The Courier

Dear Parents

The annual Christmas tree decorating competition has become a new tradition here at the school and this year’s efforts have raised the level quite substantially. I get the almost impossible job (I will be unpopular with 2/3 of the children whatever I do) of deciding who the winner is, which you will be able to read about elsewhere in the Courier. The headline though has to be the group effort that has gone into making them look so lovely and causing such a flurry of interest amongst the children.

On a similar theme, our Christmas art day on Monday was enthusiastically engaged with and lots of really impressive Christmas displays have appeared in the corridors and classrooms. It was great to see so many families coming into the school on Wednesday for the open corridors event and enjoying sharing these creations with their children. These activities really help to build a sense of community and belonging that enriches children’s lives in so many ways.

With the Christmas bazaar happening more or less as this Courier is pinging into your inboxes, we are well into our countdown towards Christmas itself. Next week will see the Reception and Year 1 nativity performance as well as final rehearsals for the Carol Service and Year 2 Christmas Cracker performance (this last one didn’t get on the hard copy calendar and is Monday 12 December at 9.15am).

Many thanks to everyone who has already completed the parental questionnaire that we sent out last Friday. We currently have responses from slightly less than half of the Crescent families and it would be great to have everyone's input if we possibly could. I would politely remind those who have yet to complete the survey that the deadline is Tuesday, December 6. It is worth saying that it may take a little time to collate the answers and think them through and my plan is to share the responses with parents fully in the Lent Term.

Enjoy your weekend

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

Dear Parents

Crescent School aims to be a nut-free zone. Whilst we cannot guarantee that children won’t come into contact with nuts or products with nut traces whilst at school, we endeavour to reduce this risk as far as we can.

There are currently five children in school with a known nut allergy. Exposure to nuts for these children could result in serious consequences. I know that you, like me, would do anything reasonably possible to prevent this from happening.

Our 'Nut-Free Zone' means that the following items must not be brought into school:

• Cakes made with nuts and marzipan
• Packs of nuts
• Peanut butter/Nutella sandwiches
• Fruit and cereal bars that contain nuts
• Chocolate bars or sweets that contain nuts
• Sesame seed rolls (children allergic to nuts may also have a severe reaction to sesame)

No nuts are used in any of the food prepared on site at our school. Our suppliers provide us with nut-free products. However, we cannot guarantee freedom from nut traces.

We ask all parents to support us in this policy by making absolutely sure that mid-morning snacks are nut-free and not using nuts in cakes provided for bake sales or fund-raising events.

We've had some safeguarding concerns this week with children dropped off by parents outside of school grounds. 

Please ensure that you wait with your child(ren) at drop off until the school's opening at 8.15am. It is only at this time that school becomes responsible for all children's safe care. Before this time it is a parental duty.

Please note, however, that all children can be brought by their parents, to the front door, at any time from 7.45am to 8.15am where they will be welcomed and looked after by our Early Bird staff as appropriate for their age. This does not need to be booked in advance but a charge will apply.

All children should be in school by 8.40am which is when the bell rings for the start of the school day.

Also, please let the school office and/or your child's form teacher know if someone else will be collecting your child at the end of the day. We cannot release pupils without this information.

Weekly Calendar

Weekly Calendar - 5 December 2022 

Please note the following regarding Co-Curricular CLubs:

Year 5 Philosophy will run on Tuesday next week.

MySchoolPortal

Crescent School

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

Lunch Menu 5 December 2022 

Crescent School

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 look out for the new schedule and sign up for the Lent Term with different things on offer.

Please click on the link below to view the Music Lesson timetable for next week:

 Music Lessons - 5 December

The password has been emailed to parents. 

Keyboard lessons are also available with Mrs Fisher.  Click here for details.

Super huge good luck to Ellie, Roisin and Maxi who head off to the London Aquatics Centre in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park this weekend to swim for the Midlands team at the ISA National Swimming Championships. Ellie will swim in the Year 6 Butterfly, Medley Relay and the Freestyle Relay, Roisin in the Year 5 Breaststroke and Freestyle Relay and Maxi will swim in the Year 4 Freestyle Relay. Your Crescent classmates and community will all be cheering you on!

Christmas Art Day is such a special day at Crescent School; full of anticipation, paint, tissue paper, stickers, googly eyes and, dare we say it, even a little eco-friendly glitter. The children really enjoyed themselves, producing lots of super, creative artwork. It was all a lot of fun.   

Christmas Art Day is a Crescent tradition and one we all enjoy very much!   

Here are just a few photos from some of the classrooms. Please click View Gallery to scroll through.

After school on Wednesday 30 November, Alexandria and Niamh from 1Q completed a 50-lap challenge around the playground for Birmingham Children's Hospital, a charity very close to the Crescent community. They both ran 25 laps each running a total of 2.53 miles each in 30 minutes to raise money. 

Thank you to all of their generous sponsors, helping to support this worthy cause. They were ably supported by classmates and teachers as well as Mr Thackway who ran a lap with them.

Once all the pledges have been collected the girls will have raised over £600.00.

Well done girls, we are very proud of you.

Crescent School

Ms Forth celebrated a 'special' birthday in school today. Children gave a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday in Assembly where she was presented with flowers.

It also wouldn't be a birthday without a cake from Mrs Mercer.

We hope you have had a lovely day Ms Forth.

Crescent School 

We love sharing Christmas cards here at Crescent School but we ask that all cards are put in our special Christmas postbox which we will situate near the pupil entrance from Monday 5 December.

All cards must be in before Wednesday 14 December and they will be sorted by the Year 6 elves and handed out to pupils before the end of term.

Please put the full name of the recipient and their class on the envelope.

A donation to this term's charity, the Birmingham Children's Hospital, would be appreciated.

Mrs Webb
Assistant Head

Pupils enjoyed decorating their House Christmas Trees on Wednesday 30 November for the school’s annual competition. Lights were unravelled and artistically draped, decorations created and hung, tinsel wrapped around the branches and, of course, the House mascots were positioned carefully at the top. Mr Thackway visited the three trees, located in Reception, the link to the Horton Centre and the Mortimer Suite, and was very impressed. He announced the winners in assembly today. Many congratulations to Red House. To be honest though – we think they are all smashing. Well done everyone, the countdown to Christmas has begun!

If any parents missed the Book Fair then please take a look at the Scholastic Book Club to browse the latest books and order online. For every £1 you spend on this month’s Book Club, our school will earn 20p in Scholastic Rewards.

Book Club

Please place your order online by Tuesday 6 December 2022.

Last school year, Bwengu Projects asked Crescent School to support a whole project, the completion of a Nursery and Orphan Feeding Centre in Mleghu Nsangu in the most northern part of Malawi. The Year 4 children set themselves a target of £685 to fund the building work but managed to raise a whopping £1,110.

This week, Bwengu Projects shared an update on the Nursery and Orphan Feeding Centre. They told us that 48 children are registered for feeding each day, 31 are aged 2 to rising 5. These 31 children attend lessons each day as part of Bwengu Project’s first combined feeding station and early learning scheme. The project aims to ensure that the children are taught early reading, writing and number skills before they progress to state primary education at age 5. Bwengu Projects is pleased with the progress so far and are continuing to monitor the initiative with a view to expanding the scheme to other remote villages.

The team at Bwengu Projects want to say a really big thank you to the school, its pupils and parents from all the staff and village and orphan children who attend the centre each day.

Bwengu Projects also shared news that the Charity Commission has just posted Bwengu Projects 2021 accounts showing that over 99% of donor funds are spent directly on projects.

Year 4 will once again be raising money for Bwengu Projects this school year, after Christmas in the Lent Term 2023.

Thank you all for your generous contribution to this year's Poppy Appeal, Crescent School raised an amazing £350.23! 

Crescent School

Wednesday 7 December 2022 - 9.20am to 9.50am

Parents and Grandparents are invited to our Reception and Year 1 Classes Nativity performance of Baarmy Bethlehem.

A lot of hard work has gone into the rehearsals so far, learning the songs, memorising lines, sorting out costumes and scenery. What a spectacle it is all going to be.

Refreshments will be available from 8.45am in the Library, staff will be busy setting up the hall, therefore please do not arrive before this time. 

We are able to offer each child two tickets for the performance. 

Please book here:

Baarmy Bethlehem 

Wednesday 7 December - 4.35pm

Funstar would love to invite the families of their Wednesday Street Class group to join them at 4.35pm on Wednesday 7 December to enjoy the work the children having been doing this year. 

Please come to the front door at 4.35pm on 7 December 2022 and you will be shown to the hall to enjoy the fun.

Monday 12 December - 9.15am

Parents of the children in Year 2 are invited to share in a performance of poetry, music and readings to celebrate the Christmas festivities. You are welcome to come into school for light refreshments from 8.45am and the performace will start at 9.15am.

Tickets can be booked here, maximum of three per child:

Year 2 Christmas Cracker

Mr Webb, Mrs Emery, Mrs Barnes and Miss Bowdige

Tuesday 13 December 2022 - 6.30pm to 7.45pm

This year we will again hold our Christmas Carol Service at Princethorpe College in Our Lady of the Angels Chapel. Please join us for a wonderful evening of carols, readings and re-telling of the Christmas story.

All children in Years 3-6 are required to attend. Please request permission from Mr Thackway (by emailing admin@crescentschool.co.uk) if your child is unable to attend for any reason. 

Two tickets are available per child in Upper School and can be booked here:

Christmas Carol Service 

Friday 16 December 2022

Our Christmas Jumper Day this year will be on Friday 16 December 2022. On that day, children should wear normal school uniform, but instead of their green pullover/cardigan, they can wear a Christmas jumper, if they wish.

We also invite you to make a voluntary contribution of £1 to wear a festive jumper which is in aid of Birmingham's Children Hospital.

Mrs Stapleton

This week's Accelerated Reader Superstars are:

Top Quizzers are:

• 3S  Isabella
• 4C  Nora
• 5F  Maisie
• 6W Harry

Word Wizards are:

• 3S  Esme
• 4C  Toni
• 5F  Harry
• 6W Poppy

Our Class Word Wizards for the month of November, having read a whopping 2.2 million words, are Class 6W.

After quizzing on an astonishingly impressive 136 books, November's Top Quizzing Class are once again 3S!        

Well done to all our avid readers here at Crescent School.

Mrs Nelson
Teaching Assistant

Each week we have a Scientist and Artist of the Week who is recognised in assembly with their work displayed in the school corridor.

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

Scientists

• MingYi (4C)
• Samuel (4C)
• Sophia (4C)

Artists

• Ella (3S)
• Esme (3S)
• Chloe (6W)
• Erin (6W)
• Isabella (6W)
• Libby (6W)
• Thomas (6W)

Well done all.

Crescent School

It is always an exciting time for the children when they gain their pen licence, enabling them to make the move from writing in pencil to pen.

For this rite of passage, the children have to show that they can write neatly and consistently in cursive, joined handwriting in all of their work, not just handwriting tasks.

Thomas has shown pride in the presentation of all of his learning tasks and has been awarded a Pen Licence and his first handwriting pen.

Well done!

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

• Anaya
• Penelope
• Summer
• Tara

Last week most improved speedsters in the studio are:

Stay Calm and Rock on!!

Maisie in 5F takes her role on the Wellbeing Team seriously and has spread a little kindness and joy by bringing in a bespoke Advent calendar for her class.

Each day two children will be able to open a sweet treat from the boxes and feel treated in these busy last couple of weeks of term.

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

The excitement of Christmas has certainly started in Reception! We have all been busy making and creating wonderful Christmas crafts – cards, calendars, Rudolph faces, baubles, trees and gingerbread men! We’ve decorated our tree and the role play area has taken shape as Santa’s workshop with so many helpful eleves!

We have been exploring time in maths. We’ve been linking regular routines to times of the day, made clock faces and used them to read and show o’clock times.

Some of the things the children will be learning next week...

We will be introducing money in Maths. The children will handle coins, learning to recognise 1p, 2p, 5p and 10p coins. The children will count pennies and match amounts to 10p and beyond.

Our work in literacy will continue around the Christmas theme. We will be exploring rhyme in The Reindeer Hokey Cokey, and listen to a variety of Christmas stories. We will be writing letters to Santa and using adjectives to describe decorations.

In phonics we have introduced digraphs and trigraph;

ai as in rain       ee as in feet      igh as in high      oa as in coat

oo as in boot and cook     ar as in car     or as in corn 

ur as in turn

How to help your child at home…

Reinforce digraphs/trigraphs introduced at school. Identify them in words in stories you share.

Practise simple addition in real life contexts - e.g. how many red and blue baubles on the tree?

Talk about the numbers on advent calendars – explore the value of tens and ones in two-digit numbers.

Encourage children to write Christmas cards and gift tags using the cursive letters they know.

What’s coming up/notices/information...

We will be taking our trip to the theatre to see T’was the Night Before Christmas on Thursday. Please remember to send a pocket-sized snack and disposable drink that day.

The children are very excited about our performance of Baarmy Bethlehem on Wednesday morning. The rest of the school are watching the dress rehearsal on Monday.

Our class Christmas party will take place in the afternoon of Friday 16 December. It’s Christmas jumper that day so children do not need to bring a change of clothes. Some party food will be provided in school.

In 1Q this week, we had lots of fun on Christmas arts and crafts day creating beautiful pictures using finger prints, hand prints, cutting, sticking and decorating.

In Maths this week, we enjoyed hiding Freddy (our class teddy bear) to learn about describing positions.

We are also very busy rehearsing for our Nativity play next week having done two dress rehearsals this week. 

Our children have been so excited in making our classroom festive and excelled in following direction and adding their individual designs to the crafts we completed. It was lovely to see some of our parents during Open Corridors and for those who were unable to make it, please click through the images to view our gallery.

In Maths, our two focusses have been measuring and money. We learnt all about centimetres and metres and when you would use each. The children were really interested in learning a little latin, now knowing that ‘centi’ means hundred and did some impressive estimating and measuring.  

In our learning on money, we used an Olympic medal analogy to understand the value of gold, silver and bronze coins relative to each other. We have secured our coin and note recognition and learnt two strategies for adding coins (counting on and applying our 2-digit addition methods). We have enjoyed seeing how many different coin combinations we can find for a set amount of money. It was fascinating to realise, there are lots! 

Our English learning has involved baking and being bossy which is quite a fun combination when you are 6 or 7. We looked at recipes and learnt how to put our ingredients into a list using commas. We then had to write our method using imperative (bossy) verbs – put, mix, bake, stir etc. We practised writing out a recipe focussing on it being clear, concise and easy to follow. No waffle allowed! The eating of cookies was quite good too! 

In Art this week, 2E and 2W have had fun enlarging their wonderful drawings of a character from The Three Little Pigs then painting them with watercolour. Next week, they are going to use poster paint and oil pastels to add depth to their painting.

I can’t wait to see how they turn out.

In science, Class 2E and 2W have been learning about the different stages of human life. The children have been finding out about the needs of a baby and they had a fantastic opportunity to meet a two and half weeks old baby this week.

Mrs Jodie Kelsall brought in baby Albert, accompanied by proud grandmother Mrs Fisher. Mrs Kelsall answered all the questions that the pupils had prepared. Everyone was very excited and so thrilled to meet baby Albert. 

Class 2W had a wonderful Christmas Art Day being creative and just having  a lovely time.

We had lots of hard work and fun and a festive classroom by the end of it all.

Class 2W played a Maths learning game challenging their adding skills and their strategic thinking. There were wonderful examples of mathematical language, explaining their thinking and choices and, of course, some friendly competition!

On a very misty Tuesday evening, Crescent’s mixed side of U9s and U8s travelled over to Newbold and really illuminated the whole tournament with truly fantastic rugby from start to finish. The entire squad played a very smart, organised game both in attack and defence, moving the ball superbly, running fearlessly and supporting each other well.

Crescent finished as clear tournament champions with a 4-1 win over St. Gabriel’s, a 6-2 win against Binley Woods, an incredible 8-8 draw against Paddox ‘A’, a 4-2 win over Paddox ‘B’, a 4-3 win against St Matthew Bloxam and a 6-5 win over Clifton.

Special mentions must go to the whole team, but in particular captains Maxi and Zac who both led the team superbly, marshalling both attack and defence with real aplomb.

Mr Adkins and Ms Clark

To give some context to our collection next week we are delighted to have this from Major Catherine:

"The Salvation Army has, for many years, helped to give Christmas presents to children who otherwise wouldn't get anything for Christmas. Over the past few years we have partnered with the Entertainer toy shop but many other shops and individuals donate toys and money to support families. We are contacted by schools, children's workers and social workers who know children in need. They then collect the gifts for them so their identity is kept secret."

If you are able, please drop off any donation gifts at school on Wednesday 7 and Thursday 8 December - there will be collection boxes by the side entrance door like at harvest festival time. We believe every child deserves a new gift at Christmas so we are unable to take used or second hand items for the Christmas Present Appeal.

Major Catherine Rand will be coming into school to collect and say thanks on the morning of Friday 9 December.

Please send all items unwrapped. This helps the SA choose the right items for each family and children. The gifts are then wrapped by the SA volunteers. Or often they provide wrapping paper to parents to do it themselves, so they can be part of the Christmas experience they’re struggling to provide for their family.

Suggested Gift List for Children and Young People

0-3 years: dolls, teddy bears, cot mobiles, baby clothes, bath toys, CDs of suitable music and nursery rhymes, puzzles

3-5: dolls and action figures, cars, lorries, DVDs and CDs (music and nursery rhymes), colouring sets, pencils, crayons, books, puzzles

5-9: educational games & toys, stationery (colouring sets, pencils, crayons, school sets), CDs & family friendly DVDs, books, puzzles, wordsearch, crosswords

9-12: games and toys, stationery, DVDs, books, t-shirts, hair accessories, gloves, scarves, hats

13-16: books, make-up and toiletries (please try to ensure non-allergic ingredients if possible), gloves, scarves, hats, t-shirts, hair accessories and gift vouchers

Thanks to all of those who are helping and supporting the Bazaar - we would be thoroughly lost without all of the volunteers who make it happen. We look forward to updating you with the final totals next week. 

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:

• Examinations Officer - Princethorpe College
• Exam Invigilators - Princethorpe College
• Nursery Practitioner - Little Crackers
• Library Assistant - Princethorpe College
• Sports Coaches - Hockey, Netball, Football and Cricket - Princethorpe College

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.