The Courier

Dear Parents

I hope you all enjoy this last, abbreviated version of the Courier for the school year. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to this over the last three terms, and in particular to Claire Tucker in the front office who pulls it together each week. It has become the key means of communication for the school and I do hope you all find it as useful as I do.

A three day school week has seen a lot of action with the summer concert, Year 6 performance of Honk to the school, whole school photo and leavers’ assembly being the highlights. A really busy, and sometimes emotional, few days but a great finale to the term.

We have had to clear out a lot of classroom and corridor displays much earlier than usual in preparation for the building and refurbishments that are planned to commence as soon as we break up. Expect to see a revamped IT suite, corridor area, Reception and Year 1 classrooms on your return in September. I am confident all of these projects will bring a real benefit to all of the children here over the coming terms and years.

Quite a few of the children have told me about exciting plans for their summer holidays. I hope you all do manage to get away with your families at some point over the coming weeks. Family holidays when the children are still young are such a special time to come together and build shared memories. We have a week planned in the Dordogne and I’m delighted to say all of my ‘children’ will be there to share it.

We send our Year 6 leavers off with every good wish for the future and we thank them and their families for everything they have contributed to the school during their time here. A number of families from this class have come to the end of a long association with the school as parents and we bid them all a very fond farewell. We are already looking forward to the leavers’ football and rounders matches in September as a chance to meet up again and find out how they are all settling into their new schools.

In brief, the destinations for this year’s group are as follows:

We wish them well.

I look forward to seeing you all back here for Monday 2 September. The current Year 5 are back on Friday 30 August for some pre-season brain training (from 9.00am until 2.30pm) and the staff will be back in school for much of the last week of August training and preparing for the new term.

Have a great summer everyone and many thanks for all of your continued support of the school. We really do appreciate it.

Congratulations to our newly elected House Captains, who received their badges in assembly on Friday. They will have lots to do in their new role and their first job will be to sort out the rotas for the Class VI team duties around the school.

We wish them all the best in their new roles.

• St. Georges – George and Izzy
• St. Davids -  Euan, Archie and Sam S
• St. Andrews – Freya and Fifi

Well done to all.

The latest edition of The Pinnacle has just been published, in time for the end of term.  It showcases pupils' excellent work.

In the middle there is a pullout (The Minnacle) which focuses on the junior schools featuring both the Crescent School and Crackley Hall School.

You can view an electronic version of The Pinnacle here and The Minnacle here.

Make a cup of tea, put your feet up and enjoy browsing through the inspirational work our children do.

Crescent School's Summer Concert took place on Tuesday 2 July.  It was well attended with the school hall packed with parents and family members eager to enjoy the end of term celebration of fine music and song.

As always the school orchestra opened the concert performing two pieces confidently.  Everyone enjoyed their uplifting rendition of ‘Chariots Of Fire’ and the popular ‘Match Of the Day’ theme.  Then came the first of many instrumental solos with Lily playing ‘Take Five’ wonderfully on the violin followed by Vignesh who played ‘March Of the Wooden Soldiers’ on piano.

Wacky Music were next with an animated, noisy arrangement of ‘Hit This, Hit That’ performed on all manner of instruments including a dustbin!  They were followed by Cara and James who played ‘Prelude’ on cornet and trumpet splendidly.

Brass Group came next with two lively toe-tapping pieces 'Football Frenzy' and 'All Summer Long’, the group included five different brass instruments, quite a feat for such a small school. Mehul then gave the audience a moment of quiet reflection with the delightful ‘Over The Rainbow’ before our youngest musicians took to the stage.  Mini Brass captivated us all with ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ arranged for them by peripatetic teacher Di Fisher.

Next in the programme came Fin with a fabulous performance of the catchy ‘Theme From James Bond’ on euphonium and Lucy who played ‘Cinq Sets’ on flute beautifully.  Lucy was joined on stage by the rest of the Flute group and together they skilfully played ‘Cool Flutin’.  Mia then completed the flute set with a sparky solo performance of ‘From Ragtime to Riches’.

Everyone then enjoyed Classes VF and VY who came together for only the second time and impressed all with their lively rendition of ‘Metal Merchant’.

Tilly sang ‘Truly Scrumptious’ beautifully and Class VI Brass (including Maya on clarinet) gave a super performance of ‘In Dreams’.

The concert concluded with a rousing performance by the Choir.  Pupils sang four pieces starting with ‘We’re So Proud Of Our School’, followed by ‘Harmony Blues’,’ Why We Sing’ and finishing with ‘A Little Can Change Our World’.

It was another outstanding afternoon of music and song.  Our enormous thanks and congratulations go to all Crescent School's accomplished performers who took to the stage in front of their proud parents, and of course to all their teachers and Director of Music, Julie Barnes who have helped them achieve so much.

The whole school photo was taken on Tuesday 2 July and an email was sent out yesterday with the link to view the proof and purchase options.

Crescent School

Pupils from Crescent School had a wonderful experience when they appeared at the Royal Albert Hall last month in a performance of Move with Theatretrain! Lots of children, from ages 6-18 years old, were involved dancing and singing.

A huge well done to Lily, Hattie, Emme and Eve.  

Crescent School 

Many congratulations to next years Year 6 librarians:

• Daniel O
• Freya S
• Harry B
• Phoebe C

They will help in the library, organising books, keeping the library tidy and most importantly leading our reading with the younger children at library club.

Congratulations to Daniel and Josephine in Year 5 who are the West Midlands' regional winners of the Step Into The NHS Primary School Competition.

The competition encouraged pupils to explore the wide range of careers available in the NHS and was part of a project that Class V completed on the NHS earlier in the school year.

Crescent was pleased to welcome Chris Lee from NHS Health Careers into school on Tuesday 2 July to present Daniel and Josephine with their prizes and certificates in assembly.

Daniel and Josephine created a joint poster with personal stories and drawings to say thank you to the NHS.  The effort and hard work they put into their entry impressed the judges.

Congratulations Daniel and Joesphine!

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!

In the Celebration Assembly on Monday 1 July, the housepoint winners for each class were awarded with a book token.  We recognised the pupil who had the most housepoints and also the pupil who was most improved: 

Congratulations to the following children:

St David's House was the overall winner for the House Trophy.

Well done to all.

This is the end of our second year of Junior da Vincis, I do feel it helps the children focus on the aspects required as they aspire to be recognised as a Junior da Vinci student. The following children are the last to achieve an award this academic year, well done to them all:

• Alyssa for music
• Amelia Y for Art and D.T.
• Amelie for Art and D.T.
• Amy for Art and D.T.
• Anand for Art and D.T.
• Chloe W for Art and D.T. and science
• Dorrit for PSHE
• Drew for English
• Fifi for Art and D.T.
• Freya for Art and D.T.
• George C for PE and Games
• Grace S for English
• Harry for English
• Isaac for maths
• Jay for maths
• Liana for Art and D.T.
• Lily for Art and D.T.
• Mehul for maths
• Milly for Art and D.T.
• Olivia F for Art and D.T.
• Olivia M for maths
• Rania for Art and D.T.
• Rohan for English
• Rosina for Maths
• Sienna for Art and D.T.
• Stephanie for PSHE and Maths
• Tumi for Art and D.T.

I am pleased to announce our final badge winners of the year.

• Isla has read two million words
• Harry B has read three million words
• Stephanie, Charlotte and Amelia have read 500,000 words

Congratulations to you all.

As a point of interest Years 3-6 have read over 70 million words this year, so well done to you all, it has been a fantastic year for reading.

Over the holidays please read plenty of books but you will only be able to quiz on your final book of the holiday.

In our Good News Assembly today, we awarded School Promise certificates to recognise the children’s excellent behaviour as good friends, good learners or good citizens. 

Congratulations go to:

For keeping the WHOLE School Promise:

• Maya P for being a Good Friend, Good Learner and Good Citizen

For being a Good Friend and keeping the School Promise:

• Alex T for being a great friend who is kind and inclusive of others
  

For being a Good Learner and keeping the School Promise:

• Maya T for having a positive attitude to learning and trying her best
• Shayla for having a wonderful attitude to learning. Always giving 100% and wanting to do her best
• Sam M for working hard to be the best he can in English and maths
• Sachin for growing in confidence, trying new strategies and wanting to achieve across the curriculum!
• Katherine for achieving well across the curriculum and always looking for the next challenge
• Isla for aiming for excellence by having a dedicated approach to her school life!
• Bella for putting super effort into her work and organisation!
• Fifi for showing resilience when something is difficult, but always trying again
• Arabella D for having a more positive attitude to her lessons
• Olivia M for working hard, being calm and trying her best in the classroom and on the sports field

For being a Good Citizen and keeping the School Promise:

• Samuel Y for always being helpful and setting a great example to others!
• Jasper for putting the needs of others above his own on Sports Day!
• Sophie M for settling into Crescent life with ease, with good manners and a good attitude to her learning and always a smile on her face!
• Maryn for showing good manners, respect and tolerance to everyone
• Harry B for setting a good example to others through his calm and sensible conduct
• Harry R for always trying to be responsible 

• Alice
• Ava
• Bella
• Olivia

Class I children threw a surprise party for Mrs Emery on the last day of term to say a big goodbye and thank you!  One of the requirements for the party were some Man City cakes!

Crescent School

With eight weeks of your children’s company stretching out in front of you, it might be handy for you to know what topics they will be learning about in history, when we return to school in September. You may be able to plan themed days out or visits that may be linked to the areas listed below.

• Year 1 – Holidays
• Year 2 – Gunpowder Plot and Bonfire night
• Year 3 – Stone Age to Iron Age
• Year 4 - Vikings
• Year 5 – Ancient Egyptians
• Year 6 – Ancient Greece

If the children would like to share any of this with their history teachers, they’d love to hear all about it.

Wishing you all a restful and happy summer.

In the mixed weather conditions June has offered, our U9 and U11 rounders teams ventured to Stafford Prep for the Midlands Rounder's tournament.

Both teams played fantastically making huge progress throughout the tournament, improving accuracy in fielding and becoming more aware of when to run and take advantage of mis-fielded balls.

Our Under 9 team finished in 3rd place overall after taking two wins, one draw and a very tightly contested loss.

Malvern St James 8-3.5 win
Old Vic 8.5-5.5 win
Crackley 7.5-7.5 draw
Stafford Prep 5-5.5 loss

The U11 team finished in 2nd in their pool taking them through to play off positions. They ended up finishing in 5th position overall.

Castle House 6.5-5.5 win
Old Vic 4-6.5 loss
Malvern St James 8-5 win
Bedstone College 7-10 loss

A great team effort and show of team spirit from all of Crescent's players.

Often the advice before a sports fixture is ‘do your best’ in an effort to not put too much pressure on a child. However, it is very hard to do your best all of the time. What is so pleasing is that the Crescent children seem to be able to do this more often than not. This championship was no exception. Those that we tentatively hoped would come back with a medal did not disappoint and others put in personal best performances but were just beaten by a stronger athlete. That really is a case of ‘all you can do is your best.’

• Gold: Olivia M (sprint), George B (600m and long jump), Amy R (throw), Eve F (long jump)
• Silver: Olivia M (high jump), Fin C (high jump), Kyle K (long jump)
• Bronze: Sam S (high jump), Sienna M (throw)

Our annual school tennis tournament came to a finish this week despite the poor weather over the term. The semi-finals were fourth seed Amelie against Fin and the all Year 5 clash of George and Matthew. Fin knocked another seed out to reach the final having already overcome first seed Mehul. George and Matthew played a very energetic match with a number of incredible rallies. George came out victor.

The final was high quality with some great ground strokes. It was pleasing to see great sportsmanship with George calling a let feeling Fin had been hard done by and then later, Fin turned down a let feeling that he would have not got to the ball anyway. In the end, George was the champion for 2019. A special mention to the ball boys and girls - Mia, Harry, Josh O and Matthew who were so slick and professional and kept the games flowing.

Please find below term dates for the next academic year:

2019/20

Please see below for useful school contact information: