The Courier

Dear Parents

It is pleasing to report that during the week we have seen a steady but significant reduction in the number of COVID cases in school. By my calculations, we will be down to low single figures by the beginning of next week, although I hope I am not tempting fate by saying this and a raft of new cases will emerge over the weekend. If numbers do reduce as hoped, we can then look at reviewing our control measures accordingly.

One thing we have missed in recent weeks are whole school assemblies in person. It is so uplifting to get all of the children together and sing and celebrate achievements and consider important pastoral messages. Let us all hope that these can begin again very soon.

In fact, next week we are looking forward to our growth mindset focus workshops and assemblies as part of the national Children’s Mental Health Week. We have lots of activities planned around this theme, culminating on Friday with a carousel of activities around seven themes related to growth mindset. We are fortunate to have contributions from two parents who work professionally in this field will work with the children during the week. Many thanks indeed to Mrs Gill and Mrs Mercer for your expert input.

The greatest single superpower that everyone possesses is their own brain and how they choose to use it. This in essence is the message of the week that we hope will inspire the children. Once we believe as an individual that we can achieve great things, then it becomes possible. This is based not on wishful thinking but sound scientific principles. We don’t want a child to feel limited by a sense of inadequacy or not having the intellectual power to achieve what they want.

Of course, it is much easier to say than to do and achieving a positive mindset isn't something you can do overnight. However, as with so much of education, this is about planting a seed for children and giving them a starting point on a journey. There is more information regarding our mindset week elsewhere in today's newsletter and I hope this provides the background information that you need and you feel you can support this at home with your children.

We finished this week with our learning mentor meetings and I know that the message that all the staff will be giving to the children is that everything is possible as soon as you believe it. Don’t say ‘I can’t’ but only ‘I can’t yet’.

In the meantime, I hope you are able to enjoy a well-deserved rest this weekend and can spend some quality time with your children.

Best wishes

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

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

Weekly Calendar - 7 February 2022

Please note the folliwng clubs are not running next week:

• Tuesday - Netball and Rugby Club for Y5 and Y6
• Thursday - Senior Drama Club

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.

MySchoolPortal

Crescent School

There has been a sigficant increase in the number of children attending afterschool this term and in order to ensure we have the correct ratios please can you book your child in advance via My School Portal.  Instructions can be found here.

Please ensure that if you wish your child to have tea they are booked in before 9.30am as any bookings after this time cannot guarantee a tea will be provided.

Afterschool runs from 3.45pm to 5.45pm, with tea served around 5.00pm.  A late charge may be applied if your child is not collected by 5.45pm.

Thank you for your help with this.

Crescent School

Chloe in Year 6 entertained us this morning in assembly with her brilliant piece on the trombone.  She is taking part this weekend in a competition over in Loughborough and we all wish her the very best of Crescent luck.

Princethorpe College Headmaster, Ed Hester, is to take on a new dedicated role as Head of the Princethorpe Foundation. Mr Hester has been Headmaster at the College since 2009, with the dual role of Senior Foundation Head.

This forward-thinking decision by the governing body comes after a review of the overall management and leadership of the Foundation, which comprises senior school, Princethorpe College, prep schools, Crackley Hall and Crescent School and Little Crackers Nursery.

Separating the two roles will mean that Mr Hester will move away from the day-to-day running of the senior school and be able to dedicate more time to the strategic direction of the Foundation as a whole. He will work in partnership with the Board of Trustees, the Senior Management Teams and staff across all the Foundation schools to develop an ambitious vision and strategy for the next exciting stage in the Foundation’s evolution.

Comments, Liz Griffin, Chair of Trustees, “The Foundation has evolved significantly over the last ten years. As a result of mergers and the popularity of our schools we have grown from 800 pupils to over 1,400 today and we have over 250 members of staff, what’s more our schools are operating in a complex and ever-changing political, legal and economic climate. We are ambitious for the Foundation and the creation of this new dedicated role will ensure that we continue to develop and flourish.

She continues, “Ed, with his proven leadership and strategic skills, is uniquely placed to fulfil this role. He has done an outstanding job as Headmaster of Princethorpe College, and I am delighted he is taking on the new role. We understand how important it will be to find the right person to take over from him as Head of Princethorpe College and the recruitment process is already underway, with a view to having his successor in post within the next twelve months. Of course, Ed will continue to have a very keen interest in life at Princethorpe and be on hand to ensure a smooth transition and successful handover to the new Head, who will be supported by Princethorpe’s excellent Senior Leadership Team.”

Consultants, RSAcademics, are assisting the Foundation with the search for and appointment of the new Head of Princethorpe College.

After half-term there will be opportunity for parents of all year groups except Year 5 to meet with form teachers and specialist teachers. You will be able to have a 10 minute consultation with the form teacher and a 5 minute consultation with all specialists that you would like to chat to.

We are intending these to be face to face, but we will be risk assessing the situation at the time; if we feel the risk is too great then we will revert to online consultations as before.

Have you ever written a song? Would you like to? 

Here is a competition for anyone aged over 8 to write a song and submit it to 'The Song Academy'. There are plenty of hints and tips on their website to help you get started.

It’s a golden opportunity for pupils who are already writing songs to get their songs heard and connect with other talented young songwriters. Plus it’s a perfect opportunity for budding writers and musicians who’ve never written a song before to get creative and write their first song! Collaborations between pupils are welcome, as well as solo entries.

Many previous entrants have said that being part of the inspiring Young Songwriter community has made a big difference to their confidence, self-belief and motivation to achieve their full potential.

With judges including Tom Odell, Miranda Cooper, Plested, Calum Scott and Tom Grennan plus fantastic prizes, including a recording studio session and Yamaha equipment worth £1,000, this year is set to be bigger than ever!

Do let me know if you enter.

The television production company Love Productions, who make programmes such as The Great British Bake Off, The Great British Sewing Bee and The Great Pottery Throw Down have recently announced that applications for the 8th series of Junior Bake Off are now open!  This is a Channel 4 programme that celebrates the culinary talent and ambition of the younger generation in Britain.

They are looking for talented young bakers between 9 -12 years old.  Filming would take place from July 2022, but applications close on Sunday 13 March 2022.

If there are any budding young bakers in school that would like to apply then please visit the application website www.applyforjuniorbakeoff.co.uk.

Do let us know if you decide to take part.

Crescent School

Thursday 10 and Thursday 17 February 2022

LAMDA exams will be held on the above dates for those children who have been registered.  

The timetable has been circulated to parents this week.

Friday 11 February 2022

We are holding an off-timetabled day to focus on our whole school target of exploring and developing a Growth Mindset, next Friday 11 February, in both children and staff. Every child will participate in a carousel of activities that will challenge their thought process and their participation.

Alongside the activities we are lucky enough to have some professional life coaches and teamwork experts visiting who will deliver some dynamic and thought provoking workshops.

We can’t wait to share with you the creativity that the children will develop throughout the day and news of how they overcome the things which might challenge them. 

Monday 14 February 2022

As part of our studies on World War II, Year 3 and Year 4 will be taking part in a morning of activities linked to this on Monday 14 February.

To help get into the spirit of the day, we would like the children to come to school dressed as evacuees for the day. 

Friday 18 February 2022

We will be holding a non-uniform day on Friday 18 February with all proceeds going to this term's chosen charity, Bwengu Projects. 

Please send a £1 donation with your child to be given to their form teacher.

Thank you.

Mrs Monteith and Mrs Stapleton
Class 3Y and 4M Form Teachers

Wednesday 2 March 4.00pm - 6.30pm and Thursday 3 March 6.00pm - 8.00pm

We all value the importance of these meetings to share and discuss your child's academic progress.  

The booking system is now live to book your Year 6 Parent Consultation Evening appointments. All details can be found in the email circulated this week.

Appointments with myself are for 10 minutes and 5 minutes with specialist teachers. It is important to keep to the appointment time to ensure the smooth running of the evenings. If a further meeting is required, this can be arranged with the teacher involved. 

We look forward to meeting with you.

Congratulations to the following Accelerated Reader achievements this week:

• 500k Words goes to Matthew 
• Millionaire goes to Harry 
• Double Millionaire goes to Poppy 

This week's Accelerated Reader Superstars are:

Top Quizzers are:

• 3Y  Sophia
• 4M  Alex G
• 5F   Lara
• 6W  Dorrit

Word Wizards are:

• 3Y  Lewis
• 4M Edward F
• 5F  Charlie
• 6W Sachin

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

• Emily
• Felicity
• Feranmi
• Iris
• Kian
• Lara
• Taras 
• Thomas

Well done to you all.

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:

• Sam O 4M over 24%
• Harry 5F over 48% and 72%
• Mya 5F over 24%, 48% and 72%
• Sachin 6W over 48% and 72%

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

• 1st place - Class 4M with 6,047points
• 2nd place - Class 5F with 5,535 points
• 3rd place - Class 3Y with  3,585 points

Most valuable players in the whole competition:

• 1st Albert 4M
• 2nd Bryson 5F
• 3rd Harry 5F

Last week most improved speedsters are:

• 3Y - Aryaan - Wannabe!
• 3Y - Barnaby- Gigger!
• 3Y - Sophia - Unsigned Act!
• 3Y - Lewis - Headliner!
• 3Y - Roisin - Wannabe!
• 3Y - Maya - Support Act!
• 3Y - Henry - Gigger!
• 3Y - Edward W - Wannabe!
• 5F - Mya - Headliner!
• 6W - Rory - Unsigned Act!

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

Stay Calm and Rock On!!

Next week we will be supporting and engaging with this important week as we look at promoting positive mental health in us all. 

Alongside our growth mindset assemblies, workshops, and activities to build resilience in the challenges we face, we will be linking in with a virtual assembly from the charity Place2be.

Their theme this year is 'Growing Together' which will be encouraging children (and adults) to consider how they have grown, and how they can help each others to grow.   

Thank you for those of you who sent in photos from the Big Garden Birdwatch at the weekend.  Please do look through the photos in the gallery.

On Wednesday evening the Ornithology Club crunched all the data from the school birdwatching activities and the results in the photos. The most recorded birds were magpies (76), followed by blackbirds (63) and then pigeons (61).

Our current English topic is Persuasive Writing, and 4M have been researching three important questions: Why are rainforests important? Why are they being destroyed? What can we do to save them? We have read some thought-provoking books to help us understand these issues, and the children have created some eye-catching and informative posters. A selection of the posters is here, and they have made a wonderful display. Well done, 4M!

We are learning about different saints in RE and last week we discovered Saint Macarius of Alexandria who is the patron Saint of Sweets and Cooks. After reading his story of how he sold his bakery business before becoming a monk, we ate prayer cookies!

Each bit of the cookie represented a short prayer about what we were thankful for, something we wanted to say sorry for and another to ask God for.

A simple but effective way of planning our prayers.

Class 6W became commentators this week. They have been revising the function of adverbs, then using them to commentate on a Quidditch match.  After this, they analysed their writing, sorting the adverbs they had used into the three categories of how, when and where, evaluating whether they had a good range and if they should add some more.

We had a very busy and successful forest school again this week with lots of imagination flowing. There were some willow wisps available for the children to craft with. Some of them made fabulous willow crowns and a few attempted to make willow wands. One of the children thought they had found a badger sett so the whole class ran to look. We have been learning about badgers in the classroom so it was lovely to see the connections with learning and the natural world.

The dinosaur dig site was in operation again this week and they found a broken pipe and ‘the knee of a thesaurus’. What cracking finds! Some of the children decided that they needed a tent over the dig site to protect it from the elements, so they worked together as a small team to build one with great success.

We have also got a bit braver this week and some children were holding a large worm, without any gloves on. They were extra careful with the worm and put him back near his home when they were done.

‘Blueberry trees’ were planted in the area by a child. She was looking after the environment and trying to feed future birds and insects. We also had witches and wizards around the site, using the wands to put spells on to their friends. At the end of the session, one of the children found ‘stick man’ and he joined us all for reflection time. We are all looking forward to next week.

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'

You may have read in the news recently about a number of E-Safety concerns surrounding the popular app TikTok. If you are unfamiliar with it, it is a video sharing and lip syncing program that allows its users to create short videos, usually dance or music orientated and post these online.

The app has become incredibly popular since the start of lockdown and can be a nice, creative way for children to express themselves. It does however come with a number of potentially very serious and damaging pitfalls in terms of E-Safety, most notably in terms of age-inappropriate content, inappropriate lyrics, trolling, its use by online predators and its addictive nature.

If you are thinking of allowing your child to have a Tiktok account, or if they are already using it, please read through the attached E-Safety guide. If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

It was a beautiful sunny day in Cheltenham for the U11s ISA Netball Tournament with 16 schools from across the Midlands in attendance. Crescent’s first match was against our Foundation sister school Crackley Hall, we made a good start with solid movement on court and strong passing, unfortunately against a strong and tall team we were unable to score. 

Our second match was against tournament organisers, Malvern St James who were a well rehearsed team. After a slow start in the first half of the game Crescent switched on making some fantastic linked passes to pull the game back to a 5-3 loss.

Next up were Birchfield School.  We started with great determination and more fight, moving on to the ball quicker and creating more space.  Fantastic team work saw our first win of the tournament with 1-0 win.

We then took on Bedstone College, who were the only school to have boys in the team. The boys changed the dynamics of the game so it was very pacey with longer passes. The Crescent girls quickly adapted their tactics to block the long over head passes and came away with a 2-1 win.

Our penultimate match was against Kingsley School.  We started positively and determined but unfortunately a couple of injuries in the first half affected our flow of play and Kingsley passed and moved the ball well, finishing the game with a 2-0 defeat.

Our final match of the day was against The Priory, who had some extremely tall players, Crescent did not let that deter them and adapted their play to make sure they went with short sharp passes showing great agility.  Final score 2-1 Crescent.

We finished in 3rd place within our pool just missing out on a semi final place. 

A great day of netball with lots of fantastic play and development throughout the day, and we are excited for the rest of the season. The girls were a pleasure to be with showing great sporting values and representing Crescent superbly, thank you Evie, Eva, Katherine, Sophie, Chloe and Rosina.

Mrs McCollin and Mrs Calder

On Wednesday 2 February, 19 of our fantastic runners took part in the Midlands ISA Cross Country Championship event at Bedstone College. All of our pupils represented the school superbly, both on the course and off it, cheering and supporting the rest of the team throughout, as well as giving their all on a very tricky, hilly and uneven track.

All of our athletes raced an intelligent race, showing grit and determination right the way to the finish line.

In a packed field with well over 80 runners in each race, some notable results were Kai finishing 32nd in his race, Katherine 25th, Roisin B 18th, Evie 14th and Sam an incredible 8th place, giving him a spot in the Nationals!

Also special mentions have to go our three Year 3 competitors, racing almost entirely against older children and coming out with superb finishes, Roisin C in 26th, Sophie in 30th and Alex B in 32nd.

Well done to the whole team!

Due to the current Covid situation in school the FoC discos have been postponed.  We will rearrange in due course.

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

Please click below to view the lunch menu: 

Lunch Menu - 7 February 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:

• Head - Princethorpe College
• Finance Assistant - Princethorpe College
• Gardener\Groundsman 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

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 in 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.  

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.