The Courier

To celebrate the Rugby World Cup, Crescent took part in a local Tag Rugby tournament. Wasps got involved in the organisation as did MP Mark Pawsey. This meant that not only did our children have an exciting tournament to play in but they got to meet two Wasps Rugby players and the Argentinian Ambassador. Mark Pawsey made an appearance as well as The Mayor.

Each school represented a country and we were given Ireland. The children made flags (thanks to Josh G and Sam S for this) and learned the chorus of ‘Ireland’s Call.’ Unfortunately, they did not get a chance to sing it in the opening ceremony. However, in the break, the New Zealand team performed The Haka and the French started singing, ‘Allez Le Bleus’ so we started singing ‘Ireland’s Call.’ It was quite a spine tingling moment.

In the matches, the Crescent children won two matches and drew one in the pool. Their defensive work was superb and they showed great handling and running going forward. In the semi-final, Ireland just lost out to France 3-2 but we won the third/fourth playoff to finish 3rd.

Crescent made the journey to Walsall Baths on Tuesday 8 October to compete in the Independent Schools’ Association’s Midlands Junior Swimming Gala. Success at the Regional event would qualify pupils for the ISA National Championships due to take place later this year in London at the Olympic Aquatics Centre.

The children swam 25m in the pool and the races included both individual events and team relays. Crescent's pupils showed great confidence, teamwork and skill at the gala. A number had swum before and showed their progress through their much improved finishing positions and personal best times. For others this was their very first experience of competitive galas, but as always Crescent School's pupils encouraged each other, from the start through to the finish of every single race.

It quickly became clear that Crescent were one of the dominant schools which was a first for this competition. In the end, we finished 3rd overall on points out of the 24 schools taking part with the Year 6 Girls finishing 2nd (last year as Year 5s, they were 6th and the school finished 7th).

Sienna and Stephanie made it through to the National Finals in Breaststroke and Freestyle respectively. Other notable performances included: Eve 3rd in Backstroke and Josh 3rd in Breaststroke (despite them not being club swimmers!), Marco came 3rd in Butterfly and the Year 6 Boys Medley Relay team were 2nd (George B, Josh, Marco and Ewan).

Well done to all of Crescent's swimmers for their excellent effort.