will be delivered back to school the following week to be taken home.
• Crazy Sand Christmas decorations where the children will be able to fill up stars, Father Christmas shapes and snowmen with different coloured sand. Each decoration will cost £2.50 and you'll be able to take it away that day.
• Biscuit decoration will also take place where children will be able to decorate a biscuit for 50p and take it away immediately (if it doesn't get eaten!).

We will also be having a visit from Father Christmas. If your child wishes to go and see him in his grotto we will be sending out a form prior to the bazaar so we can have time slots on the day. Each child will cost £3 and this will include the visit plus a wrapped gift.

As always the raffle will be a big part of the Christmas bazaar. Your raffle tickets will be issued in the brown envelopes on Friday 24 November. These need returning to school by Wednesday 6 December at the latest. We also require the usual donations of gifts for the raffle e.g. wine, champagne, chocolates so please look on the FoC board for a list of suggested items. Thank you in advance for your donations.

A final request if anyone is able to help us set up from 2pm or help with the activities on Friday 8 December that would be fantastic. Please email zaracorbin9@gmail.com.

Zara Corbin
FoC

The Christmas Parents night out will now take place on Friday 8 December from 8pm at Rugby's newest bar/restaurant The Pharmasea.

The tickets are now on sale from your Year Group representative and only cost £12 per person which includes a glass of prosecco on arrival and some tapas dishes.  If we manage to sell 60 tickets we get the place to ourselves for the night which would be fantastic.

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible there.