Dear Parents and Friends of the School

We have known for some time that we will get an inspection this term and have been fully prepared and waiting for a number of weeks. We thought it might come in September, then October and November, but we have waited until the beginning of December, before it was finally here.

There’s no doubt that this brings extra stress for the team in school, as inspectors look at every aspect of what we do and how well we do it. Ultimately, as a school we want to provide the best of everything for your children both in terms of their social development and their academic education.

As we go to press, we have no indications as to any outcomes or findings from the inspection but I would like to use this forum to publicly thank the much-famed ‘Green Team’ for all of their hard work and mutual support throughout the week. Little friendly messages and nods of appreciation from you as parents, have also been warmly received.

From the children’s point of view, they do seem to be on extra-special best behaviour when we have inspectors or visitors coming into school. I hope they haven’t found it too difficult a week and I have been super proud of them for their beautiful behaviour and manners, and showing their very best side to the visiting experts.

I would also like to say a huge thank you to you as parents for the overwhelmingly positive responses that you made to the survey. I totally respect everyone's right to voice their opinions on matters like this but it was lovely that so many of you felt able to give us such wholehearted support. 

There are some strict guidelines in place around publishing feedback from inspections that we will of course adhere to. This will cause some delay in getting results back to you generally, but we will of course let you know in due course.

Combined with the LAMDA showcase and exams, the wonderful Nativity performance (my highlight of the week), open corridors and today’s bazaar, normal life has gone on as usual and I hope it has been as productive and fruitful week for you at home as it has been for the children here in school.

There will be a few teachers putting their feet up this evening and falling fast asleep within a few minutes of turning on the television. I very much suspect I will be one of them.

Whatever you have planned for this evening and the weekend beyond, I hope it goes well. 

With all best wishes

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

It has been an exciting term for co-curricular, with so many choices on offer for your children. 

Co-curricular clubs end on Friday 13 December, with the exception of the clubs below:

• Monday 16 December - Yoga Rec and Y1
• Tuesday 17 December - All Stars Football

After this date, if you require After School care please make sure you book this in advance through My School Portal so we can ensure correct staff ratios.

Sign up for Lent Term Clubs closes on Sunday 15 December, please see the email sent to parents last week.

Mrs Webb
Assistant Head

As we approach Christmas, I thought some you may like some ideas for Christmas books to share with your family. I obviously haven’t read them all and I am also always happy to hear recommendations that you may have.

Best children's books - Christmas Books (KS2)

Best Christmas Books for Children

Mrs Webb
Assistant Head

Year 6 all have access to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone as their Christmas read. This will need to be read by the beginning of term as our work is based on it. Please share it as a family or listen to it on audio or your child can curl up and read it independently but the film is no way a replacement for the written word, so please watch that after it has been read.

The children chose this book as their Fantasy book focus. If your child has read this book they may wish to explore further fantasy books ( there are so many to name but here are a few):

• Percy Jackson Series Rick Riordan
• Skandar Series A.F. Steadman
• Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis
• The 1000 year old boy Ross Welford
• Mortal Engines Philip Reeve

Mrs Webb
Year 6W Form Teacher

Crescent School, along with the other schools of the Princethorpe Foundation, is a Nut Aware School. Whilst we cannot guarantee that children won’t come into contact with nuts or products with nut traces, we endeavour to reduce this risk as far as we can.

The aim of this strategy is to reduce the risk to those who may suffer an anaphylactic reaction if exposed to nuts to which they are sensitive. There are currently children in school with a known nut allergy. Exposure to nuts for these children could result in serious consequences.

Our 'Nut-Aware’ approach, means that any food items with nuts listed as an ingredient should not be brought into school. This includes the following:

• 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)
• Cakes made with nuts and marzipan

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.

PLEASE NOTE:

Many food products nowadays carry precautionary allergen labelling, often with statements like ‘may contain traces of nuts’ or ‘made in a factory that handles nuts’. Where nuts are not listed as an ingredient, these products are allowed in school.

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

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

Weekly Calendar 

Weekly Calendar 9 December 2024

After School

Provision can be booked through My School Portal selecting the sessions you require. If you require your child to have tea, please ensure bookings are made by 10.00am each day.  

MySchoolPortal

Crescent School

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 - 9 December

Crescent School

Please see below to view the Music Lesson timetable:

Music lessons - 9 December

The music lesson timetable will be published in the Courier every Friday. Please note the following:

• The timetable changes every week. Lessons are rotated as we try to avoid children missing the same lesson each week, though sometimes this is unavoidable if there are trips, matches and events to work around. If a teacher teaches on more than one day, your child's lesson could be on any of those days. Lessons in bold type are in fixed slots and therefore do not rotate, though, again, on occasions we may have to swap them around to avoid clashes with events.
• The music staff will always try to reschedule lessons missed because of a school event, however lessons missed because of illness or not having an instrument in school cannot be made up.
• If you know your child is not going to be in school for their lesson for any reason, please do let me know as early as possible and I will try to work around it, though this cannot be guaranteed.
• Lessons before school and during lunchtime are prioritised to Year 6 pupils in the Michaelmas term. After Christmas, Year 6 lessons will move to being during class time, and the out-of-class-time lessons will be allocated to Year 5 pupils.
• Half a term's (ie 5 lessons) notice is required to stop having lessons, or payment of half a term's fees in lieu of notice.

Please send all enquiries about music lessons to me juliebarnes@crescentschool.co.uk rather than the individual music teachers.

Mrs Barnes
Director of Music

This year’s Nativity took place on Wednesday 4 December and starred Reception and Year 1 who together performed The Nativity.

The simple musical told the traditional nativity story of the journey to Bethlehem, the search for a room at the inn, the birth of baby Jesus and the visits of the shepherds and wise men. The two classes transformed into the nativity cast with a multitude of angels, shepherds, kings and innkeepers who together with Mary, Joseph and the donkey and animals created a marvellous spectacle.

The story was told beautifully with each child carefully enunciating their individual lines. Together our most junior children sang delightfully crowd-pleasing tunes such as Clip Clop, Knock Knock Knock and Three Kings Were Riding.

Headmaster, Joe Thackway, commented, "It went very, very well. We are so proud of all our children, they performed brilliantly.”

It was a wonderful start to the exciting final few weeks of term.

On Monday 2 December, after school, pupils in Year 3 took to the stage to show off their fabulous performance skills. The pupils have been preparing for their upcoming LAMDA exams and the LAMDA Showcase was a super opportunity for them to execute their much practised and perfected poems.

In their Drama lessons, pupils have been building confidence, developing character, learning how to project and developing the use of gestures, emphasis and emotion to enhance their performances. They all relished performing to an audience, rising to the occasion with aplomb and the watching parents were impressed by the children's ability and confidence.

Drama teacher, Mrs Woolfenden was extremely proud of everyone and would like to thank all the children, staff and parents for their hard work and dedication.

Well done to everyone and we look forward to receiving the results of your LAMDA exams!

It was wonderful to see so many of our Crescent School alumni being recognised at Princethorpe College’s recent Prize Giving. Their annual celebration of achievement took place in The Butterworth Hall at The University of Warwick on Friday 22 November.

No less than six Old Crescentians were awarded prizes receiving acclaim for outstanding academic and sporting achievement.

OC Emma Sarkies (Class of 2017) was presented with the Seamus Doyle Cup for endeavour in Sixth Form studies.
OC Katie Richards (Class of 2017) was presented with the A-level Textiles Trophy for the highest achievement in Textiles.
OC James Robinson (Class of 2017) was presented with the Senior Sports Boy of the Year Shield for outstanding sporting achievement.
OC Sophie Gray (Class of 2017) was presented with the Senior Sports Girl of the Year Shield for outstanding sporting achievement.
OC Amy Robinson (Class of 2021) was presented with the Junior Sports Girl of the Year Shield for outstanding sporting achievement. 
OC Jay Patil (Class of 2021) was presented with the Da Vinci Shield as the boy who most embodies the Renaissance ideal amongst the College’s high performance learners.

We were also delighted to see former pupils from the Classes of 2017 and 2019 being presented with their A-level and GCSE certificates respectively. Congratulations to them all on their well-deserved success. Their teachers here at Cresent School applaud them.

Then not forgetting our very newest Old Crescentians, from the Class of 2024, who sang their hearts out in the Year 7 Chorus performing Pachelbel’s Canon Medley and the rather appropriate Best Day Of My Life.

Headmaster, Joe Thackway, was impressed, commenting, “Congratulations to all our Old Crescentians. It is clear to see that they have flourished at Princethorpe College, their success and achievement is inspiring for us all and no doubt a reflection of their talent, dedication and determination. I am confident they will go on to achieve even greater rewards and wish them all the very best for the future.”

Click here to see the Prize Giving Programme.
 

We received an email from Rugby Food Bank today thanking the school for the Harvest Festival donations:

On behalf of everyone at Rugby Foodbank, I want to say a heartfelt thank you to your school for supporting us during the harvest season. Your generous collection of food will make a real difference to individuals and families in our area who are facing food poverty.

Your efforts mean we can continue to provide vital support to those in need, and we are incredibly grateful for your help.

To show our appreciation, we’ve attached a Certificate of Thanks for your school to display proudly as a reminder of the impact you’ve made in our community (see cover photo).

Thank you again for supporting Rugby Foodbank

Mrs Fisher has for many years organised Bilton Silver Mini Brass and Bilton Silver Training Band on Monday evenings at Bilton Silver Band Hall, Winwick Place, Bilton.

Pupils are welcome to attend, please see the poster for full details. The sessions are free of charge and instruments can be provided for members. 

Many children who have become members have gone on to achieve membership of the National Children’s Band and the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain.

This activity is supported by the Bilton Silver (Rugby) Band for young people in the local community.

If you would like your child to attend or would like more information please contact Mrs Fisher: difi2@hotmail.co.uk

Tuesday 10 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 performance will start at 9.15am. 

Tickets can be booked below - four per family.  Booking closes on Sunday 8 December 2024:

Year 2 - 'A Christmas Cracker' Performance to Parents in the School Hall

Mrs Woolfenden

Monday 16 December 2024 - 6.15pm to 7.45pm

Before we know it our Christmas celebrations will be starting in school.  We are making a few changes to the Carol Service this year and I wanted to inform you of them.

The Choir, all of Year 6, Wacky Music group and Orchestra are all involved in the service,  and these children must attend the service at Princethorpe Chapel on Monday 16 December from 6.15pm. We are welcoming two adults with each of these children to be part of this service congregation. Each child will need an adult who is responsible for them in the Chapel. 

All other children in the upper school are welcome to join us as part of the congregation and each child we be required to sit with their adult in the Chapel. Again, two adults are welcome. 

Please sign up for  your seats by Wednesday 11 December  via this link:

Carol Service at Princethorpe College Chapel

Knowing numbers by this date will allow additional seats to be made available to other families.

If any parents do require an additional ticket then please let us know and we will be in touch if we have further availability.

Mrs Webb
Assistant Head

Wednesday 18 December 2024

Our Christmas Jumper Day this year will be held on Wednesday 18 December 2024. On that day, children should wear normal school uniform, but instead of their green jumper, they can wear a Christmas jumper, if they wish.

We invite you to make a voluntary contribution of £1 to wear a festive jumper, which is in aid of this term's Charity  the OurJay Foundation.

Mr Webb
Assistant Head

Two well deserved JdV awards this week. First is Alice in 4C for Geography, and then Sophie D in 3LS for Maths. 

Great work both of you.

Mrs Symons 
JDV Lead

Word Wizards

The pupils achieving the highest word count from successfully quizzing this week, are:

• 3LS Sophie L
• 3SS Juliette
• 4C  Felicity
• 4W Kiki
• 5F  Ava
• 6W Nora

Top Quizzers 

The pupils who have quizzed on the most books successfully or made a noticeable improvement in quizzing scores this week are:

• 3LS Sarima
• 3SS Tara
• 4C Charlotte
• 4W Sophia
• 5F Isabella
• 6W Ed W

Mrs Nelson
Teaching Assistant

A really important part of life in Pre-Prep is building a love of reading. We are developing the children's phonics skills, reading fluency, expression, style and comprehension. Each week we select two readers from each class who have stood out to us as demonstrating one or more of these skills or who have made really great progress over the previous few weeks. It's a lovely way for the children to know that we recognise and celebrate their success.

This week's reading superstars are:

• Reception - Carter and Layla
• Year 1 - Maia and Xander
• Year 2 - Aydin and Evie

Mrs Emery
Head of KS1 and Class 2E Form Teacher

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 this week.

• Harry 2E has completed 24% of the course
• Charlie 4C has completed 48% of the course
• Zoe 4W has completed 48% of the course
• Amber 5F has completed 48% and then 72% of the course

Y1  - Y6 battle results 27 November - 4 December are:- average score per class member:

• 1st 6W 67
• 1st 3SS 67
• 3rd 1Q 54

Most valuable players in the whole competition:

• 1^st MingYi 6W
• 2nd Eve 1Q
• 3rd Daniel 3SS

Well done, 3SS and 6W - a draw! 🏆

Most improved speedsters in the studio are:

1Q

Sanvika - Support Act!

Eve - Unsigned Act!

4W

Sophia - Unsigned Act!

6W 

MingYi - ROCK HERO ! average 0.99 seconds per correct answer consistently. 

New Battle of the Bands between Years 1-6, 4 - 11 December.

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

Art Frizzmeister 
Deputy Head

Congratulations to this week's Artists of the Week:

• Lucas 4W - A strong and colourful journey painting
• Zoe 4W - Beautiful choice of colours and lovely patterns
• Joshua 4W - A creative journey painting with excellent mix of colours
• Jahnavi 4W - A lovely imaginative journey painting
• Dudley 4W - Strong shapes and lovely colour mixes
• Hermione 4W - Imaginative use of shapes, colours and textures

Mrs Thackway
Head of Art

Year 3 have been using the school ipads to do interactive reading and listening activities on Seesaw. Here are some photos of the activities they have done, which have been on the recent topics of the weather, hobbies, months and birthdays. Congratulations to Siara who was awarded a JdV for her excellent work in the word order activity.

Mrs Day
MFL Teacher

On Wednesday and Thursday this week the Year 3 children took their Introductory Stage 2 LAMDA exam. The friendly examiner made them feel at ease and every pupil came out of the drama room smiling. Well done to all involved and we look forward to receiving their results in January.

Mrs Woolfenden
Drama Teacher

The children have been working hard on planning some Christmas stories this week. They have created story maps  and then told their story to a friend, who recorded them on Seesaw. They then used our new headphones to listen back to their stories to see if they had remembered to include everything.

Mrs Symons
Class 3LS English Teacher

We have been ensuring we can measure accurately using rulers and tape measures. We started off by finding objects around the classroom to measure and then took time measuring the length of different parts of our bodies. We asked the question of whether our forearm measurement was longer or shorter than the length of our foot? We then tested our predictions to see if we were right!

Mrs Stapleton
Class 3SS Maths Teacher

Class 4C have been interpreting information from bar charts and drawing bar charts this week. Our Maths and English topics came together on Thursday, when the children used a page of one of Aesop’s Fables The Lion and the Mouse to collect data on the number of vowels, before presenting these as bar charts in their books. They did an excellent job of checking the success criteria to make sure their bar charts were presented to a high standard.   

Ms Clark
Year 4 Maths Teacher

Class 4W have enjoyed reading Aesop’s fables. They have discussed the morals of the stories, learned how to extend sentences using conjunctions of time and cause, and wrote a short informal letter reporting an event. Next week we move onto writing newspaper reports and writing with a more formal approach. 

Mrs Woolfenden
Class 4W English Teacher

In Drama, Year 4 and 5 have been putting the finishing touches on their poetry in preparation for their LAMDA exams shortly after Christmas.

While Year 6 are looking forward to performing in their Carol Concert and have rewritten the 12 Days Of Christmas especially for the occasion. 

Mrs Woolfenden
Drama Teacher

As part of the English focus on Diverse Voice poetry, we looked at the poem The Foundation Of Youth Is Held In Their Hands by Anneliese Amoah where she gave advice to her younger self.

Even as young as they are, Year 6 came up with some lovely ideas and offered plenty of advice for others.

Mrs Webb
Year 6 English Teacher

Year 6 have been studying the topic of clothes in their French lessons. They have been using the school iPads with our brand-new headphones in order to complete a variety of reading and listening tasks. Here they are working hard on a Seesaw lesson. 

Mrs Day
MFL Teacher

Please can all Count Your Carbon returns be completed on Seesaw or brought into school by Tuesday 10 December. There are prizes for the class who have 'Cut their Carbon' the most.  

Thank you for taking part.  

Mrs Johnson
Head of Science and DT

Christmas Jumper Day will be upon us very soon!

The Green Team are offering the opportunity for children to swap their Christmas Jumper!  

If your child would like to bring in a jumper that is too small for them or they just fancy a change, they can bring one to the Science room and swap it with one off the rack. Please remember children can only take a jumper if leaving one behind.   

Remember to make sure the jumpers are clean and not damaged so others can take it home and love it again! 

Thank you

From the Green Team 

This was the very first ISA full contact rugby competition for U10s age group, and the Year 5 boys and girls from Crescent certainly made their mark on the tournament. Despite narrowly losing their opening match 2-1 to Crackley, the eventual unbeaten champions, Crescent bounced back superbly winning their next five games in a row and drawing their final one to leave themselves in second place overall. 

What really delighted their coaches however, was not the fantastic results, but the way the whole squad improved with every single game, getting braver, tackling harder and moving the ball with real purpose. Every single player played their part superbly, with everyone scoring at least one try over the day.

Player of the tournament was Thomas for his crunching tackling and powerful runs, with special mentions for Lilah and Evelyn, the only two girls at the whole competition, both scoring great tries and coming away with shiny silver medals!

Mr Adkins and Mrs Dewes

Huge congratulations to  Zac, Thomas, Sophie and Joshua who swam superbly at the National ISA Swimming Finals at the London Aquatics Centre on Friday 29 November.

Year 6, Zac went all out and came home with two medals, a Silver, after helping his team finish in second place in the 4x50m Freestyle Relay, and a Bronze, for his incredible individual performance in the 50m Backstroke. Year 5, Thomas did nearly as well with his team finishing in second place for a Silver medal in the 4x50m Freestyle Relay. Then Year 6 Sophie gave her best and earned herself a Bronze after a herculean effort in the 50m Butterfly. Sophie just missed another medal after her team finished fourth in the 4x50m Medley Relay and she also helped her team to sixth in the 4x50m Freestyle Relay. Finally, Year 4, Joshua finished sixth after a super swim in the 50m Backstroke and helped his team to seventh in the 4x50m Freestyle Relay.

Together the swimmers’ superb performances helped the Midlands team finish in third place overall at the national event.

Head of PE and Games, Rachel McCollin, was delighted and said, "Our swimmers have traditionally done well in the ISA Swimming Championships and they have had another successful outing this year. Well done to everyone who competed in the Nationals and also in the qualifying regional competition."
 

Uniform can be ordered here:

Uniform Order Form

Please note the following items are stocked in the School Office and can be added to your account. Do pop in to collect any items.

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

School Uniform Shop 
Tel: 01926 634272
Email: uniform@princethorpe.co.uk

Click here to view the term dates for 2024-25 and 2025-26.

Crescent School

Please see below for useful school contact information:

We regularly recruit for a variety of roles, please do share news of the vacancies with interested friends and family. Current vacancies include:

Foundation

• Trustee 

Princethorpe College

• Teacher of Law
• Apprentice Groundsman

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.