The Courier

Dear Parents

We know we are near the end of term when Welcome Evening has come and gone. Thank you for attending yesterday evening‘s session and I hope you found the information helpful. The idea is to keep you informed and up to date by striking a balance between whole school initiatives and the nitty-gritty of life for the children in the classrooms.

This is always an exciting time of the school year in many ways as we look forward to next term. Move-up morning was a really joyous event with lots of excited and happy children getting to grips with the idea of moving up another year. Of course, we also had the pleasure of meeting next year’s Reception class who seemed to get on very well. During the morning, I came down the corridor to see them and I wondered where they had gone to. Not a single sound was coming from the room but when I came through the door, there they all were sitting quietly on the mat listening to Mrs. Pullen. Given that they were only 30 minutes into their school careers I thought this must be a good omen. When we look back at the achievements in reading and writing of this year‘s Reception class, and look further ahead to where the Year 1s have got to, it fills me with great optimism for the year ahead.

Of course, as well as looking forward, we also have an eye on the year that has gone by and thoughts of the children who will leave us next week. We will have our Year 6 Leavers’ Assembly on Wednesday, preceded by a reception for children and parents on the playing field. This is always a bittersweet occasion when the children look back at their time here at the school and also look forward to the new adventures that await them. We wish them all the luck in the world.

I enjoyed a quick trip to the Town Athletics Championships today in Rugby. It is always such a pleasure to visit Crescent children when they are taking part in events like this. Their impeccable behaviour and positive attitude is a great source of pride for us all.

It looks like we might finally get some barbecue weather to enjoy so I hope you all have a great weekend in the sunshine.

Dear Parents

We are currently exploring the idea of splitting the current Year 2 class into two smaller classes for the start of the academic year 2020-21 when they will enter Year 4. This will coincide with the current Year 5 classes leaving the school, thus enabling us to make the split at that time as an extra teaching space becomes available. As you know, we have been through a similar process in the recent past and feel this has worked really well.

Whilst it is too far out to say exactly what the staffing will look like, we are confident that our staff across the three year groups have built up a bank of knowledge and expertise in that phase that is of enormous benefit to all the children in the older year groups. By making the split at this point it would mean we can maintain our staffing at the current levels and thereby keep together the excellent team we have in place. 

Whilst this is still someway off, I felt it was only fair to share my thoughts with you at this early stage. Any potential split will of course depend on recruiting sufficient new children and I would stress that, as with all pupil recruitment, we only look to take on children who we feel will fit in with the ethos of the school and enhance the make-up of the year group.

We will be looking to make a firm decision on this by the end of September this year and in the meantime I would welcome any feedback you might have.

I am delighted to announce that from the beginning of next academic year we will have a different look to the SLT here at Crescent.

Mr Webb will remain as Head of Pre-Prep and also take on a whole school role as Head of Pastoral Care. This fits in well with his safeguarding lead duties and gives us an extra layer in the pastoral care system that is at the heart of all great schools.

We also welcome Mrs Stapleton onto the team as Head of Wellbeing. This is an exciting new role that we are introducing to promote the emotional wellbeing of both children and staff. Mrs Stapleton has plenty of fresh ideas on how we can develop this in the school and will dovetail into the work that Mr Webb will be doing on the pastoral side. Her first job will be to see the school through the Carnegie Wellbeing Award that we have embarked on this year.

I am also delighted to announce that from September Mrs Webb will take on the title of Assistant Head with responsibility for health and safety on school trips and for planning school events.

Ms Forth of course remains as Deputy Head and Head of Curriculum, and we will continue to draw on the expertise of Mrs Morley, who runs our admissions and marketing.

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.

From now until the end of term we will be looking at a very important idea from the Good Citizens section of the Promise:

"We keep our school tidy and take pride in our clothes and our uniform."

Joe Thackway
Headmaster

Please click on the link below to view the weekly calendar.  As it is the last week of term many of the clubs have finished, please read the calendar to see which clubs are running.  There is no swimming this week.

Weekly Calendar - 010719 

The calendar details all the co-curricular clubs for Trinity term, any changes to clubs are also reflected on SOCS Co-Curricular and this will be displayed in your child's calendar.

SOCS Co-Curricular

Crescent School

Crescent School is delighted to confirm our Head Boy and Head Girl for the 2019/20 academic year.  Our congratulations go to Joseph and Chloe who have been selected to take on the roles. They were both appointed following a rigorous selection process which included application letters as well as a student and staff vote.

The positions of Head Boy and Head Girl are extremely important ones as they are the most senior pupil roles in the school. Joseph and Chloe will be the leaders of our pupil community and will be an important link between the children and staff.

Further House and Team Captains will be announced next week and at the beginning of next term.

All of our Year 6 pupils play an ambassadorial role within the school. Working in three house teams, they undertake a wide range of duties in and around the school and represent the school at public events such as Open Days. Most importantly they act as role models for the wider school community, particularly for the youngest children in our Reception class. All of the Reception children are buddied up with a Year 6 pupil for the year, who look after them, play with them and sit with them at lunch.

Headmaster, Joe Thackway, said, “It was a difficult decision to make from the many excellent applications.  I offer my congratulations to Joseph and Chloe and I look forward to working with them next school year.”

On Thursday afternoon we invited parents into school for our Open Book Afternoon.  Parents always enjoy the school’s Open Corridor sessions when they have the chance to look at the displays around school but the Open Book Afternoon offers the opportunity to get a much deeper insight into the children’s learning.

We were delighted that so many of you were able to join us and the children really enjoyed sharing all their super work.  

Thank you for all the positive feedback and for your continuing support.

The Princethorpe Foundation is delighted to announce that we will be launching a new parent and pupil portal for the Michaelmas term, in partnership with market leading school-parent communications software package My School Portal.

My School Portal, which will be used in all three Foundation schools, is an online system designed to streamline communications between the schools and parents by bringing all information and services together. Parents will have instant and easy access to information about their children, such as attendance data, fixtures, event bookings, exam results, timetables, calendars and reports, as well as key school information and documents. Staff and pupils will also have access to their own versions of the portal, streamlined to their needs.

All information is secure and accessed online via one username and password and accessible via your mobile, tablet or desktop device, with an account for each parent/guardian.

All student information is shown on one dashboard so there are no more multiple log-ins and passwords for different services, and all of the information about your children will be in one place even if you have children within more than one of the Foundation’s schools.

We are very excited about this new system and look forward to going live at the start of September 2019. Full details and support on how to use the system will be given upon implementation at the start of the new school year.

Calling all budding reporters!! 

Next year I will be running a ‘Courier Kids’ club. This will be open to Class 4M, 5F, 6W and 6Y. The club will work each week to produce a children’s section for the Courier. This will be similar to a children’s newsletter or school newspaper. 

If your child would like to join this club then they need to apply to me in writing outlining their ideas for what they would like to see in the ‘Courier Kids’ section of the Crescent Courier. The children can apply to me before the end of this year or over the summer holidays, the deadline for applications is Monday 2 September at midday. My email for any applications to be sent to during the holidays is amandayates@crescentschool.co.uk.  

I will then be selecting two children from each class to create a team of eight. This team will remain in place for the whole term until Christmas. A new team will then be asked to apply ready for January. This will allow as many pupils as possible to have this experience. 

The team will be notified by the end of the day on Monday 2 September and the club will begin on Tuesday 3 September starting  promptly at 8.15pm.

This is going to be a fun and interesting club which I hope your children will be keen to join!

Dear Parents

At school we spend significant time prioritising children's self esteem and worth.  As they get older, pressure and society perceptions rise and areas like body image can affect confidence and self esteem.  As such, and for our final online safety share for the year, I attach some very worthwhile guidance/awareness around these issues.

Over the summer break, there will be further exciting improvements to the Crescent School site.

In the holidays, the IT suite will be gutted and a new ceiling, lighting and flooring installed.  The room will be redesigned and have new furniture.  A new teaching space will be created that includes an interactive teaching wall.

At the far end of the school, the Reception and Year 1 classrooms will also be completely refurbished with new ceiling, new lights, new carpets and a fresh coat of paint.  It will provide an exciting and stimulating environment for our youngest learners.

A three-phase development of the main corridor, affectionately known as the 'green mile', will commence starting with the top section (from the Library down to the first set of Fire Doors).  Again a new ceiling will be installed, with new lights, new flooring, built in display units and the walls repainted.

The work is all part of the Princethorpe Foundation’s long term estates development plan which includes significant investment in the Crescent School facilities.

Comments Joe Thackway, Headmaster, “It will be all systems go all summer, so pupils, staff and parents can expect great things on their return in September.”

The school shop will be open until 4.30pm on Wednesday 3 July 2019.  If you are looking for additional or replacement items of uniform ready for September, please can you order in plenty of time to allow delivery to school prior to this date.  From Monday 8 July until Monday 2 September, the school shop will be open for new starters and will be by appointment only.

Thanks

In assembly last week the children enjoyed a demonstration of the guitar, both pop and melodic, from Wil Russell. Wil is an ex-Princethorpe pupil who now works as a guitar tutor.

Anyone who is interested in their child (Classes III - VI) taking up guitar lessons with Mr Russell from September should contact Mrs Barnes juliebarnes@crescentschool.co.uk to express their interest.

Places will be limited by a number of factors, so please do get your interest in early if you would like to take this offer up.

The final day for quizzing was today, Friday 28 June, allowing me to collate all the data.

Remember you can keep reading over the holidays but I would advise that the children only quiz on their final read of the holidays as it is not a memory test. The main thing is that the children enjoy reading.

It has been a great year for reading and the children are still enjoying books.

Please can all school reading books for Classes III - VI be back in school by Wednesday 3 July.  Over the summer we like to do an audit, checking that we have a good range across the year groups.  Please check under beds, on shelves and in bags and send them into your form tutor.

Thank you for all your continued support with reading out of school, keep it up over the summer, it can be a good time to visit your local library and bookshops.

Tuesday 2 July 2019 - 10.30am

The re-scheduled whole School photo will now take place on Tuesday 2 July at 10.30am.  We hope the sun will be shining!

Summer uniform with Blazers to be worn please.

Crescent School

Tuesday 2 July 2.15pm

All the musicians in the school - and there are many of them! - have been working hard preparing for our Summer Concert next week.

Starting at 2.15pm on Tuesday 2 July, Choir, Orchestra, Brass Group, Mini Brass, Flute Group, Wacky Music, Class V and soloists from Class VI will perform for your delectation and delight.

Do come and support all the hard work that has been going on this term

Mrs J Barnes
Director of Music

There will be a full round up of JdV awards in the 'mini' Courier next week.

Ariana has achieved her Millionaire badge this week, well done to her.

• Barnaby 
• Bella

Congratulations to Stephanie who achieved her Platinum Challenge Certificate for Times Tables in a record time of 1m34s (48 questions).

The times table challenge will resume next term.  It is a drop in session in the Library with myself on a Wednesday morning for Classes II - VI.

Class I children joined the end of Brass Group for a Mini Brass taster session.  As you can see the children had fun with the hose-a-phones!

Class II children have been examining the properties of varying materials and how they can be altered to suit your purpose. This week we have focused on elasticity and learnt lots in our catapult invention testing.

We looked at how we perceive friendship in PSHE this week and how we can use doughnuts to help us understand!  Most of us think there is a jammy centre of friends who seem to be having all the fun and that we wish to be part of it – but actually we all feel on the outside, looking in at times and it’s important that we recognise how that makes us feel.

Mrs Stapleton
Class III Form Tutor

Class III have finished their pneumatic moving monsters this week and have enjoyed designing, creating and parading their final design and technology project of the year.

Mrs Byrne and her skilled band of family helpers have helped the children design and sew a pair of slippers over the last few weeks. Junior da Vincis for mastery were awarded to Sachin, Eva and Charlotte for their sewing skills and the rest of the class were awarded with creativity or practice stickers for their efforts.

This week we said good bye to Mr Dan Stapleton from our afterschool team who has been helping support the children over the last few months. He has loved his time here at Crescent and the children loved the ice-lollies that he brought them as a treat. Many thanks from all of us!

Crescent School

Thank you so much to everyone who attended and supported the Summer Fete as well as all my wonderful helpers. We actually took over £2,250 on the afternoon which is fantastic and made £1,400 profit after we took off the costs for the bouncy castles and donkeys etc. This smashes last year's total and makes it a record breaking year of fundraising!

In total this year we have raised in profit £7,500 which is made up of £1,114 over all the Cake/Market Day sales (it always amazes me how many cakes we sell at 50p); Quiz Night £320, Christmas Cards and Gifts £300; Movie Night £460; Christmas Bazaar £1,830, Mother's Day and Father's Day Crafts £700; Disco £325; Draycote Water Sponsored Walk £900; Scholastic Book Sale £1,000, Second Hand Uniform over £150 and the Summer Fete £1,400! This is an incredible total! 

We have also purchased for the school the new bike and scooter shelter, PA sound system, glockenspiels, playground equipment, £1,000 worth of games, toys and crafts for the classrooms and already have three funding requests from the school for us to review in September. What a busy year!

We'll be doing it all again next academic year plus some new events. A massive thank you to all the teachers, parents and grandparents who are on the FoC and make all this possible. I am so lucky to be surrounded by such an amazing group of people! We also say goodbye to Emma Hardy (former treasurer) and Karena Spicer (Year 2 and reception rep) this year who have both played a major part on the FoC. You will be sadly missed!

Kind regards

As the School Year is drawing to an end, we will happily accept any of the following pre-loved uniform:

• School Blazers
• School Coats
• School Cardigans and Jumpers
• School Dresses (winter and summer) and Skirts
• School T-Shirts/Polo Shirts/PE Shorts/Skorts
• School Boaters
• School Bags
• School Tracksuits

Please leave any uniform by the FoC table in the pupil entrance.

Looking forward to September we have the following events planned so please put these in your diaries now. I will provide further details on them all before the end of term.

• FOC Meeting - Monday 9 September
• Class VI Market Day (part 1) - Friday 20 September
• Macmillian Coffee Morning - Friday 27 September
• FOC AGM Meeting - Monday 7 October
• Class V Market Day - Friday 11 October
• Parents Quiz Night - Friday 11 October

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

Crescent Menu - 1 July 2019 

Crescent School Office

Please see below for useful school contact information:

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

2018/19

Trinity Term
Term ends Wednesday 3 July 2019

2019/20

Please find a link below to the current vacancies available across the Foundation:

• After School Manager (Crescent School)
• After School Assistant (Crackley Hall)

Full details of the roles and how to apply are available via the following link https://www.princethorpe.co.uk/employment-opportunities

Please click on the link below to read all about what the Reception Class have been learning this week.

Reception Round Up - 280619