The Courier

Dear Parents

As a wet and somewhat gloomy week draws to a close, we can look back on a week of Christmas celebrations, sporting endeavour and hard work in the classrooms. Most children have now enjoyed their theatre trips with just the Year 1 and 2 classes still to go. We enjoyed the first nativity dress rehearsal from Nursery and Reception earlier in the week and look forward to the real thing on Monday morning. Many of you came in to see all of the wonderful seasonal displays for the open corridors on Tuesday. As this missive wings its way to your phones and tablets, we will be enjoying all the fun of the Christmas bazaar. Many thanks to all of the parents who have committed valuable time and energy to getting this all prepared and ready, with decorating and wrapping going on throughout the week. You will find me ‘helping’ on one of the stalls, although I can’t quite remember which one I signed up for.

Earlier in the week all of the children in the upper school enjoyed short taster sessions on mindfulness during their morning lessons. These were provided by Natalie McMahon, who many of you will know as she runs the excellent Yoga Bugs programme for the younger children. Natalie is planning to offer mindfulness as an early morning club from next term for Year 3 to 6 and this fits in very nicely with another initiative in school that we have started this half term. That is the School Mental Health Award, run by the Carnegie School of Education based in Leeds and backed by the Minds Ahead charity foundation. We have already begun a process of looking at exactly what we do in the area of promoting wellbeing for our children and staff, a process that will generate an action plan for us to work on and deliver over the next 12 to 18 months. We have a committee of staff driving this forward led by our SENCo, Lynda Brazier. This group will be feeding their findings back to staff next term and we will start to build our action plan.

You might also want to take an early note of another visitor to school next term, Mark Groome. Mark is an educational consultant and former Headmaster of Prestfelde School in Shrewsbury. He delivered an excellent training session to staff at the beginning of term on the theme of managing anxiety in young people and he will be back here on 26 March to present two talks on a similar theme to parents. The times and dates will be in the calendar that will be with you at the end of term and we will let you have some more background and detail a little closer to the time.

With just seven school days to go before we break up I hope you all get some peace this weekend. My children are putting pressure on me to put the tree up this weekend whilst I favour waiting for a later and more traditional start date for decorations. We will see who wins the battle of wills.

Joe Thackway

Many thanks to everyone for their positive response to my note about responsible parking in last week’s Courier. You may have noticed the appearance of traffic cones on the corner of Dalkeith Avenue that demarcate one of the particular trouble spots, for which we have the local community police to thank.

These cones will not stay in place indefinitely so please use their current positions as a guide to your future parking.  I know that local residents have been advised to report any obstructive parking to the police who of course have the authority to issue penalty charge notices.  

Thank you to the parents that have already responded to the Evolve Consent Form for the Foundation’s new Use of Images Policy.

A small number are still to reply and we would be most grateful if they would complete and submit their response to the form by the deadline date of Friday 14 December.  A consent form is required for each child attending the school.

You can find the new Use of Images Policy attached to this article here.

The Foundation makes various uses of images of pupils during their time with us. Where these are necessary for administration and the safety of pupils, such as CCTV and for security ID, the Foundation does not require your consent.

Images are also used for marketing and promotional purposes, to celebrate the achievements of pupils, promote the work of the Foundation and the education it provides. The Foundation does require your consent for these purposes and we hope that parents will feel able to support the Foundation in using pupil images in this way.

Images generally will not have pupil names against them. Names will be used with images when, for instance, celebrating a specific pupil’s, team’s or group’s achievement.

Additional specific consent will be sought for instances when a single pupil is the main focus of a press release or on billboard or bus adverts.

You may withdraw consent at any time in the future by writing to the School Secretary at Crescent School.  Please be aware that it may not be possible to change printed publications, such as a Foundation magazine or prospectus, or third party publications (for example where we have placed an advert or provided an image to a newspaper).

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 we consider the category of Good Learners. The idea behind this week’s promise is resilience and perseverance. This is such a key element of being a good learner. The desire and determination to master new skills can take children such a long way in education.

‘‘We never give up and always try again"

Please click on the link below to view the weekly calendar.  This details all the co-curricular clubs running, fixtures and additional information.

Hockey and Rugby after school on a Tuesday have finished for this term.

Weekly Calendar 10 December

Crescent School

Last Friday, many of the parents and pupils of Class VI were eagerly awaiting their results from the Princethorpe College entrance exam. We are thrilled to say that not one of them was disappointed as all 17, who took the exam, were offered a place. These children worked hard to prepare for the exam right through Year 5 and in to Year 6.  Congratulations to them all.

We were also delighted to hear that 3 girls achieved All Rounder Scholarships: Mia Webb, Cara Ridd and Olivia Monk.

Well done Class VI you have made your teachers and families very proud.

Ms Lowe
Class VI Form Teacher

Class V's crispy Christmas creativity went down very well with Walkers Crisps.  They were most impressed with Class V's art work and tweeted their thanks and a Happy Anniversary to all at Crescent School.  

Class I & II children are excited about their trip to The Derngate on Wednesday 12 December to see Peter Pan. 

Please remember to send them in with a pocket sized snack and non-fizzy drink.  School uniform and blazers to be worn, however, if it is raining please send in their coat.

• Breakfast cereals
• Soup
• Pasta
• Rice
• Pasta sauce
• Tinned beans
• Tinned meat
• Tinned vegetables
• Tinned fruit
• Tea and Coffee
• Long life fruit juice
• Long life milk
• Biscuits
• Snacks

The Christmas post box is open and is located by the pupil entrance door until Tuesday 18 December.

There will be Class VI Christmas helpers at the post box from 8.15am to 8.40am each morning who will stamp and post the cards. All we ask is a 1p donation per card towards our term's charity, the Air Ambulance.  Each card should have the child's name and class on the envelope.

Please can all children post their cards here so that lessons are not disturbed by the giving out of Christmas cards.  They will then will receive a lovely bundle from the Class VI Christmas elves on the final day of term.

Monday 10 December 2018 9.30am

Parents, grandparents and friends are invited to our Nursery and Reception Nativity performance of Christmas Counts.

A lot of hard work has gone into the rehearsals so far, learning the songs, memorising lines, sorting out costumes, scenery and planning the production, and what a spectacle it is all going to be.

Crescent School 

Thursday 13 December 2018 9.35am

Parents, grandparents and friends are invited to watch Classes I & II's Nativity performance of The Inn-Spectors.

The children have been rehearsing hard, learning the songs, memorising lines, sorting out costumes and the production is going to be fantastic.

Crescent School

All are welcome to a wonderful evening of carols, readings and the Christmas story to get you in the mood for the festive season.

To mark the school's 70th anniversary, our annual Carol Service will be held at Rugby Temple Speech Rooms, Barby Road, Rugby CV22 5DA  from 6.30pm – 7.45pm on Monday 17 December, and will feature all the extra-curricular music groups involving Classes III-VI.

All children in Classes III – VI are involved and required to attend. It would be lovely for all friends and family from the Crescent community to join us.  Parents and children from Reception, Classes I and II are very welcome to attend, however, please be mindful that the service may be a little late for some of our younger children.

Children who need to change into a costume should arrive no earlier than 6.00pm. Everyone else, including congregation, should be seated at 6.15pm for a prompt start. There will be instrumental and vocal solos taking place as people arrive.

All children to wear winter uniform including blazers and grey tights for girls. 

There will be a retiring collection in aid of the Air Ambulance our termly charity

Kind regards

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

Monday 21 January - 10.00am to 3.00pm

The Crescent School, is opening its doors to prospective and current parents and children for an Open Day on Monday 21 January from 10.00am to 3.00pm.

This is an opportunity to meet the Crescent's headmaster, Joe Thackway, see its new facilities, look around the school and to meet staff and pupils on a normal working day. All are welcome, no need to book.

If you can't make the Open Day but would like to visit the school, please call our Registrar, Mrs Helen Morley on 01788 521595 and come on a day to suit you, we welcome visitors on most days.

For more information visit www.crescentschool.co.uk

• Darius Ionescu

As we approach the end of term it is a pleasure to announce that we have four more Junior da Vinci students. The badges were awarded to the following pupils in assembly this morning:

Olivia Monk, Bexie Monteith and Mia Webb for their achievements in English and Isla Barrack for her work in Science. 

Congratulations!

Our topic of Homes and Houses lends itself beautifully to introducing children to fieldwork and data collection in Geography. Around our school there are many different housing types that the children spotted, named and then counted. Back in the classroom, the children learnt how to represent that data on a pictogram.  A great combination of learning and excitement combined. 

The children in Classes III & IV went to the Old Rep Theatre in Birmingham on Tuesday to see their Christmas production, 'Pinocchio.' The show was wonderful, full of colour and music, with excellent singing and choreography. The children really enjoyed learning about the puppet who was desperate to be a little boy, and all his adventures. On our return to school, the children in both classes wrote a theatre review about the show, and their work will be on display in the new year. 

On Monday, children in Years 4 and 5 took part in a Skype call with Neal Manegold, Director of Minecraft Education. They asked him questions mainly about Minecraft (having not played Minecraft, I did not understand half of the questions!) but also about game making in general and he shared his expertise. It was a great experience for the children, showing them the possibilities of technology. 

Christmas art day arrived in a flourish in 5Y with the Christmas songs ringing down the hall by 9.30am.

We celebrated 70 years of the NHS through our artistic endeavours; a Christmas tree made out of 70 of our helping hands, each bearing thank you messages for the NHS, was particularly poignant. We discussed the role of NHS staff at Christmas and agreed that they are modern day angels, which we created with glittery abandon and each child's face, our very own little angels!

After the glitter and paint of the morning, the afternoon brought the calmness and serenity (relative!!) of sewing stockings and stain glass window making. 

It was a super day where each child had the opportunity to show their own unique creativity and even the less artistically inclined children (and teacher!!) had a thoroughly enjoyable day together.

Classes 5Y have been deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphic messages this week. They have written their own names and a message in hieroglyphics. Can you work out this festive message?

The girls have been busy with fixtures this week with the U11 'A' and 'B' team travelling to Ratcliffe College in Leicestershire to take on Ratcliffe, Bilton Grange and Crackley on Wednesday. 

All of the girls played tremendously well creating some fantastic opportunities and reading the ball fantastically well to make some great interceptions and well timed tackles.  The 'A' team were unfortunate not be able to convert any of their chances but never stopped trying. This resulted in a loss to Ratcliffe and Bilton Grange and draw with Crackley Hall. 

The 'B' team played very well and managed to score in their game against Crackley to make it a 1-1 draw.  They had two close games against Ratcliffe and Bilton Grange.  Great team work and commitment by all. 

U9 'A' and 'B' travelled to Hampton in Arden to play Ratcliffe and Crackley Hall, the weather was thankfully kinder and all of the season's training seemed to come together for both teams with some fantastic play by all involved. 

U9 'A' team started strong using the width of the pitch well with great passing, communication and attack resulting in a 4-0 win over Ratcliffe College with Eve scoring a hat trick and Hattie getting on the score sheet too. 

Again we went out strongly against Crackley with the defence being able to push up a little more.  The girls were quick to take any free hits which made it easy to use space and make quick counter attacks. The result was a 2-0 win Eve and Emme making the score sheet. 

U9 'B' team worked extremely hard with fabulous play from all with great reading of the ball and lovely attacking play.  The defence were really effective moving on to the ball.  This resulted in a 0-0 draw against Ratcliffe and a 2-0 win over Crackley with Evie scoring the 2 goals. 

A lovely finish to their season. 

U11 Hockey will have their final fixture against Kingsley next Wednesday.  Unfortunately Kinglsey are only able to field two teams not three as stated in the calendar. 

As you're reading this the Christmas Bazaar should be coming to an end for another year. We will publish the total made in next week's Courier and on our facebook page as soon as we've counted it all up. 

A massive thank you to everyone for coming along to join us and to all my wonderful parents, grandparents and teachers who make these events all possible. A lot of hard work goes into these events and it wouldn't be possible without everyones hard work and dedication.

Friday 14 December 2018 - 3.45pm to 4.45pm

Please come along and support us by buying cakes and sweets, all priced at 50p each. All the money raised at these market day events goes towards buying toys, crafts and stationery for privilege time for the Class.

Friday 28 June 2019

Unfortunately we had to make the decision to move the Parents Christmas party due to other events that are taking place on that evening.

We have decided to move this to Friday 28 June and rename it to a Crescent Cocktails and Canapes party to celebrate the end of the school year.

Please put this date in your diaries now.

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

Crescent Menu - 101218

Crescent School Office

Please see below for useful school contact information:

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

• Winter hats
• Scarfs
• Gloves
• Ties
• Swimming hats
• Sports socks
• Hair bands
• Hair scrunchies
• Hair clips
• Sun hats

Music group badges can also be purchased but not added to your account.

• Choir
• Orchestra
• Strings
• Brass

Please do pop in if you need any of the above items.

Crescent School Office

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

2018/19

Michaelmas Term
Term starts Monday 03 September 2018
Half Term Saturday 20 October to Sunday 04 November 2018
Term ends Tuesday 18 December 2018

Lent Term
Term starts Monday 7 January 2019
Half Term Saturday 16 February to Sunday 24 February 2019
Term ends Wednesday 10 April 2019

Trinity Term
Term starts Monday 29 April 2019
Half Term Saturday 25 May to Sunday 2 June 2019
Term ends Wednesday 3 July 2019

2019/20

Please see attachments below for information regarding school holiday clubs that are running over the Christmas holidays. 

The clubs are provided by external providers and not the Crescent School.

Music Mania

Netball Camp