The Courier

Dear Parents

I hope this edition of the Courier finds you well and having enjoyed a fruitful week at work and at home.

For the first time during the pandemic, we have had a number of cases in school resulting in absences, both for staff and children. This has been a challenge, but we continue to meet it as best we can with the resources that we have. The children have remained upbeat during the week and the staff have been similarly positive and flexible in their response. We will continue to monitor the situation and make adjustments and adaptations proportional to the changing picture. Anyone who is suffering or feeling unwell, has the sympathy and best wishes of everybody here and I hope that we will all be back together with a full complement of staff and children in the very near future.

As I write this in my office in the early evening it is rather nice to see that full darkness is yet to descend and the days are clearly lengthening. One good way to think about this is that although it is still most certainly winter, it is in fact 31 days since the shortest day on December 20th. That in fact means that there are in total 62 days in the year that are shorter than today. It also follows that there are 303 days which are longer and, not only that, they are the next 303 days that will occur. Does that make things seem better? It always seems very exciting to me, particularly as we start to see those very early signs of spring around and about.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Best wishes

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

Below is the link for next week's school calendar.    Please note:

• Choir is cancelled this week in line with email sent on Thursday 20 January 2022
• As the evenings are lighter all outdoor clubs for Years 3-6 will return to the dismissal time of 4.45pm. Do check the calendar and SOCS for any updates.
• Open Corridors will be a virtual open corridors and a link will be sent on Friday 28 January 2022

Weekly Calendar - 24 January 2022

MySchoolPortal

Crescent School

We received an email from Rugby Food Bank today thanking the school for the donations organised by Mrs Hosegood before Christmas:

We are very grateful for this generous collection of donations. The total weight of the collection was 55kg of food.

Many thanks and blessings

The lovely Mrs Symons celebrated a very special '0' birthday today (Friday) party hats were worn, cakes were eaten and a lovely boquet of flowers was given from all at Crescent School!

Happy Birthday Mrs Symons!

Crescent School

The children from Years 1 to 6 will be participating, in their normal lessons, in the Big Garden Bird Watch towards the end of January. The RSPB organises this annual event, and over one million people took part in 2021. The new Ornithology club members are getting prepared by making bird feeders and bird spotter sheets. 

Why not put the date in your diary as an event to do as a family as well? Shockingly, 38 million birds have been lost from the UK skies over the past 50 years.

The RSPB needs lots of help to record the different species and numbers of common UK birds spotted over the weekend - 28 to 30 January 2022. They simply ask you to spend one hour in your garden, on your balcony or in the park to observe and record the birds that land during that time. You register and then enter your results online (see link below). Why not be one in a million for 2022!

Big Garden Bird Watch

If you have any links with a regional or local ornithology club please do get in contact as we would be delighted to access different resources.  

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

Buying additional books for your children will undoubtedly give them more opportunity to read and the commission does make a difference to the books that we have for all children in school.

Please place your order online by 27 January 2022 and they can be delivered free to school.

Mrs Webb
Assistant Head

Friday 28 January 2021 - 3.45pm to 4.15pm

We have made the hard decision to cancel Open Corridors next week, we have a few Covid cases in school and want to keep everyone safe.

However, there will be a chance to see your child's work, as photos are going to be taken of the boards and then a short film created and uploaded to Vimeo for you to access next week.

Thank you for your understanding.

Congratulations this week to Tegan in Class 5F and Aria in Class 2W, who both become JdV students in English.

Special congratulations to Aryan in Class 6W, who becomes a JdV student in both English and Mathematics this week.

Well done to you all on your amazing hard work.

Mrs Symons
Junior da Vinci Lead

Congratulations to the following Accelerated Reader achievements this week:

Millionaire: 

• Hattie

500,000 Words:

• Leela

Well done both.

This week's Accelerated Reader Superstars are:

Top Quizzers are:

• 3Y   Roisin and Max 
• 4M  Edward G-H
• 5F   Tegan
• 6W  Aryan

Word Wizards are:

• 3Y  Maya
• 4M Grace
• 5F  Bryson
• 6W Katherine

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

• Flora
• Juliette
• Keevie
• Kiran
• Locan
• Lucas
• Marcie
• Tomisin

Well done to you all.

The program creates a bespoke training course for each user, levels have been changed to percentages. Landmarks are 24% (was L100), 48% (was L200), 72% (was L300) and complete 100% (was L420)

Pupils who have reached landmark % on automatic training mode in the Garage and Gigs and therefore are awarded JDVs for Maths Practice:

• Zac 3Y over 24%
• Lewis 3Y over 72%
• Zahra 5F over 72%
• Abigail 6W over 24%

Results for last week's class battle - well done 4M:

• 1st place - Class 4M with 15,003 points
• 2nd place - Class 6W with 4,149 points
• 3rd place - Class 2W with  3,665 points

Most valuable players in the whole competition:

• 1st Shiv 4M
• 2nd Alex T 4M
• 3rd Sam B 4M

Last week most improved speedsters are:

• 3Y Akaal - Wannabe!
• 4M James - Rock Legend
• 5F Mya - Support Act
• 5F Ellie - Breakthrough Artist
• 5F Grace M - Garage Rocker
• 6W Katherine - Rock Legend
• 6W Charlotte - Headliner

Please note only the children should play on their account or it influences the level appropriate to them.

Stay Calm and Rock On!!

This week's Good Citizens Playground Conduct certificates have been awarded to Marcie and Zac.

Well done!

Lunchtime Supervisors

Our whole school assembly on Tuesday of this week reflected on the life and peaceful black rights work of Martin Luther King.  Our children are always shocked and bemused by historical and current inequality and are daily encouraged to value and respect diversity.

Toni in Year 3 was moved to research more information and explore her feelings around this over the next few days and has shared a quote upon which we can all reflect:

"Just remember that the future's forever if we stick together and do what we can today.  If we can do something it is better than nothing, a little can change the world"

Reception enjoyed an amazing, interactive, arctic adventure on Friday 21 January, exploring the polar regions, with a little help from the Freshwater Theatre Company. 

The class has been studying the topic ‘Hot and Cold’ working with the text Lost And Found and learning about the polar regions. Workshop facilitator, Debra Meftah, used drama, role play and storytelling to help bring their polar ‘world around them’ studies to life.

The children took a memorable and engaging trip to the Arctic and Antarctic and back, meeting penguins, seals and polar bears along the way. They collected story clues and, with the help of Big Bird, created a delightful polar story together at the end.

Reception teachers, Mrs Emery and Mrs Pullen, said, “The children were captivated, they clearly all enjoyed the session, and it was great reinforcement for their learning in class. They enjoyed the hunt for the story clues and creating their own story. It was an excellent and engaging session.”

Well done to Reception, you were all amazing arctic explorers!

This week Class 1LS have been finding out more about nocturnal animals. Everyone chose their favourite and used an iPad to find out interesting facts about them. They wrote them down in a spider diagram and used the facts to write about our animals. It was a great information gathering exercise with the added benefit of developing note writing skills as well.

Continuing our learning about nocturnal animals, we have been developing our question writing skills and finding out some amazing and fascinating facts about bats!  From finding out why they hang upside down, to what they eat and drink, Class 1SS have certainly enjoyed learning about these creatures - we even have a colony of bats hanging around in our classroom!

In Maths 3Y have been having fun comparing and ordering three digit numbers. 

Year 6 enjoyed a trip out in the sunshine on Monday afternoon to St Mark’s Church in Bilton. The children are studying the Victorians in History, exploring what life was like locally in Victorian times.

They discovered that there was much to be learnt from the gravestones in the churchyard as they gathered information in their survey. They tallied up the names, ages and dates of death, and tried to work out some of the stories behind the timelines. Interesting observations were made about the size of families, the common surnames, the young age of deaths and the number of children who died.

The churchyard was an oasis of calm, full of wildlife, on a cold winter’s afternoon and the children behaved beautifully. They will now review all the data they collected back in the classroom.

It is great to see the children embracing all that is on offer in our co-curricular programme here at Crescent School. We have plenty going on, at lunchtime and before and after school. The clubs and activities are supported by staff and by external providers and we work hard to offer a spread of opportunity.

Earlier in the week Years 3-6 had Choir and were busy rehearsing hard under the expert leadership of Director of Music, Julie Barnes, seated in bubbles to minimise risk. Then there was Yoga for the Pre-Prep children with Natalie from Kidz Love Yoga. We sneaked in to both activities to take a few photos of all the fun.

For a two or three week period this year we will be focusing on one of the sayings in the new 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’s promise is in the category of Good Friends.

'We are  gentle and caring'

The mobile gaming market has been dominated for some time now by so called ‘free-to-play’ games, ones that have no initial cost to download, but often come with a lot of additional ‘optional’ purchases. These can often be incredibly frustrating for children, getting to love a game, only to come up against a seemingly impossible barrier that can only be overcome with spending real money on power-ups etc. Although they do still offer a lot of entertainment value, some do require close monitoring.

For a while now the most popular has been the phenomenon that is Fortnite, with Chapter 3 of the game dropping back in December. The game itself does come with an advisory 12+ age limit primarily due to the violent, albeit very cartoony, nature of it, but remains extremely popular amongst primary age children.

If you do choose to allow your child to play Fortnite, there are a few important things to consider, primarily the in-app purchases, violent nature and ability to chat with other users.

Please take a look at the attached guide, with lots of useful advice to make it as safe and fun an experience as possible and if you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Friday 11 February 2022 

£5 per child to include a drink

Pre-prep at 3.30pm to 4.15pm. Reception children will require an adult for the duration of the event.  

Upper School at 4.30pm to 5.15pm - If you wish your child in upper school to go to after-school prior to the disco, they will need to be signed in. There may be a numbers cap. 

These children will be taken into after school from 3.45 to 4.30pm. Children who leave school at 3.45pm and wish to attend at 4.30pm should do so via the main school reception door.

All pupils will be dismissed via the side door, opposite to the school field. 

No phones can be used in the presence of children for the safety of all involved and attending parents will have to use the office toilet with their child.

Please pay by Bank transfer to Friends of Crescent

Acc: 01174774  Sort: 30-97-17  Surname name & Disco as reference 

Cash will be acceptable on the day, in a sealed envelope with the child’s name and class written on it please. Please place in the green FoC postbox just inside the side entrance. 

Please note, this event is subject to cancellation at short notice, this event will be constantly risk assessed in light of Covid Cases in the school at the time.

Below are the details of the FoC Year Group Representatives and group links. 

Please click below to view the lunch menu: 

Lunch Menu - 24 January 2022

Olive Catering Services Limited

Please see below for useful school contact information:

Please find below term dates for 2021/22 and 2022/23:

The following items are stocked in the School Office and can be added to your account:

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

Please do contact admin@crescentschool.co.uk in if you need any of the above items.

Crescent School Office

The Foundation has the following vacancies:

• Gardener/Groundsman - 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.

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. You can protect yourselves by only making payments to us in line with our normal, published methods. Any email offering a large discount on fees for the coming academic year if paid immediately is fraudulent.

There has been no change to the bank details of 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

I hope the table below will help to clarify for parents expectations for children’s work if they need to self-isolate due to a positive COVID test or due to having COVID symptoms.

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 winter. For that reason, we would encourage all children to have additional layers available in school. 

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