The Courier

As we come to the end of the Advent term, I write to wish you all well for the Christmas period.

Looking forward to the New Year, we will be publishing two key documents in January:

1. Princethorpe Foundation Strategic Plan – this aims to give you a “behind the scenes” look at the more business-related aspects of the Foundation which support the education of all our pupils.
   
   
2. Princethorpe Foundation Sustainability Plan – which will highlight where we are with our work on sustainability and reducing our carbon footprint and our future aspirations and targets.

I hope that both plans will be of interest and I will be seeking feedback. One section of the sustainability plan looks at our transport to/from our schools and the associated carbon footprint. We have undertaken a huge amount of work on this, much of which was based on surveys which many of you completed – thank you!

I recently shared some of the results of these transport surveys with pupils so I would like to share these with you here.

In all, we had 651 responses from pupils, parents and staff. This gave us a massive amount of data regards:

• General habits of our community when travelling to/from our schools;
• Distances of car and bus journeys to/from school;
• Types of cars used to drive to/from school.

By processing all this information we have been able to calculate a good estimate of the overall carbon footprint due to travel to/from school in 2023 which was 885 tonnes of CO₂.

This equates to 0.65 tonnes CO₂ per pupil over the course of the year.

Our aim will be to reduce our global carbon footprint in a variety of ways over the year/s ahead and there are a few observations from the travel survey:

• At Princethorpe College, around 60% of pupils are regular bus users.
• The total carbon footprint of the regular bus users is roughly 30 tonnes of CO₂ per year less than regular car users.
• A 10% swing from cars users to buses would reduce the carbon footprint by roughly 75 tonnes of CO₂ per year.
• Lift-sharing can have a big effect in reducing the overall carbon footprint.
• There has been a move away from diesel (35%) and petrol engines (36%) towards electric and hybrid cars (29%).

Clearly getting our baseline data is only a first step and we will be saying more about our plans next term, but I hope this is of interest to us all.

Finally, I wish all families a peaceful Christmas and ask that you keep in your thoughts and prayers all members of our community, and communities across the world, who have very difficult circumstances to cope with as we enter the festive period.

Ed Hester
Foundation Principal

Dear Parents and Friends of the School

With the end of term now upon us, I would like to share with you every best wish from us all here at Crescent for a happy and peaceful Christmas and New Year. 
 
Christmas celebrations were brought to a fitting finale this week with a combination of our festive assembly and parties in the classroom. We have also recognised the many achievements of the children over the term, with the reports that have been sent home to you earlier in the week, as well as in the Celebration Assembly on Tuesday. 
 
I have a mountain hiking trip planned for the next two days with my son James, as we are heading off to Snowdonia, or Eyri to give its Welsh name. There’s some interesting weather in store for us by the looks of it, so I might need to keep a firm grip on my hat. 

Whatever you and your family have planned over the holiday, I hope it goes smoothly and I look forward to seeing you and the children all back safe and sound in school on Monday, 8 January 2024. 
 
Have a great Christmas everyone, and Happy New Year 

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

Congratulations and a massive 'Thank You' to those children who have written amazing Book Reviews for our Accelerated Reader display. They chose to do this completely independently and deserve lots of credit for helping others choose a book to read.

Should your child wish to contribute to this (hopefully) growing trend I thought I would send out a few key features that should be included in a helpful book review:

• The main purpose of a book review is to help other readers decide if they should read the book themselves
• It needs to include the Book Title and Author's name
• Please present all the main ideas in the book - trying to include a brief summary of the book/story, an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the book, what you liked and what you didn't and why
• You might also want to rate the book, using stars or marks out of 10
• Who would you recommend the book to? Who do you think it would be suitable for? Boys, girls, anyone, everyone?? What age? 

I hope this helps, happy reading and I look forward to seeing your recommendations soon!

Please can you have a look around home over Christmas for any library/school books that you may have and then return them on Monday 8 January. Please check under beds, on bookcases and in bags as it does make a big difference to our school stocks.

It is a nice idea to use your local book shops and your library if you want a good choice of books to enjoy together over the holidays.

Thank you.

MySchoolPortal

Crescent School

Please find below a link to view next term’s Crescent School calendar. We hope that you will find it a useful aide memoir when planning school events and activities into your busy schedules. There are plenty of lovely highlights to look forward to, including lots of fixtures, the Foundation orchestral performance, Spring Concert and LAMDA Showcase, to name but a few.

Where possible, we will try to avoid making alterations or additions to this published calendar but if we do find this is necessary due to unavoidable changes to arrangements, you will be informed of these by electronic communication or in the weekly Courier. 

You can also keep track of everything going on via My School Portal and the school website www.crescentschool.co.uk, where you can also add events and reminders to your own electronic calendars by clicking on the relevant links.

Crescent School Lent Term Calendar 24 

This year we marked the 75th anniversary of the school’s inception back in the post war world of 1948. We celebrated in different ways over the year, with the highlight being the School Fayre last summer and the open day for Old Crescentians.

As part of these celebrations, I am delighted to announce the publication of a much-updated version of the school history, which we have sent home with your children. This very handy booklet was invaluable to me when I first started here in 2017. It helped me get a taste of the school’s unique ethos and culture, which are at the heart of every great school. However, the last edition marked our 60th anniversary back in 2008, so an update this year was most welcome.

This new version builds on that first edition. Credit and thanks are given to the previous author, Maria Page and her contributors, and to former Headmaster, Huw Marshall and the Foundation Archive and Marketing Team for their assistance with the additional two chapters and sourcing of photographic material. Through words and fascinating archive pictures the booklet tracks the school’s rich history from its founding by first Headteacher, Eve Mortimer and the early days on Horton Crescent, through to its move to Bawnmore Road, the merger with the Princethorpe Foundation and brings the story up to the present day.

It rightly celebrates all that is good about Crescent School, including our heritage of achievement in sport, music, the performing arts and of course academic results and pastoral care. It also recognises former and longstanding staff who have played an important part in the school’s success.

We hope you enjoy reading the booklet and finding out more about our school's fascinating history.

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

Monday 15 January 2024 - 4.00pm to 5.00pm

I am delighted to invite you to the LAMDA showcase on Monday 15 January from 4.00pm to 5.00pm.  Children will be performing their pieces of prose and poetry they have been working on in lessons.

Tickets can be booked below, two per family. The link closes on Friday 12 January:

Year 5 and 6 LAMDA Showcase 

If your child is in this performance they will remain in school for the show. Parents are to enter via the front doors at 3.50pm for light refreshments before taking their seats. 

Parents can take their children home after the show which should be finished by 5.00pm. If you wish your child to go into afterschool then please book them in through the normal channel.

In our Good News Assembly on Tuesday we awarded School Promise certificates to recognise the children’s excellent behaviour as Good Friends, Good Learners or Good Citizens. 

Well done to:

• RP - Max and Xander
• 1Q - Erica and Harriet
• 2E - Ava and Thato
• 2W - Emily and Charlotte 
• 3LS - Gwen and Sophia
• 3SS - Elin and Ria
• 4C - Amber and Aria
• 5F - Alexander and Roisin
• 6W - Emily and Hattie 

We were delighted, in our final celebration assembly of the term, to award our Promise Badges. They are very special and are awarded at the end of each term to one child in Pre-Prep (PP) and one child in the Upper School (US) for each of the three promise strands: Good Friends, Good Learners, Good Citizens.

The children listed below have embodied the qualities of the promise this term and can wear their new badges with pride.

US

• Good Learner - Max (5F) for his consistent effort and application
• Good Friend - Zoe (3LS) for her supportive approach to helping her peers
• Good Citizen - Sam O (6W) for his mature and caring attitude to our younger children

PP

• Good Learner - Reegan (2W) for always trying his hardest
• Good Friend - Edward (RP) for gentle and sensible play alongside consistent sharing and taking turns
• Good Citizen - Austin (1Q) for his consistent mature approach to keeping all aspects of the school promise

In our Celebration Assembly on Tuesday 19 December, the housepoint winners for each class were rewarded with a book token.  

Congratulations to the following children:

House Point Cup Winners

Congratulations to Red and Blue House who came Joint 1st.

Thank you to Mithun, Taran, Gloria, Theo, Aria and Esme for their good conduct, good manners and respect for others during lunchtimes.

The lunchtime supervisors decided that you are this half term's recipients of Top Table invitations.

Phil Collins famously sang you can't hurry love, and it turns out you also can't hurry the Year 6 Podcasters... but they've managed to pull it out the bag just in the nick of time! The whole team proudly present The Christmas Edition, complete with a Christmas song challenge, an interview with Mrs McCollin about Christmas food, lots of pupils talking about the presents they're looking forward to, some typing tips and a Christmas draw-along!

Crescent School Podcast 2023 - The Christmas Edition

Mr Adkins and the Year 6 Podcasters

Friday 9 January 2024 - 3.30pm to 4.45pm

First event after Half Term is the Year 4 Bake Sale on Friday 19 January. As always this will start from 3.30pm and will have a range of yummy cakes and snacks selling at £1 each.

All profits will go to Year 4 to spend on entertainment for Privilege Time.

The Foundation has the following vacancies:

 Princethorpe College/Foundation

• Digital Transformation Leader
• IT Engineer
• Estates Assistant
• Estates Weekend Caretaker
• Casual Estates Assistant
• Casual Security Officer

Crescent School

• School Registrar and Marketing Secretary 

Full details and how to apply are available via the following link: Join Us

Should you know anyone who might be interested in this post, please do share this information with them.