The Courier

Dear Parents

The sun has continued to shine throughout our first week ‘back’ to school. Home schooling is probably a lot more demanding than anyone had anticipated and at least the weather has meant that the children are able to get outside between lessons and spend important time away from a computer screen. Although the place of work has changed, it is important to keep thinking about the work-life balance and for the children this means accessing the whole range of the curriculum, not just focusing on the academic subjects.

With today’s communications you will also find a questionnaire to complete on the new style of home learning we have put in place this week. Seesaw has been put through its paces for a full five days now and Teams online meetings have also begun to be rolled out. Speaking to my staff over the last few days, I am very aware of the hours they are currently putting in to make this work as well as they possibly can. That is also very apparent when I look at the lessons that have been set and the detailed thought that has gone into them. No-one will pretend that home learning is an ideal way of schooling, but I hope you have also felt the passion and the care that has gone into the lessons.

Having said that, whilst staff have built up years of expertise as teachers, they are not experts in computer technology (yet). For that reason, we want to continue to develop and improve, to have an open mind, and part of that process is to listen. I will look through the responses with the senior leadership team in the coming days and use them to inform our planning. I will of course keep you up to date at every step of the way.

I hope that St George’s house members remembered to wear something red yesterday. It is important to keep this aspect of school life going. You will see more house points being awarded for good work and endeavour in the children’s journals in the coming week and we are planning an afternoon of house activities for later in the term. It is important to break up the day to day learning with special events and we have been working on ideas for these… watch this space.

Enjoy your weekends everybody.

We receive First News in school every week for the children to peruse. Due to this being unable to be delivered they are sharing the newspaper as a PDF.

Please enjoy this paper with your children, there are some great stories.

17-23 April 2020

Further to the ISAMS email that went out this week regarding reading pointers, a few parents contacted me recommending the following:

https://www.borrowbox.com/

You can access books via here if you have a Library card.  Please keep me informed of any tips and I will happily share. 

FUND-RAISING members of the Princethorpe Foundation family picked up their tennis rackets for a ten hour match to support the NHS over the Easter holidays.

Neil McCollin, Princethorpe's Assistant Head Co-curricular and his wife Rachel, a teacher at Crescent School spent ten hours in one day playing tennis with their children raising more than £1,000 for NHS charities.

Eight-year-old Ruan wanted to do more to support hospital staff across the country after clapping for the health service and taking part in a nationwide camp-out.

And after talking to mum Rachel, dad Neil and sister Grace they decided to extend the daily tennis games which they have been enjoying, while raising money at the same time.

They started the match on Easter Monday at 9,00am and finished at 7.00pm, taking it in turns to stop for breaks.

Rachel said: “Ruan wanted to do more to raise money for NHS staff who are tirelessly working to help protect the country from COVID-19. During lockdown he has loved playing tennis on the driveway and so we decided that this would be a great way to have fun and raise money at the same time.”

The team originally wanted to raise £50 but they have raised much more. They added, “We only really thought close family would sponsor us but have been overwhelmed by the response and support. Thank you so much to everyone."

Visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/teammctennisathonfornhs to donate.

In the absence of any cookery clubs to run we’ve been putting together some cook-along videos for people to follow at home. Initially we made the recipes we missed at the end of last term (Chocolate and Banana Bread & Butter Pudding and Stuffed Peppers) but we’re now starting to explore a wider range of dishes, trying to use ingredients that are relatively easy to get hold of at the moment - the first one is a really simple no-flour peanut butter cookie recipe.

All these cook-along videos, plus any new ones we make (we’re aiming for one per week) are/will be available to view on Youtube via the link below:

Bayleaf Cookery Videos

We’re also going to be doing short daily cookery themed challenges and other bits and pieces on our Facebook page:

Bayleaf Cookery School

We hope you enjoy!

Bayleaf Cookery School

During Lockdown the Grove family have been embracing Fancy Dress Saturday where they dress up to a theme. 

The first week's theme was general fancy dress followed by Olympics, Animals  and the letter L.  As you can see from the photos they had much fun dressing up. 

Alex and Lucas we think you look great.

This weeks theme is 80's films and TV if anyone would like to join in - we would love to see your photos!

Crescent School

On Thursday 7 May 2020 we will be having an off timetable History Day in celebration of VE Day which marks its 75th anniversary on Bank Holiday Friday, 8 May.

Look out for the Courier more information to follow next week.

This will be an afternoon for pupils to accept a house challenge.  More details are to follow in due course.

Congratulations to the following children who are Accelerated Reader millionaires:

• Arrwinn

• Faris 

• James 

• Milly 

 A great achievement by all.

It great to see so many of you accessing reading from home.  We work out these totals over each week working from Monday to Monday, so there is still time for next week.

Word Wizards of the week:

• Alyssa 
• Daniel
• Harry B
• Liana
• Zahra 

The children who have read the most books over the week are:

• 3S: Byson, Yash and Zahra
• 4M: Faris and Grace S
• 5F: Orla 
• 6Y: Harry
• 6W: Daniel

We will keep recognising new millionaires every week.  Keep up the excellent reading work.

Mrs Webb
Assistant Head

The following children have been awarded (virtually) certificates for Accelerated Reader this week:

Well done to you all.

Results for Battle  16 April-23 April

Boys 11,582 V Girls 7877

Well done Team Boys! 

Special mention goes to Aryan in 4M and Sahana in 5F for contributing the most points to their teams. 

Each class can have the speediest TT Rock Star and that gets you up the status board on the poster below. To get on this board you have to tackle the single player games - Garage, Studio & Soundcheck, multi-player do not count for these. These also earn more coins than the multiplayer games too.

In the last weeks, most improved speedsters in each class are:

• 1E - No one on the board yet
• 2W- Harry S - Wannabe!
• 3S- Harry M -Support Act!
• 4M- Sachin - Garage Rocker!
• 5F- Sahana - Support Act!
• 6W- no one on the board this week!
• 6Y - no one on the board this week!

I have also set up a 'Battle' Thursday 23 - 30 April, 'Girls Vs Boys' for the whole school. There is also Classes 6W Vs 6Y too.

Battles add up any points at all as you play! I will let you know who wins next Courier.

Stay Calm and Keep Rocking! 

Dear Parents and Children

I hope you've all taken opportunity over the last 7 days to follow up on family conversations regarding your child's safe network of adults during this lockdown period.  As adults too it's really stood out to me the extent to which we all need to turn to our most trusted family members and friends during times of worry and stress such as these.

I was having a conversation earlier this week whereby, whilst agreeing that these times are in many ways bizarre, that we all relatively quickly revert to new routines and rhythms in our lives.  I know that I have appreciated a return to timetables and a working structure this week and I expect that many of the children will have found some comfort in this too.  Several parents have commented upon how well they have responded to the return to home learning.

The weather has so helped to break this effectively too (as we would in school with playtimes etc..)  At home we've come to rely on a daily walk and time spent outside.  It's all to easy to spend an unbalanced amount of time looking at a screen of one variety or another.

I attach this useful advice which I think I've shared before but may, once again, be useful to revisit as adults and children for the remainder of this lockdown period in aiming for as balanced a lifestyle as possible!

Internet Matters - Screentime

Wishing you all a healthy and relaxing weekend,

Happy Friday!

Well, I think it’s Friday? Do you, like me, find that days are getting confused as we don’t have the normal routine or afterschool activities we have been used to?

We have completed the first week of home learning using the Seesaw platform and it has given us a window into your lives to help us connect better and hear of what is going on at home. I loved hearing how excited Bella was when spotting a baby hare in the field next door and sharing Grace’s birthday with her and seeing her amazing rainbow cake. They are small things which make a big difference. As we look back, try and hold onto the positives of staying well, staying safe and still having an opportunity to learn and grow.

I’m not saying it has been an easy week, far from it, but I do believe that being mindful of what can be achieved and recognising if something is a ‘step too far’, has been a valuable lesson to us all.

So my CLANG of the week has been:

How has your week been? Can you identify your own CLANG of the week? 

Stay safe, stay home and look after each other, both physically and emotionally.

As Mr Thackway mentioned in this morning's assembly, we've all been inspired by extraordinary human acts of citizenship such as Captain Tom's. 

Good Citizen is of course a significant strand of the Crescent school promise so please do send to me, by email (awebb@crescentschool.co.uk), any examples of your children going above and beyond in this aspect during this lockdown period, so that we can have a section celebrating this in the Courier each Friday:

Best wishes

Mr and Mrs Webb were thrilled to find a decorated stone on their driveway - it was a big treat and made them smile.

Izzy in 6W was the Good Citizen and you can read about Happy Stones below:

Over the Easter Holidays we did lots of arts & crafts and started some stone painting.  We painted lots of stones with positive messages on and coloured them in to hide on our walks for people to find.  Sometimes people have picked the stones up and sometimes they have left them where they found them and taken photos.

Then, with mums help, we set up a FaceBook & Instagram page so that when people found the stones they could share their photos.

We just wanted to cheer up someone’s day when they were out on their walk!

Let us know if you find one, or maybe paint your own and leave them to be found! We would love to find some too! The link to our social media pages are below!

Facebook.com/happystonesdunchurch

Instagram - @happystonesdunchurch

Fred and Flora have been good citizens by glazing some rocks they painted then hiding them around their village for others to find. 

Fred has also done some lovely drawings for his Great Grandma, who he can't visit but he can send her pictures.

Well done Fred and Flora!

Before the end of Lent Term Amy in Class 5F found out that due to her strong performance throughout Warwickshire Winter training, she had been selected for the U11 Girls County Age Group Squad to play matches against other counties throughout the Summer.

Obviously due to Covid 19 she has not been able to play, but is still hoping there will be some county cricket before the end of the season.

Training with Warwickshire has been continuing remotely in the garden with live coaching through Microsoft Teams, weekly webcasts with famous cricketers and regular masterclass videos.

The cricketers have also had weekly garden challenges, so far covering leg spin, batting, throwing and catching. They even have the option to try a weekly fun challenge competition, this week is juggling with 4 balls!

Either way Amy is doing her best to keep on top form ready for when the cricket season resumes!

Well done Amy and keep on training!

Below are the details of the FoC Year Group Representatives. These reps will communicate with you on all our events via email, WhatsApp or Facebook. 

Please see below for useful school contact information:

Please find below term dates for this academic year and next:

2019/20

One of our home learning activities was to search for and classify different materials. Children found some great examples of metal, glass, wood, paper, fabric and plastic.

We’ve started a new topic this half term - Once upon a time, and our first focus story is Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

In our home learning we’ve had fun with an online version of the tale and written personal responses to the story. We have also written apology letters to the bears.

We have been revising blends, fl, fr, gl, gr and sm this week. We have matched words and pictures, completed cut and stick activities and written words that feature the blends all by our self. Mrs Pullen has been so impressed with our brilliant blending!

As part of our ‘Once upon a time’ topic we have made bear masks in Expressive Art and Design. We got creative with our home materials to produce some scary and some not so scary bears! We wonder if you can guess who’s behind the masks...

I have been so proud of Class 1E this week. This is all new but every single one of them has shown that they are not only a ‘Good Learner’ as per our school motto, but an ‘Excellent Learner’.

It is evident how hard they are working and really trying their best and as a result, the work that they have produced and the progress they are making is fantastic. I have loved seeing their videos and hearing their voice on recordings, it really does brighten my day and make me smile. The work that has come back has shown the same task being approached in many different ways showing great creativity.

Lots of lovely photos have come in, I have attached just a few but will put more in each week so the children can see what their friends have been up to.

Keep it up Class 1 – you are doing an amazing job!

Sam, Alex G and Alice didn't forget to honour St George for their home learning on Thursday, by wearing an item of red clothing. 

Alice as Hermione was also set the task of reading all the books in the house, we wonder how she got on!   

Class 3 have been learning this week how to be a responsible ' Digital Citizen' when spending time on the internet.

As part of our e-safety objectives, and with us using more websites for home learning, the children completed tasks to ensure they were aware of how to stay safe and even created their own 'Digital Citizen Superheroes' to remind them of the advice.

I have been very impressed with how our class has maintained their standards in presentation whilst completing tasks at home. The quality of work during our maths lessons has been excellent and I'm very proud of all of them!

Zara from Class 3S had a busy Easter completing the challenges that Mr Thackway set in assembly.  As well as baking; planting and reading Zara drew these lovely pictures.  

Good work Zara.

Crescent School

Class 4M got busy during the holiday doing all manner of wonderful things. I have heard tales of cooking new recipes, walking in the woods, playing swingball and learning new instruments. 

• Aryan practised his construction skills and built a wonderful range of models using LEGO.
• Eva enjoyed doing some art work and produced this lovely painting of a whale.
• Faris cooked one of my favourite snacks, Churros! Don't they look delicious? (look at the chocolate sauce!)
• Rosina went for a walk with her family to this beautiful bluebell wood.

Class 4M have really thrown themselves into their Home Learning this week. They are getting on very well with Seesaw and have already produced some smashing work.

We read Billionaire Boy over the holidays and the children this week created a timetable for a fun school of their own, just like our main character, Joe, at St. Cuthbert's. There were some brilliant results.

• Eva chose 'Adventure School' where you can do such things as Cave Clambering and Zipwire Zipping.
• James created a 'Car School' where you receive lessons in Luxury Logo design and acting like Jeremy Clarkson.
• Katherine designed a 'Cooking School' where beginners can make sushi and learn how to wear a chef's hat.
• Grace created 'Sausage Dog School' where pupils can learn the art of barking to the beat and squirrel chasing.

All the children have really embraced the lessons and the activities. Keep it up, 4M!

Josh and Isla Class 5F have been experimenting this week making salt and sugar solutions, predicting what will happen to them when they are left in a bright sunny spot and then recorded their results.

I have had some wonderful work sent to me this week.  Here are some examples. 

Keep up the good work, I look forward to sharing more next week:

• Aria and Isabella in Reception have drawn brilliant pictures of Little Red Riding Hood to go with the song "I love red" after their music lesson today.

• A lovely photo of Emily listening to her Music lesson through headphones.

• From 3S Ellie and Zahra's pictures show how they have named the brass instruments and recorder notes.

• Faris in 4M photo shows him singing along with the song.

• Evie in 4M said, " I liked the activity a lot, the song was very different in the verse from the chorus. I like vikings and went to the Jorvik centre in York where my cousin lives." 

• Alyssa 5F said,  "My favourite thing in the lesson was probably listening to the animated tale. I also really enjoyed listening to the storm music. It really made me think I was in a storm! The dynamics and those high notes on top really made the composition come to life.  Learning the song was fun too, I really liked the tune and chromatic at the beginning."

• Freya 6Y said, " I enjoyed listening to the song “Rock The Ship” it was a really, really excellent song, I liked the style of the song and the rhythm of song and how it rhymes really well! I was mesmerised by the music by Benjamin Britten. How did he get it to sound so much like a storm? I also really liked the video of the story, how could anyone leave a young child and an old man to die in a beaten boat??? This was an excellent lesson thank you so much!"

• Tumi 6Y said, "I really enjoyed learning the song. I even used some pots and pans with the down, down, down bit. I've heard about The Tempest but I never really knew what happens in the story. When I watched the first episode of the story I really enjoyed it and I can't wait to see what happens next." 

• Isaac 5F said, "I liked the quiz after The Tempest 'Rock The Boat' and listening and singing along to 'Rock The Boat' as well. I think that Benjamin Britten likes a fast tempo because I heard a couple of his songs and most of them had a fast tempo and on the symphony, 'Playful Pizzicato' it was like there was an echo on everything.  In Playful Pizzicato, I could mostly hear strings and percussion and Benjamin Britten included things like symbols which started with rubbing together to a quiet bang and then a forte bang to express a raging storm. I think the dynamics of this piece started with piano (expressing a quiet start to a storm), then as the storm built the music built to more of a crescendo tempo (getting louder), then to a Forte (representing a loud raging storm). I then listened to the Mendelssohn piece and noticed some differences between Mendelssohn and Benjamin Britten, Britten likes to end loud and fierce and Mendelssohn likes to end quiet and peaceful but other things I think are the same like the echo. Thanks.

• Marco in 6W said, "I really enjoyed the lesson especially joining in with my guitar and doing the quiz at the end, thank you." 

Class 1E - Roisin, Sam, Sophia and Alex are learning about space with Mrs Emery in English and made space rockets with Mrs Byrne in art this week.

Class 2W - Sam O used his index fingers and thumbs to create a view finder and went around his garden pretending to take photos. He drew a super drawing of his favourite one.  I love the photo of Roisin drawing her chicken for her Art work.

Class 3S - Yash and Poppy must have taken lots of time to create these wonderful Anglo Saxon brooches in art this week. They are making cross curricular links between history and art.

Class 4M - Abigail has produced this wonderful cave painting out in her garden using chalk to draw her chosen animal and signed it with her handprint.

Class 5F - Amy and Eden have been drawing things they found in their gardens. Amy chose four different things to sketch and applied lots of super detail and colour, while Eden spent some of her time watching tutorials on YouTube to learn how to paint tulips with water colours. 

We love seeing pictures of pupils watching Mr Thackway's Assemblies and have shared two from this week:

• Sisters Lilah and Hermione watching and we noted in their summer uniform
• Maisie joining in with the Clap for Carers 

Crescent School

Kai and Shayla produced these beautiful acrostic poems over the Easter Holidays.  

Well done both, they are beautiful.

Crescent School

We love hearing about what are Reception 2020 Class have been learning:

• Max decided he wants to learn about dinosaurs, like Edward (it was meant to be the theme this term). He created a silhouette and, with a bit of help, the moving Triceratops.

I enjoyed the video too Max - well done!

Mrs Robinson and Amy have been relaxing during lockdown doing some lovely Art.  We can see where Amy gets her talent from. Mrs Robinson your drawing is amazing!

Crescent School

Byson created a hand picture to convey a positive message during lockdown.

We think its lovely.