The Courier

Dear Parents

Welcome to this week’s Courier. We have arrived in October in good shape and, with the unique challenges of the time, this in itself feels like something of an achievement. The learning mentor meetings last week went down really well with the children and reiterated for me the positive start we have all made to the school year.

I hope you will enjoy seeing the film of our open corridors event along with today's newsletter. We are thinking hard about how to provide the fullest range of events for children and parents despite the current restrictions and I hope you will get a taste of the work and activities that the children have been taking part in in school this term. You might even get a glimpse of a piece of your own child’s work.

Earlier in the week we ran an information meeting for Reception parents on the teaching of reading. I hosted the event along with Mr Webb, but the main contributors were Mrs Emery and Mrs Pullen, both of whom gave a fascinating insight into how reading is taught to our youngest children. Again, there will be a link in today's Courier for you to access a recording of this meeting if you haven't already done so. I can strongly recommend it.

As part of our ongoing management of the pandemic risk, this week we have had an external audit carried out on our risk assessment and risk management. All areas of our provision were inspected, including the delivery in the classrooms and movements around the school. I was delighted to receive very positive feedback following the visit and it is always reassuring to know we are getting most things right. I was able to comment very favourably on the support that parents had shown for our measures, which I know is not universally the case in other schools. Many thanks for your continued support.

Next Monday I will be leading an assembly about the life of Mary Seacole and this will be followed up by a series of short videos telling the story of her quite amazing life. These will be watched during form time over the rest of the week. Mary was a Jamaican nurse during the Crimean war with a quite an astonishing life story to tell, who became a celebrity at the time. If you don't know much about her life, as I didn’t, I would certainly recommend doing some research yourselves.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

The weekly calendar can be viewed by clicking on the link below.  It details all the clubs, events, fixtures and additional information for the week. 

Weekly Calendar - 5 October 2020 

All the co-curricular clubs can be viewed on SOCS, where you can find details of all the dates the clubs are running.  

SOCS Co-Curricular

Crescent School

Our School Council has evolved as we have waved goodbye to the previous Year 6s and our new 6W have new roles appointed and new responsibilities to take forward. As you can see, we met together, but apart, in the Hall and it was great to welcome our newest class representatives from Class 1S - Esme Farr and Theo McBean.

Following our first school council meeting, the children are onboard in supporting a local charity, Hope 4, which is based in Rugby town centre, this term. We have been speaking with the Hope 4 team and they would be so grateful for our support in helping them to provide the services they offer.

Our main theme for our fundraising will be to heighten the awareness to the children about 'Keeping Warm this Winter' and to think of those less fortunate than ourselves. 

The Hope 4 Centre will be open and available for many people this winter and to ensure they can provide a warm welcome; we here at Crescent, shall be helping to provide funding for their projects.

Look out for our fundraising opportunities after half term, and in the Courier over the coming weeks.

Mrs Monteith and Mrs Stapleton
Class 4M and 1S Form Teachers

Harvest will be celebrated a little differently this year, but we hope that the whole school community can get involved in supporting our local foodbank as a way of giving thanks and sharing what we have with others. 

The children have been rehearsing short songs, dramas and poems in preparation for our first online Harvest Service which will be released for viewing on Thursday 15 October.  We hope you enjoy watching the children’s performances and feel part of this important event of the school calendar.

The advice from John Hemmings, at Rugby Foodbank, is that they are not accepting food donations from schools due to the COVID restrictions but they would be grateful of support through the following ways:

• Families to drop food donations off at local collection points in their local supermarkets;

• To donate via our Virgin Money site. Financial donations will be used to buy the food we might be running short of or general running costs. The link can be accessed at: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-display/showROFundraiserPage?userUrl=RugbyFoodbank&pageUrl=1

We feel it is significant for the children to be aware of their families support and the importance of sharing what we have, so watch out for some stickers that will come home with your child. These are for you to sign, as a family, as you pledge your support in whichever way you decide. 

The children can bring them back into school and the leaf stickers will then be added to our Tree of Thankfulness in the hall as a visual contribution towards Harvest.

Thank you in advance for your continued support to such a worthwhile cause.

One of our measures for controlling the coronavirus spread is keeping classrooms and corridors well ventilated with windows open where possible.  As a result, the children might well find the school colder than they are used to, particularly as we head into autumn.  For that reason, we would encourage all children to have additional layers available in school. 

School hoodies and tracksuit tops are ideal for the job whilst also looking smart.  

Warwickshire County Council have provided a further update regarding the Crossing Patrol:

Now that School Crossing Patrols have been individually Risk Assessed and officially re-instated we would like to inform you that your Patrol will be back on duty on Monday 5 October 2020.  

Please inform parents/carers they can now use the Patrol. We have tried to tie in temporary shifts to support the staggered entry/exit times of the school but if there are any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch.  

Dawn Greensmith
School Crossing Patrol Supervisor
Education and Development Team​
Traffic and Road Safety ​Communities
Warwickshire County Council

Our new Scholastic Book Club is up and running! Go to http://schools.scholastic.co.uk/the-crescent 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.

Please place your order online by Friday 2 October 2020.  Books will be sent to school shortly after this date.

Thank you for your support with this.

Mrs Webb
Assistant Head

In the school calendar we had scheduled to have Open Corridors on Friday 2 October 2020, due to current restrictions, this will not be possible. We know how important it is for parents to be involved in their child's learning and the children love to share their work and their school so we are creating a virtual open corridor to enjoy from the comfort of your own home.

This link will be shared via an ISAMS message on Friday 2 October.

Monday 5 October 6.30pm - 8.30pm and Tuesday 13 October 4.00pm - 6.00pm

We all value the importance of these meetings to share with you how your child has settled into the new school year.

In order to keep everyone safe we will be running these via Teams meetings and the link will be sent on the morning of your appointment.

Thank you for your support on this matter.

Thursday 8 October 4.00pm - 6.00pm and Monday 12 October 6.30pm - 8.30pm

We all value the importance of these meetings to share with you how your child has settled into the new school year.

In order to keep everyone safe we will be running these via Teams meetings and the link will be sent on the morning of your appointment.

Thank you for your support on this matter.

Thursday 15 October 2020 

Due to current restrictions, it is not possible for parents to attend the Harvest Service.  

The children have been rehearsing short songs, dramas and poems in preparation for our first online Harvest Service which will be released for viewing on Thursday 15 October.

Crescent School 

Friday 16 October 2020

Children and staff are invited to join us for our first fundraising event in supporting the charity Hope 4. The School Council thought it would be appropriate for us to come wearing the colours of the Hope 4 logo to show our commitment to them.

So, come wearing all red, blue or yellow or maybe a combination of two or all three!  Please donate £1 for the opportunity to come in home clothes; this will be collected by your form teachers during registration. Please consider the weather when choosing your home clothes, especially footwear as the children like to run and play at break times.

The School Council will also be arranging small games/challenges etc for children to play for additional 50p per play to boost our fundraising for those less fortunate than ourselves. More details to follow in next week’s Courier.

Mrs Monteith and Mrs Stapleton
Class 4M and 1S Form Teachers

Thursday 10 December 2020 - 9.00am - 12.00pm

Flu vaccinations will take place in school, for all years, on Thursday 10 December 2020.  Further details will be released in due course.

Thank you.

Crescent School

Katherine is a Junior da Vinci student in English, congratulations to her on her consistent hard work.

Mrs Webb
Assistant Head

Pre-Prep reading certificates have, this week, been presented to:

• Edward W
• Patrick
• Seren
• Theo 

Well done to you all.

Weekly battle 25 September - 1 October :

• Boys scored 11,995 points
• Girls scored   4,620 points

Boys are the winners again!

James and Shayla in 3Y contributed the most points to their teams. 

Improve your levels rehearsing in the Garage at least three times a week, before you play your next 'Gig'. The computer will give you bespoke questions depending on your answers and speed.

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 must tackle the single player game in the 'Studio', multi-player does not count for these. These also earn more coins than the multiplayer games too. 

Plenty of action so last week's most improved speedsters in each class are:

I have also set up a 'Battle' from Friday 2 - Thursday 8 October, 'Girls Vs Boys' for the whole school. 

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

Stay Calm and Keep Rocking!

As part of our art curriculum theme, ‘Colour Chaos’, Year 1 have been learning about the famous abstract artist, Paul Klee. We spent the afternoon recreating his style by ‘taking a line for a walk’ both outside and on paper, before adding paint and colour for our display. They certainly look great hanging up in our classroom, it looks just like an art gallery!

Having examined real fridge magnets and then designed their own, Year 2 children loved using clay this week, and worked hard towards their success criteria, to create some wonderful masterpieces.

Thank you for sending in pictures of the children walking to school, it's been lovely to read about your walks.  Do please continue to send them in so we can share them.

• Since starting Reception in September, Penelope has walked to school every day. We enjoy our stroll from Overslade Lane, although the winter uniform may be required soon to stave off the cold in the mornings!

• Roisin B has walked to and from school everyday since she started back on 1 September 2020. To date that is 23 days, 46 journeys, about 230,000 steps and 96 miles in the car avoided. Not to mention its great to see the seasons start to have changed and to have the opportunity to catch up on each others day.

• Maisie has enjoyed her walks to school this week.  She found her first conker (not yet ready though) and spotted two squirrels.  We often see Sam and Sophie on our walks too.  The trees are slowing turning into the beautiful shades of Autumn.

The photos can be viewed by clicking on the view gallery link. 

Crescent School

DT club has been making picture frames and learning how to use our junior hack saws and hammers. They are very keen and willing to learn new skills and looking forward to next week's club already.

Today, Forest School club stayed indoors. We used natural materials such as pine cones and wool and recycled plastic bags to make our own bubble bees!

For a two or three week period this year we will be focusing on one of the sayings in the School Promise. We will talk about this in assembly and in form period. It would be great if you could discuss this with your children at home and support the messages we are emphasising in school.

This week we feature Good Learners:

‘We work hard and try our best'

Search engines such as Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo are incredibly useful and necessary tools in navigating the 2 billion odd websites out there to find the information you need.  However, using them doesn’t come without its own dangers.

The main issue with these is the ever-changing nature of the World Wide Web, and although they all have ‘Safe Search’ features, they are never quite 100% full proof. This is particularly the case with google image search; as it is essentially just showing a preview of a site rather than opening it, the occasional inappropriate or offensive image can sneak through. Image searching can also present a problem with other such images that although aren’t deemed particularly offensive, can still be upsetting.

An example of this is searching for something like ‘Momo’, an internet hoax from a few years ago. Although the pictures brought up don’t fit into specifically into any category for being inappropriate (and thus avoid all web blockers and safe-search protocols), they can still be frightening and upsetting for children to view. Please take a look at the attached guide, which outlines a few of the risks, suggests a few helpful tips for staying safe and most importantly advises on the best way to keep an eye on exactly what your children may have been searching.

As always, if you have any questions or would like any help with this, please just ask.

Thursday 1 - Saturday 31 October 2020

Hopefully you are underway with your Active October challenges but if not please don't worry here are the details again. We are going to challenge everyone in the Crescent family to get active this October. Each child will be able to set their own challenge according to their age, ability and time available e.g. I’m going to walk 5000 steps every day in October, or I'm going to cycle/scoot/walk around Draycote, and gain sponsorship from friends and family for this.

The money raised will then go towards:

• The school charity for this term, which is the Hope 4 Project, a homeless charity in Rugby. They are planning to use this money on a project in their building likely to be updating the heating system.

• Equipment for the Crescent school classes e.g. games, stationery and items chosen by the children to be used in privilege time.

We would love to see pictures of the children working on and completing their challenges so please send in your pictures and we can put these into the courier. 

Click here to download the sponsorship form.

We have also produced a video for all the children at school that was shown in assembly this morning. Thank you to everyone who sent in videos and to Mr Adkins for pulling this together for us. 

Click here to watch the video

Tuesday 6 October 2020 at 8.00pm

We will be holding our second AGM next Tuesday. If anyone would like to attend that currently isn't a member of the FoC please send an email to chair@friendsofcrescent.co.uk and I will send you all the access details.

I hope everyone finds this useful as we continue to formalise our committee. 

Friday 9 October 2020 at 7.45pm

Our usual parents quiz will become virtual for this year. Ms Forth will be running a quiz on Kahoot (I'm sure many of you used this in lockdown) so you’ll need to download the app but it’s a faster finger type quiz.

We will be asking for a £5 donation per team which will get you the Quiz code and allow you to join. There will be prizes for the top winning teams.

If you would like to take part please liaise with your Year Group representative who will collate together your details. 

Friday 13 November 2020 at 6.00pm

We will be looking to hold virtual bingo for all pupils. Further details on this will be sent out in the next couple of weeks.

Please join us at our AGM next week, Tuesday 6 October 2020 at 8.00pm.  

We have a number of events in the pipeline so please look out for these over the coming weeks.

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 click on the link below to view next week's lunch menu: 

Lunch Menu Week Commencing 5 October 2020 

Crescent School Office

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 to the front door at any time from 7.45am - 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.

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.

Many thanks

Please find below term dates for 2020/21:

Please see below for useful school contact information:

Please find below the term dates for 2021-22:

Michaelmas Term
Term starts Monday 6 September 2021
Half Term Saturday 16 October to Sunday 31 October 2021
Term ends Tuesday 14 December 2021

The School Shop will not open to parents at the end of the school day for the time being. If you need to contact the School shop please email in the first instance to uniform@princethorpe.co.uk.

When ordered items are ready for collection, they will be sent to Crescent School.

Eddie Tolcher
Foundation Bursar

Cyber-crime – please be extra vigilant

Parents are asked to be vigilant when reading emails relating to the payment of school fees and any other items to the Foundation.

We continue to receive reports regarding spam emails.  The latest scam offers a large discount on fees for the coming academic year if paid immediately.

This is probably trying to take advantage of the fact that some independent schools have offered discounts for this term and that parents may therefore be more open to such a suggestion. You can always protect yourselves by only making payments to us in line with our normal, published methods.

As advised, there has been no change to the bank details of either Princethorpe College, Crackley Hall or Crescent and there is no intention to make any changes in the foreseeable future. Any electronic notification that appears to be from any of the Foundation schools changing these details may be fraudulent.  Our bank details are available on the Parent Bills, the Online Payment Portal and in the Information Booklet for each school, and only those details should be used.

Please do not hesitate to contact me or my colleagues in the Bursary if you are have any doubts about the correct details or indeed if anything appears suspicious. 

Eddie Tolcher
Foundation Bursar

The Foundation has the following vacancies:

• Princethorpe College - Cover Supervisor
• Crescent School - After School Manager 

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.

In line with other local schools and Warwickshire County Council’s message below, please wear face coverings on school grounds (if you are able) when dropping off and collecting children. 

Please remember there is plenty of space around school to socially distance.

Many thanks for you for your co-operation.

Public Health England have produced a letter for schools to distribute to parents which explains when a person requires a coronavirus test and what the symptoms of coronavirus are. They have asked us to share and circulate this letter amongst parents at the school.

The intention of the letter is to help prevent children being taken out of school unnecessarily and answer some of the questions parents may have around testing.

You can view the letter here.

Children or adults with symptoms must not enter school. Parents must check for symptoms each day before bringing their child into school.

The main symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19) are:

• a high temperature – please, if you have not already done so, source a thermometer to check temperatures at home
• a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or three or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
• a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you've noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal

Any children or adult who develops symptoms will need to leave the building as soon as possible and be tested for Covid-19.

Details on testing can be obtained at www gov uk/get-coronavirus-test or call the Test and Trace Helpdesk on 119.

Hand held thermometers will be used to check the temperature of any individual feeling unwell. Children who develop symptoms during the school day will be taken to the Meeting Room and their parents called to come and collect the child, as well as any siblings of the child.

Other members of the household should self-isolate for 14 days from when the symptomatic person first had symptoms, or until a negative test result is returned.

In the event of a positive test result the full protocols of test and trace will be followed www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-test-and-trace-how-it-works#

Children returning from restricted areas outside UK must self-isolate as advised by the government guidance before returning to school.

Do not wait, if you have symptoms, get a test as soon as possible.  You need to get the test done in the first five days of having symptoms. Anyone with symptoms can be tested. 

For more information on testing please follow the link below, tests can also be booked by calling 119.  www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/testing-and-tracing/get-a-test-to-check-if-you-have-coronavirus/

If you or any member of your household is contacted by NHS Test and Trace and advised to self-isolate it is vital that you do so.  If any pupil has been advised to self-isolate or is off school due to illness, please inform the school via the attendance line in the usual way and arrangements can be made for work to be sent home.

If you have recently returned from another country please follow the rules for re-entering the UK and self-isolate if you have been advised to do so. For information see www.gov.uk/uk-border-control.