The Courier

Dear Parents

I hope that this week’s Courier comes as a welcome arrival in your inbox. Despite the doom and gloom there has been lots to enjoy in school. The children have kept us all going with their undimmed enthusiasm and resilience. We are so proud of all of them. In particular, the Selfish Ladybird performance on Tuesday was an absolute triumph. We have sent a video link out to all parents so you can watch and enjoy at home.

It has been a difficult week in many ways, but also an inspiring one. Coming in each day and seeing the children working and playing with all their normal high spirits has been a great way to get us all through the days. Of course, we now enter a new phase and next week the children will be learning from home. We have worked really hard to ensure that you will continue to receive not only the work that the children need to do but also all of the emotional support that we can offer them, and you, as we move forward.

I do completely understand that for some people it will be a difficult job to get children to work in the way they normally do at school. All I can say, is please do your best and we ask the same of the children. We can count ourselves fortunate that we do not have GCSE exam syllabuses to follow so the pressure is not the same as it is for some children. However, I do believe it is important that children continue to learn and to keep to routines where they possibly can.

Hearing the government’s plans for the continued schooling of key workers’ children filled me with a desire to contribute in a positive way. I know this sentiment is shared by the staff here and we are committed to doing our bit. The school will therefore remain open for as long as is needed to supervise the children of those in prescribed occupations and staff will be volunteering for these sessions on a rota basis into the Easter holiday.

As from next week I will be keeping in touch with regular updates and messages so please keep an eye on you inboxes for those and we fully intend to get you an edition of the Courier, same time next week.

Take care of yourselves and your children.

Below I have copied a short speech that I asked form teachers to read to their children in form period earlier in the week. It gives you an idea of the key messages we have been sharing with them:

It is now likely that we might need to close the school quite soon. If this happens we need to be sensible and keep going with as many normal things as we can. If we do go home, you will be working from home. Each day work will be sent to your parents and they will let you know what you need to do. Remember, all the teachers will still be there to help you and we will be sending you work home each day. Please do your best with your work and remember all the things you’ve learned in school all about presentation and handwriting and spellings and so on. Don’t worry too much if you don’t finish everything you get, but just do your best.

Last Friday the school sent a home working policy to your parents. You also have your special books at home to do your work in. Take pride in these books and make them something you will be proud to bring to your teachers when we return.

It is really important that you help your parents and your family if we need to go home. Think about the School Promise and try to keep to that, you won't go far wrong. Just like in school we have to work as a team and pull together.

You have all been really good washing your hands and taking care of yourselves, all the teachers are so proud of you.

The Pre-Prep children together with youngsters from Pathfinders Nursery performed their Open Morning production, The Selfish Ladybird, in front of a proper audience of the older school children and staff on Tuesday 17 March. 

A lot of hard work had gone into the rehearsals, learning the songs, memorising lines, sorting out costumes, scenery and planning the production, and what a lovely ladybird spectacle it proved to be. Telling the story of Lucinda and her search for advice about sharing and friendship, it showcased the wonderful talents, confidence and stage presence of Crescent School's youngest pupils.

After all the hard work, the school was delighted the FoC were able to film the performance, and the recording has been shared with parents.  It was a really fabulous story full of plenty of terrific songs, so we are sure you all enjoyed flitting and hovering along.

We took plenty of photos which we hope you also enjoy.

Well done Pre-Prep, you were all amazing and really rose to the occasion and you all looked lovely in your insect costumes.

This week saw the grand opening of the Wren's Nest, our designated space for wellbeing within Crescent. The space will be open on our return, with an opportunity for students and staff to have somewhere to take a breath, journal, listen to music or read.

Miss Wren opened the Wren's Nest as part of her legacy to Crescent for the last 28 years. She has always advocated for positive mental health and the importance of talking and listening. She is thrilled that this is being adopted by our school community.

Our staff wellbeing was then celebrated with tea and cake to celebrate Miss Wren's time with us, and we presented her with a memory book and vouchers to buy something special for her new home and gave her all our love and best wishes!

I will be sharing a link today to families of Years 3-6 so that all children can access Accelerated Reading in the coming weeks. This will allow children to quiz on books they read like they normally do in school.

We will also share the children’s successes in the Courier.

Keep the reading up - it is so important. 

Thank you for your support with this. 

We have subscribed to an excellent resource to support consolidating times and dividing facts. Pupils in Years 1- 6 will be issued with a username and password label and a parent letter too. This will enable children to log on to the website. There is also a free APP that can be downloaded for tablets and phones that links up to school's account.

Pupils can earn coins towards updating their rock star avatar by tackling tables challenges. These challenges are alone or the children can challenge another person in school through Rock Slam on the Play screen.

All children have rockstar names so they may not always know who they are challenging! They can also play festivals and arenas against other pupils in the school, area or around the world who are logged on.

It is early days in the administration of this, but all profiles can be tailored to the age and expectations of the children. This can only be decided and managed by maths teachers. It is a super resource to use at home, which is available now and all through the 'Home Learning' period of course.

The intention is to announce the 'Headline Acts' at the top of the leader board each week or the result of 'Battles!' in The Courier. Many pupils are already loving this website having tried it at school.

When we return, it will also be available in he Computer room before school along with all the other platforms.

Good Luck!

We are made to feel proud on a daily basis in school by the children's genuine endeavours to keep the Crescent School Promise.  We know that hearing about this significantly and positively impacts on you as families too.

As we potentially enter upon a period of enforced isolation from one another, we would love to hear from you about how your child has continued to upkeep this at home during these difficult times. 

Perhaps this will be just a sentence or two and a photograph if possible, of your child doing something out of the ordinary to exemplify being a good friend, learner or citizen.

Please email this to alanwebb@crescentschool.co.uk and admin@crescentschool.co.uk and we will aim to put this into the continued weekly Courier to give us all the uplift we will need and to continue to celebrate these extraordinary children.

Best wishes

Thank you to the FoC who funded the cost of the filming of the Selfish Ladybird.  I am sure that for those of you who have watched it, it really brightened up this week!

We really appreciate all you do for the School.

Crescent School

The Foundation’s senior school Princethorpe College has set up a Twitter account to provide helpful advice and guidance to parents of pupils at the school.  Much of the advice is not specific to secondary aged children so we are inviting all members of our wider school community to follow the account. 

Run by Princethorpe College’s Deputy Head Pastoral Mrs Beth Sharpe it is sharing information and links from a variety of official sources and includes useful learning resources as well as advice to keep us all mentally well and safe.

Search for @Parenting@Princethorpe to follow the Twitter account.

Click on the attachment below to download the latest ‘In the News’ posters featuring some of the Foundation's recent media coverage.

In the News

In the last few months we have had stories in the local press including the Leamington Courier, Kenilworth News, Rugby Advertiser, Rugby and Lutterworth Observer, and the Stratford Herald.  The Foundation has also been featured in the Catholic Universe and the Independent Schools’ magazine Attain.

Myton Hospice have taken the decision to postpone their upcoming Glow For Myton event.

The fundraising walk was due to take place on Saturday 28 March but due to the uncertainty of the current Coronavirus outbreak the Hospice has decided that it is in the best interest of all their supporters, volunteers, suppliers and staff to postpone the event until later this year.

Myton Hospice needs to raise £9.2 million to continue providing their services free of charge to terminally ill patients and their families. Glow for Myton is their largest fundraising event and was set to raise at least £60,000 so Princethorpe College has offered a new date for the event in the autumn and is now looking forward to hosting the Glow fundraiser on Saturday 17 October.

Rebecca Richards from Myton Hospice comments, “We understand that fundraisers will be disappointed, as are we, and we are really sorry for any inconvenience caused. We hope that they appreciate that this decision has not been an easy one for us, but we do believe it is the right one in light of the current and rapidly-changing situation.”

Myton Hospice will be discussing with fundraisers whether they wish for their registration to be carried forward, converted to a donation or request a refund.

With the fast-changing situation regarding COVID-19 it is with regret that we have decided to cancel or postpone all non-essential, larger scale Foundation events in the coming week or so, including postponing the school's Open Morning tomorrow, Saturday 21 March.

Crescent School's next planned open event is our Open Evening on Tuesday 5 May 2020, in the meantime if you have any questions about the admissions process please contact Helen Morley our Admissions Registrar.

Great achievements for these children:

• Amy in PE
• Harry in Maths
• Jess in Latin
• Katherine in Art
• Sachin in PE
• Shiv in English
• Sofie in PE

Well done all.

Mrs Webb
Assistant Head

This week Ellie has reached 1 million words and Matthew T 2 million words.

A great achievement by both.

Matthew received his Pre-Prep Number Bond certificate in assembly today.

Pre-Prep reading certificates have, this week, been presented to:

• Aryaan
• Everly
• James
• Nora
• Sam B
• Thomas

Well done to you all.

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

Reception Round Up - 20032020 

We congratulated three more children in Class 3S who received the prestigious Pen Licence for working hard on making their handwriting cursive and consistent in lessons.

I decided that the others have missed the opportunity, for now, to show their perseverance and practise so.... the rest have been send home with their own handwriting pen too!

The idea is that during home learning, they can continue their joins and structure and if they can prove they are worthy of their Pen Licence when we return, then they too will have their licence card presented in our Good News assembly.  

Class 4M are busy raising money for the Bwengu Projects Malawi. Wednesday saw them tackling their toughest challenge yet of a 40 minute 'Sponsored Silence!' They all made it through (just!) and will now be collecting sponsors to be returned after the Easter holidays.

They are still looking for sponsors from anyone who would like to support them. Fundraising is planned to continue when we all return to school.

Year 6 have been designing their own apps and presenting/pitching them 'Dragon's Den' style to their classmates.

I have been blown away by the super range of Victorian homes projects that Year 6 have created. 

From Powerpoint presentations to papier mache models and posters, the children have researched their topics in detail and chosen to share their knowledge so creatively.

On Wednesday in the Afterschool club, we had a little conversation time. We had interesting questions like "if you were a colour, what colour would you be?", "what unusual topic do you wish you could learn as a subject at school?" "What do you like about your best friend?" "If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?" To which one answer was "to have infinite wishes, for all people to be equal and for poor people to not be poor anymore".

We went on saying nice things about each other, our lovely staff and finished with the fun game of charades, where children were trying to impersonate some of our staff!

The Afterschool Club was filled with laughter and positive and kind words about both children and the adults working in the school. 

Year 5 and 6 boys got some competitive sport in on Wednesday, playing in the annual House Football Competition.

It was great to see how all the children have made progress as the competition was not dominated by one or two players but everyone made a contribution. Also, it was pleasing to see the stronger players using and trusting in all of their teammates. Tom, Keshav and George B captained their teams well in this regard, giving encouragement and positive feedback.

The first match saw St. David’s take on St. George’s. St. David’s took the lead following an excellent, mazy run from Keshav. His shot was saved but Harry followed in to score. St. George’s weren’t going to lie down, though. Henry showed the grit that typified their team, halting many promising attacks with well-timed tackles. Eventually, they equalised with a great strike from Josh O and the match looked like it was heading for a draw. In the final seconds, Arrwinn, in goal for St. George’s, made a heroic point blank save to keep the game level. However, Sam followed up to win the game for St. David’s.

It was then on to St. George’s v St. Andrew’s. Again, great rear-guard action from St. George’s- Josh taking over goalkeeping duties but also keeping it tight. The attacking force of Tom, George C and Matthew caused problems and eventually they breached the defence with a strong effort from Matthew. Joseph was delighted to get on the scoresheet for the second goal. 2-0 it finished.

So, it meant that a draw or win for St. Andrew’s saw them House Champions but a win for St. David’s would see them take the crown. It was a really tight affair. James needed to be on his game to keep St. Andrew’s out and Archie and Noah- both much improved players- caused trouble at the other end. Marco was alive to all that was thrown at him. The game, similar to the first, was drifting towards a draw until, with only a few minutes left, Archie hooked a ball over Marco and into the goal. St. Andrew’s threw all that they could at St.David’s in the last few minutes but yellow house held out for the win.

Year 5 and 6 brightened up a wet Wednesday afternoon by adapting their invasion games skills and knowledge to a new sport of Ultimate Frisbee in a Interhouse competition.  

The girls had great fun in a very hotly contested tournament which resulted in Red house winning the title. 

Thank you to all the wonderful children who came along to decorate their Mother's Day tote bags. There has been a lot of love put into these for you all. Thank you also to my wonderful FoC helpers for making this all possible.

In total we decorated over 150 bags and had over 120 children involved plus we raised over £350 for the FoC. A great success all around.  

Here are some dates for your diaries:

• Year 1 Bake Sale - Friday 24 April
• FoC meeting - Monday 27 April
• Draycote Water charity walk - Sunday 10 May at 3pm
• FoC Disco - Friday 15 May
• Year 2 Bake Sale (rescheduled) - Friday 22 May
• Summer Fete - Friday 19 June
• Reception Bake Sale - Friday 26 June

All subject to change.

Thanks

Please see below for useful school contact information:

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

2019/20

In absence of assembly, Courier Kids have awarded this half term's super member of staff to... 

"Mrs Robinson for being kind and always being there for me"

I think that echoes all of our thoughts.

Well done Mrs Robinson!

Courier Kids